UPS 'lost' my lower receiver.

[Gman]

What does GPS have to do with the weather ESP wind?

wind sleet or snow the GPS grid stays the same .

Have you seen the Amazon drone demo? I'm sure those puppies will handle in weather just fine going to their GPS coordinates.

[clublights]

Have you seen the Amazon drone demo? I'm sure those puppies will handle in weather just fine going to their GPS coordinates.

Different story ...


I read ( and the way you wrote it ) that GPS has a problem in weather.... not the delivery vehicle ....

but yes the Amazon "drone" will likely have issues with high winds. I would tend to think that they would not deploy them on bad weather days. they are meant to be local to distro centers only ( less then 10 .. maybe less then 5 miles I can't recall which) they would know the current weather be for take off.

[Gman]

What I wrote was in the context of the Amazon drone strategy.

It sure would be interesting for Flight for Life or other pilots with those things buzzing around.

[Graves]

There's friggin' thieves out there that will follow delivery trucks and snatch the packages they just dropped off, hoping they'll score something of value. If it's something the thief can't use or quickly resell, they'll toss it, regardless of what it is or actually cost. An AK rail? "WTF is this? Toss it."

This. The new did boards they carry won't let them mark it as delivered unless the package is within 5' or so from the address.

[Graves]

It's not like it was a sudden thing though. Christmas time is the same time every year...UPS just doesn't want to spend the money hiring seasonal workers.

It isn't the same every year. Every day this peak season yielded more volume than our peak day last year. And as for seasonal employees...we STILL have over 130 rental vehicles on the road, and peak should ended the day after Christmas given last year's record. I guess the rentals will be used for a couple more weeks. With 2-300k pcs moving through there a day, I'm sure we're bound to make a few mistakes...

ETA: Im only talking about the commerce city location.

[jerrymrc]

To this old guy this is funny stuff. Saying that basically the only game in town should prepare for the "worst case possible" or they will go out of business is absurd. Only 3 players in this game and the instant, want it now crowd was miffed because their order on Sunday did not get there Tuesday.We can play this any way one wants from the Hospital that does not have enough staff waiting for the tornado to produce patients in the middle of nowhere so they will be replaced to all the company's that do not have enough powder or primers or ammo on hand because of the rush after someone shoots up a school or get's re-elected.

They knew the election was coming and had 4 years to prepare for it. They were unable to met the sudden demand so now I wait for all the new company's to replace them because if you fail (even for a couple of days) "someone will replace you" has been said.

No bullets, powder, primers, ammo for months and all most did was sit around going "please, can we get some" instead of "we wont stand for this and heads are going to roll" "you can be replaced" "you should have known" "I want it NOW". Then when the stuff you had ordered 6 months ago shows up you were happy as a pig in shit and grateful it came.

I sent a package on Saturday 1300 miles away and fully expected it to not get there until this weekend. It was delivered on Xmas eve by the USPS.

Once again I see a bunch of misplaced anger and "pile on" mentality about this issue. And it is still funny how the instant society is evolving. Just a thought from an old guy.

[sneakerd]

Word.

[hollohas]

Losing a Christmas package for a few days is no big deal, but there are some legitimate beefs with UPS this month.

Someone already mentioned the mail order RX problem. Another countered by saying it's no big deal, buy it local and file an insurance claim. I'm sorry, but it isn't that easy. Many insurance companies require you buy through their mail order pharmacy or you pay full price. Fine, if its an emergency you go pay full price local...only if you can get in touch with your doctor to get a new Rx sent to a local pharmacy. Good luck with that during Christmas. Then filing a claim? Again good luck. The insurance company will say, "we're sorry, we already paid for the first set of meds shipped, we're not paying for the 2nd set bought locally". The insurance company does not care if the meds are late. I know this because it's happened to me and this wasn't during peak season. Was I able to get the meds? Sure was but at a major unnecessary cost because my package was lost for a couple weeks.

Example #2. Legitimate businesses suffer when packages get lost too. I sell supplies to contractors. A large amount of those supplies are not available locally so we order them. They base their schedules on when those supplies are going to arrive along with the owner of the building that needs to be completed. When a building is supposed to be completed by a certain date so the owner can occupy it and start making money to pay their bills, it's pretty important. When that date isn't met because some materials didn't arrive after being lost for a week+ at UPS in December, the contractor can face fines. That happened to one of my contractor customers earlier this month.

This country is working on a "just in time" inventory model. The only reason they are working on this model is because the shipping companies have promised delivery dates. When the shippers break the promise for any reason, then they cost people money.

Not getting a Christmas present in time is the fault of the buyer because they didn't buy earlier, but at the same time, if they were promised a delivery date which was subsequently broken, don't they have a reason to be mad? UPS and others made those guarantees and then broke them...UPS certainly has a responsibility to honor those commitments. From what I've read, it sounds like they are honoring it to those that did fall outside the guaranteed date by refunding the shipping costs. For late Christmas presents, that's all the "apology" needs to be.

[ben4372]

It's funny, most good stuff has to be ordered. We rely on these shippers because we almost have too. The whole economy is relying on them? They know they got us by the short hairs. What I hate is having to get insurance just in case they eff up. Does Dominoes require insurance in case they mess up the order or leave a hair in the sauce? Why do we pay extra for them to fix their own mistakes? Go brown.

[Jeffrey Lebowski]

Careful when you throw knives at my beloved Cubbies.

Haha. Take heart, the only thing worse is my beloved Brewers.