The way PBT ( Peter Baker Transport ) here in New Zealand took two weeks to deliver fresh fruit has given me a fun new idea. I think I'll send some fresh fish and see how they feel about that sitting around in their warehouse because they can't be bothered delivering it.

^^^Diabolical - I like it

A package is at my front door addressed to somebody else. It says to refrigerate after opening.

I’m tempted to open it to see what it is….

I work in IT. Stuff fails. It is usually redundant, so we're not down because of a simple failure. Either the system phones home, or we open a ticket with the vendor, and they'll send up a replacement part. Usually FedEx overnight 10:30 delivery. Lately, nothing has made it here in one day. It usually gets to the local distribution point overnight, but then it sits until someone gets around to delivering it. Today I'm waiting on a replacement drive that was supposed to be here by 10:30 yesterday.

It's not just FedEx.
UPS has a separate division called UPS Logistics, which is just people in cars and vans that will deliver something, usually same day.

I had another drive fail in a different system late last year. Not a big deal except I had a software upgrade scheduled for the following Tuesday, and the system won't kick off the upgrade if there's a failed part.

The part failed Friday night. I get it, nobody around to deal with it over the weekend, even though usually the monitoring people are working offshore. We called them Monday looking for a status update, knowing the upgrade was looming, and they said they'd get a drive right out. Except the guy on the other side of the state that had a drive didn't get it to the courier, so that one didn't go. Called again and they dispatched another one from Des Moines IA, except there was a storm and the courier didn't pick it up. They dispatched a third drive from near Chicago, but there's no way that one was going to get here on time. We missed the upgrade, but luckily were able to reschedule for Thursday. Wednesday Drive 1 shows up. It's bad. Worse, apparently nobody ever wrote a routine to handle the insertion of a bad drive, and the whole thing locks itself up for about 30 minutes while it waits on a timeout on the new drive. I wait until Wednesday night, pull that drive and put in drive number 3, which arrived late Wednesday afternoon. That one works, we're good to go for Thursday. Thursday drive number 2 shows up, I hung onto it a couple days. We had a similar code upgrade to do on a different system, and I figured it was better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

Memphis just had a huge 2-3 day ice storm. Only 10% of FedEx's flight got out. Crews/planes were stuck at all the out stations..Going to take another day or so to get back on track..

I have to be honest, FedEx is pretty good for us. But we are in Columbus, OH, a huge distribution center.

FedEx was supposed to deliver a package here yesterday 10:20-14:40

that became before end of day, that became today 10:40-14:40

The delivered inside the new time (5 minutes ago). I had to tell the guy that the placed the packages diagonally when they clearly says IN RED TOP and Package must remain flat at all times; No Stacking. (printed on the box).

Reason they were delivering is that they were damaged in shipping (can you guess) and had to go back to the OEM for repairs.

You would think that the label that says "insured for $10,000" would give them an idea.

Let's hope they work this time around (tube amps).

I can promise you that nobody reads what is printed on the box at any carrier.. They have a million boxes going through the sort on a daily basis that all have been used 10 tens over with stuff printed all over them. They scan the bar code at the beginning and at the end and the loaders in the middle stack/throw it in the truck/plane however it fits.

FedEx and all the other shippers are able to determine your need of an item. The more desperate or critical it is to you, the more delays they add in. If it is just another item to be put on the shelf for stock and your eventual use in the future, it will show up ahead of schedule, and in pristine condition.

It is like magic how they all can read the need.

I had a package delivered to my front door via UPS that was labeled and addressed to a business about 3 miles away from my house. There street name, and address were all totally different, and the business is a local tire shop franchise. My house does not remotely look like a tire shop.

I looked up the phone number of the shop and told the manager, the package was delivered here. He asked that I bring it over, and I explained I am a nice guy, but not that nice. Just send over a mechanic or employee of the store, and I will happily give it to them. About an hour later a guy showed up, and took it. He was the mechanic doing a brake job on a customer car, and the car had been stuck in the shop for two days waiting on the proper part. He did not specify what car and why they did not get it locally, but the customer was paying for a rental car as they fixed the brakes. So UPS had cost them an additional day of rental.

I can only guess the UPS driver wanted the package off of his truck, and decided at random that I need it. I have had a few automotive parts delivered here, and several sets of tires over the years.