[JackG058]

Originally Posted by bwillet

It's an absolute nightmare to retrieve a package when it's in the center but not actually on the truck yet. The package doesn't actually get put into the package car (the brown UPS truck) until the preload sort, which starts around 3am and runs until 7-8am. At that point, it's easier to retrieve your package, although it screws the data up a little bit. But before it gets to the package car, it's sitting inside a semi trailer, quite possibly a 40 or 50 footer, also full of packages. So in order to find your package the night before, when the tracking says it's in the building, they would have to send a couple people into the trailer and sort through thousands of packages in order to find yours. I know, because I had to do this years ago when an important medical package was missorted. We knew what trailer it was in, and it was critical that the package be delivered, so we made an exception. There were 4 of us unloading and searching packages, and it took about 20 minutes if I recall correctly. That's a lot of effort to go through for people like us who just want their phone a day or a weekend early! From the customer side (which I also am), of course I want my package now! I sit there and update the tracking screen like an OCD monkey. But from the UPS side, it's just usually not possible, and since I understand the infrastructure, I know how impossible it is to find a single package that's still in the trailer.

Bottom line: if your phone is supposed to be delivered tomorrow (Tuesday, day after Labor Day), then it's not even on the package car yet.

Now what the phone jockeys SHOULD do is actually explain this to the customer to try and alleviate the hard feelings, but they are just a call center and aren't even UPS employees anymore. I've always been of the opinion that people giving information to customers should actually know what they are talking about, but hey, what do I know. Only been there 19 years...

UPS should be glad to have you as an employee, because you are right, this explanation could have gone a long ways towards making me less upset. The people I talked to were far less concerned about helping a customer to understand than you are. And honestly, if it is as big a hassle as you describe, I wouldn't want to put anybody through that just for y phone package, because I'd hate to be the guy having to sift through thousands of boxes just so I could have my phone. So, thank you for caring enough to help me understand the process.

Just a curious question: do you get to deliver yourself your phone when it arrives? I'm just wondering if you do how early to work you'll be that day.