I am in the northeast corner of TN.

UPS: package starts out 7/1 in Tallahassee, FL (VZ Grips, not the subject of the post)
goes to Jacksonville, FL
goes to Knoxville, TN

So far, so good. But then:

goes to Montgomery, AL
goes to Nashville, TN
now "on the way" from Nashville

Seems like a rather circuitous route. The delivery was originally scheduled for the afternoon of the 3rd (today), but is now scheduled for the 5th due to the holiday.

USPS: letter sent from Bulls Gap, TN, about 50 miles to the west of me. It took 4 business days, and when I saw the postmark - Nashville, over 200 miles west - I understood why. That letter went over 500 miles to go 50 miles.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: egregore,

I see this all the time. I live in western MT. Often when I'm waiting for things coming from the south, I'll follow it up I-15. Once I-15 crosses I-90 in Butte (MT), it's only a couple of hours up here from there. Do they do that? Oh no. They take a right and head 250ish miles east to Billings and wait there for a day or two, and then come all the way back. It's aggravating as hell.

Tracking serves little purpose than to make you crazy. And delivery services don't hand your item to a courier and send it directly to you. It goes by various routes. I remember for a long time a certain deliver service routed all packages thru Memphis. All of them.

quote:

Originally posted by Fredward:

I remember for a long time a certain deliver service routed all packages thru Memphis. All of them.

FedEx had a hub-and-spoke structure. Memphis was the hub.

While working for the Educational Services division of dec (digital equipment company), I taught a bunch of computer courses at the FedEx HQ. Funny story, dec sent all the course material direct to the client location. I arrived to start a two-week class on the C Programming Language and the course material had not arrived. The logistics people at dec had stupidly sent materials to FedEx HQ via the cheapest cut-rate carrier they could find. I had my manager do some serious ass-chewing, and reminded the upper echelons that when we did a consulting job at General Motors, our company would spring for GM rental cars for the crew.

quote:

And delivery services don't hand your item to a courier and send it directly to you.

I am asking why a letter or package has to zigzag all over BFE hundreds of miles out of the way.

I heard it explained last week or so.
The sorting systems are in shambles and personnel have been shifted around to major sorting areas to handle cheat by mail ballots, leaving other areas lacking in necessary labor.

Palmetto, GA is a prime example.

They are dividing the labor up between the modernized sorting facilities.

quote:

Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:
Palmetto, GA...

Boo!

If they can't hold on to the ballots (and my mail from Japan) for three months, how else are they going to cheat?

Palmetto (30268) is the shittiest USPS location in the history of the USPS and shit.

Ordered a trigger guard holster from Amazon on 7/8. It got lost on the 10th somewhere at ups. On the 13th, I asked amazon to reship a new one.
It got lost again. Amazon resent another one that got to me in one day. UPS is still trying to get the second one to Ohio which I will need to return to Amazon. smh

I normally kinda defend the USPS since I ship so much thru them,


had ot ship a laptop to a friend for an update/fix my fuckup,
arrived to him quickly, no drama

return label got the laptop to my post ofice even faster, then for reasons unknown it went back to the hub, and now is at the wrong post office 45 minutes away,

tracking says Missent,,

no shit,

guessing I will get it tomorrow or Monday,


fuckers

Usually I don't have complaints about USPS here. Not perfect but generally acceptable service.

Was expecting a package. Tracking shows delivered and handed directly to resident.

1. We were at home the whole time. Nobody handed us anything at home. Nobody came to the house.

2. Mail service is to a neighborhood common mailbox. Nothing in the mailbox; other letters received but no package.

3. "handed directly to resident" is odd. A "resident" at the neighborhood mailbox? Who? Nobody in the neighborhood is authorized to receive packages for us. Someone pretending to be us? Why would USPS give the package to someone w/o verifying identity? This sounds fucked.

So, package is considered delivered. Not to us. Not on the property. Not in the mailbox. Given to some unknown, unverified stranger? WTF?

I wish every vendor would allow us to specify preferred carrier for each order. If USPS has been consistently prone to error, then it'd be nice to request a carrier different than USPS.

The vast majority of the time, these services do what they are supposed to do. It's just that it makes no sense to zigzag a thousand miles all over the place.