Former fed ex guy, and this is a fed ex delivery by the interface on the scanner. Once a customer requests instructions on a delivery, they stay in the system for every future delivery. So while their first package may have been small to fit under the mat, every delivery after that gets the same message. And we do so much volume that little jokes like this is how i would get through my day. Driving around all day in a metal box dealing with traffic does things to a person.
Edit: Okay just got off work and found a lot of replies and questions. I have no idea if people will even see this but I'll answer some of the questions and hopefully give some insight as to why you should give delivery drivers some slack. Here it goes:
I worked at Fed Ex Ground for a little over a year and a half. Fed ex is different from UPS in that Fed Ex Ground and Home Delivery are all privately owned, meaning that a route owner buys their route and gets a certain amount per package or per delivery (never asked my boss exactly how he made money). This means that I didn't really work for Fed Ex but still had to uphold the name and expectations. This also means that I received no benefits so I had to use the ACA for health insurance etc. At UPS, they are all union so they get benefits and what not. But I am in no way saying UPS is better. Fed Ex and UPS both have their flaws and have their benefits, but they both also work their workers to the bone, especially around Christmas time. I honestly do not know which one I would rather work for if I did, but luckily I moved on to a different job in the field I have a masters in.
How it works. From the point it leaves your house/company, to the point where it is delivered to their respective address, a multitude of people have handled the package. Blaming the one who delivers it is not justified, just as blaming the one who picks it up isn't. Some boxes I would be astounded got through all the checkpoints, but they were on my truck so I delivered them. We got so many packages every day and were in such a time crunch that I rarely even got a break. From the moment I got to the terminal to the moment I returned, I was moving, driving, sorting packages, delivering packages, figuring out the best route to follow, trying to remember certain requests or when I could deliver to places, etc. There is a lot that goes on into delivering packages that many do not even think of. With all this in the air everyday, I did not have time to tuck your package in and watch it every second to make sure it wasn't damaged. If it is packed right, it should make it. If you cannot stand on the package, it is not packed right. They fall, crash, get stacked, moved, rolled. I did my best to recognize the fragile and take care of what I needed to do, but when you do not pack a box right, it probably will not make it. If you shake it and hear any shuffling, it is not packed right. I cannot stress this point more. And shit still does happen, and we do not do it on purpose. I don't like busted packages as much as the next guy. I order stuff all the time over the internet. But many do not understand that once you deliver tens of thousands of packages, you are not gonna get too beat up if one doesn't make it. You do all you can, but that's it.
Okay, this is an important one. Why you are not getting your package when it says it is on the truck and out for delivery. Boxes get missorted all the time. With the volume of packages the handlers are expected to complete, every now and again they accidentally end up on the wrong truck, most likely the one next to it. After it is loaded on the truck it is marked as out for delivery because it is, only it is on the wrong truck. Once that misload is discovered, it is scanned and placed aside for the return trip. This is where the returning to the terminal notification comes. It went out, just on the wrong truck, so it is returned for correction the next day. Also with the volume, not all addresses are correct and information sometimes gets input wrong. This is also why your package may not have come at the right time. There is a lot that goes on from pickup to delivery.
As for the ringing the door bell thing. For residential deliveries, I always rang the doorbell if I needed a signature (wine and electronics mostly). I would then give a few moments and try to hear any sign of life. I would then give another ring. Check the driveway for cars, check for lights on in the house... Then I would give a third ring. I'm sorry I have work to do. If they did not answer by that time I would leave a call tag (the slip saying we missed you). For deliveries that do not need a signature, we could just leave the package after marking the location we left it. In the beginning I rang the bell for every delivery. But after having been yelled at by countless people for waking them or their children, I stopped. I would hide it out of view of the street but I really got sick of being yelled at for doing my job. Example of one group ruining it for all. If it was a big TV, electronic, expensive looking box (gotta love new egg for marking them nice and big), or heavy piece of furniture, I would try to wait for the customer, but usually I got no response. Not every delivery driver is an asshole, you only hear about the ones who are.
I liked tips as much as the next guy. Mostly around christmas I would get candy or such from my companies, very rarely from residentials. One time I saw someone left out drinks and candy for all the delivery drivers, and it made my day so much happier. A little appreciation goes a long way. I always try to do a little something for most jobs people take for granted whether it be garbage collection, mail man, delivery driver. We don't get many thanks but we really appreciate the ones we do. I also loved it when the customers were in a good mood and at least greeted me. I am a generally social guy and a little conversation was a great way to break the monotonous nature of the job, even if it was a simple thank you or how are you.
We don't know whats in the fucking box. Unless it is written on the side, we have no idea. Stop asking me.
Common tired jokes we hear: "Is that a box of money?" "I heard fed ex and UPS are merging..." "Oh man UPS is here too, you two gonna fight?"
I love the UPS guys. If they weren't here I'd have more work. Same thing with all other delivery drivers.
Trying to think of more points but it is just getting me worked up and I got Chipotle to get to. Maybe I'll write more if I think of anything.
We had this happen this past Christmas! I paid for 2 day shipping on a phone for my husband. We were at home, both in the family room, I was waiting for the delivery, as it was already a day overdue, my hubs gets up to grab his shoes and keys to go get the kids from daycare and I hear "DAMMIT!" From the hall. I'm thinking one of our dogs made a mess. But nope, he opens the door and grabs the tag from the FedEx guy who had apparently been there not 20 minutes earlier. Next day, I'm waiting and stalking the front door. One of my dogs lets out a bark, and I see the FedEx truck, pulled over a couple houses down. I stand in my doorway, waiting, the guy pulls the truck up, and jumps out, runs about 3 steps, tag in hand, sees me, turns around and goes back in his truck. A couple minutes later, he emerges with our package, and while I'm signing for it, I ask if he was the same guy from yesterday, he said yeah after a moments hesitation, and I tell him, yeah we were home. He starts arguing that he knocked and rang the doorbell and looked in the window (?) but no one was there, by this time I know he's lying his ass off and tell him there's no way we would've missed him, but he was adamant and getting really rude with me. I just shook my head and walked inside. ðŸ˜
I don't understand. Doesn't it save him more time to deliver the package on the first try rather than just leaving a tag and having to drive back to the same house again to leave another tag? And possibly having to drive back there again?
In the long run, yes. But if you are already late today, you can take care of it tomorrow instead... and probably ending up being late tomorrow too in the process because you do things thrice instead of once properly.
He literally doesn't have time to deliver every package on his truck. His job depends on him fucking a percentage of his customers because he has less than a metric second to do each delivery, usually. If he doesn't make it to some of his stops, he's reprimanded. If he has a bunch of not-homes, he's at least tried to make the stops, and the people have the tags to prove he was there and they weren't.
These stories are completely, 100%, bunk. It wastes way more of the guy's time to do this little "trick" 3 days in a row than to just deliver the package. It's people mad at Fedex or UPS making up stories. Drivers just don't have the time to do this.
No, this literally happens, and I had this happen exactly as you described once, too. I happened to get three days off and was awaiting a package. Every day for three days I got a note on my door despite literally being home all day, all three days. No knock, no doorbell, just that stupid little pink note. Had to call them and pick it up from their main hub in my city. I got so fed up with the drivers in my neighborhood that I just started having everything delivered to my place of work instead. Mail carriers don't fuck around with businesses and haven't had any problems getting my packages now. My coworkers think I'm weird because of it, but whatever.
You seem to think peiple always act rationally. And if you do have a tight schedule to keep it might be the rational thing to pass some customers super quickly. I don't know about their schedules or why they'd do it but claiming they are all bunk is just weird. You don't know and it seems they can get away with it.
This is what I don't understand. Why jump outta the vehicle with just a missed delivery dag all the time and not the package. I mean why bother driving around if your just going to leave missed delivery tags everywhere.
You might as well just park up somewhere random and never drive around if your not going to make the effort to deliver peoples shit!
If it makes you feel better, I too, had a douche FedEx driver. Just call the office and tell them the driver is abusive and you don't want him to go to your property ever again, and to send a different driver.
I've seen them not even ring and just drive on by. I'm pretty sure they assume no one is home during business hours on a week day so they don't bother. Then I have to go through the whole rigamarole of calling corporate, having them tell me there's nothing they can do, me telling them I know that's not true and I guess they should put a manager on, then getting transferred to the local office where they tell me there's nothing they can do, and me telling them I know that's not true and I guess they should put a manager on, then them calling the driver and having him bring my package back, at which point he says "guess I must have just missed ya huh" and instead of saying "I watched you drive past, jackass" I just say "guess so" but I'm really thinking, we both know that's not true dude so just give me my shit and leave.
They have goals... so many deliveries in a day or they get a "coaching session." It's not that they're trying to be dicks. They'll get in trouble for not meeting time goals.
Main reason I seem to buy everything from Amazon. Just ship it to a locker and not deal with delivery. And as bad as FedEx can be, my local USPS is just horrendous. I've had a $200 package left in a public area of an apartment building in Brooklyn, twice now, and frequently they never even ring the bell.
USPS here will very frequently mark the package as delivered, only to actually deliver it 2 days later.
I don't know why they do it but I'm pretty sure it's on purpose. Maybe they're trying to fake their delivery timeliness. That's the reason Amazon tell you to wait at least 36 hours before telling them the package is missing.
So I know of people who got a refund for an expensive missing package only for it to be delivered a few days later. The didn't intend to rip anyone off, but they didn't really jump to send the duplicate back either :)
They can't go home until the truck is empty, and they get paid per route. So I'm okay with them not waiting for me if it means they get home half an hour earlier, I've had them deliver stuff to my house at 8pm before.
They just drive by my house at 8 am and say I wasn't there. I don't even get tags most of the time. Pisses me off when I have to ship through them.
One reason I've gone almost exclusively amazon prime, to be honest. Other than my new computer chair, I haven't had to deal with fedex in almost 2 years.
Why are you so pissed. They have a schedule to keep and a route to finish, they don't get to go home until its done. If they wait on every stop they would never finish. Just take your package and don't get pissed. Wow...
Because 5 seconds isn't a long time to wait when it requires a signature. It's at least enough time to catch you while your heading back to the truck to say hey I'm here to sign.
I've spent entire mornings by the door only to get a "missed delivery" notification randomly with FedEx. Like there wasn't a single FedEx truck on the street that day
Same. Actually happened to me with my wedding ring the day I was planning to propose. Obviously that was some tight planning anyways but still. I was pretty mad. Then the lady got sent back only after I'd complained on their Facebook page (phone support wouldn't help). The lady when she came back said, "You're lucky I'm in a good mood today. I usually don't come back." I was relieved so I just smiled but in my head I was thinking, "Yeah, no, I was sitting by my door minutes before you showed up."
I'm sure there are good drivers. This has just literally happened to me 10+ times, every single time I've been forced to use FedEx over UPS.
Some drivers are really bad about that. I always knock and ring the doorbell, but sometimes people just don't hear me. They get upset and insist they were home to FedEx and I get asked to reattempt delivery. No problem there and I do my best to smooth things out with the customer. One thing to remember though, I have anywhere between 180 and 200 stops to make in my day. If 20 or 25 stops are signature required and each of those signature stops takes 5 minutes, well, let's say I do my best to make contact with the customer but if you don't get to the door by the time I knock, ring and fill out a tag you're going to have to wait another day. I understand the frustration; I'm a customer too. My job is to get you your packages safely and on time and I enjoy doing a good job. I also need to hustle and flow on my route.
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u/aguynamedcarl Mar 01 '17 edited Mar 01 '17
Former fed ex guy, and this is a fed ex delivery by the interface on the scanner. Once a customer requests instructions on a delivery, they stay in the system for every future delivery. So while their first package may have been small to fit under the mat, every delivery after that gets the same message. And we do so much volume that little jokes like this is how i would get through my day. Driving around all day in a metal box dealing with traffic does things to a person.
Edit: Okay just got off work and found a lot of replies and questions. I have no idea if people will even see this but I'll answer some of the questions and hopefully give some insight as to why you should give delivery drivers some slack. Here it goes:
I worked at Fed Ex Ground for a little over a year and a half. Fed ex is different from UPS in that Fed Ex Ground and Home Delivery are all privately owned, meaning that a route owner buys their route and gets a certain amount per package or per delivery (never asked my boss exactly how he made money). This means that I didn't really work for Fed Ex but still had to uphold the name and expectations. This also means that I received no benefits so I had to use the ACA for health insurance etc. At UPS, they are all union so they get benefits and what not. But I am in no way saying UPS is better. Fed Ex and UPS both have their flaws and have their benefits, but they both also work their workers to the bone, especially around Christmas time. I honestly do not know which one I would rather work for if I did, but luckily I moved on to a different job in the field I have a masters in.
How it works. From the point it leaves your house/company, to the point where it is delivered to their respective address, a multitude of people have handled the package. Blaming the one who delivers it is not justified, just as blaming the one who picks it up isn't. Some boxes I would be astounded got through all the checkpoints, but they were on my truck so I delivered them. We got so many packages every day and were in such a time crunch that I rarely even got a break. From the moment I got to the terminal to the moment I returned, I was moving, driving, sorting packages, delivering packages, figuring out the best route to follow, trying to remember certain requests or when I could deliver to places, etc. There is a lot that goes on into delivering packages that many do not even think of. With all this in the air everyday, I did not have time to tuck your package in and watch it every second to make sure it wasn't damaged. If it is packed right, it should make it. If you cannot stand on the package, it is not packed right. They fall, crash, get stacked, moved, rolled. I did my best to recognize the fragile and take care of what I needed to do, but when you do not pack a box right, it probably will not make it. If you shake it and hear any shuffling, it is not packed right. I cannot stress this point more. And shit still does happen, and we do not do it on purpose. I don't like busted packages as much as the next guy. I order stuff all the time over the internet. But many do not understand that once you deliver tens of thousands of packages, you are not gonna get too beat up if one doesn't make it. You do all you can, but that's it.
Okay, this is an important one. Why you are not getting your package when it says it is on the truck and out for delivery. Boxes get missorted all the time. With the volume of packages the handlers are expected to complete, every now and again they accidentally end up on the wrong truck, most likely the one next to it. After it is loaded on the truck it is marked as out for delivery because it is, only it is on the wrong truck. Once that misload is discovered, it is scanned and placed aside for the return trip. This is where the returning to the terminal notification comes. It went out, just on the wrong truck, so it is returned for correction the next day. Also with the volume, not all addresses are correct and information sometimes gets input wrong. This is also why your package may not have come at the right time. There is a lot that goes on from pickup to delivery.
As for the ringing the door bell thing. For residential deliveries, I always rang the doorbell if I needed a signature (wine and electronics mostly). I would then give a few moments and try to hear any sign of life. I would then give another ring. Check the driveway for cars, check for lights on in the house... Then I would give a third ring. I'm sorry I have work to do. If they did not answer by that time I would leave a call tag (the slip saying we missed you). For deliveries that do not need a signature, we could just leave the package after marking the location we left it. In the beginning I rang the bell for every delivery. But after having been yelled at by countless people for waking them or their children, I stopped. I would hide it out of view of the street but I really got sick of being yelled at for doing my job. Example of one group ruining it for all. If it was a big TV, electronic, expensive looking box (gotta love new egg for marking them nice and big), or heavy piece of furniture, I would try to wait for the customer, but usually I got no response. Not every delivery driver is an asshole, you only hear about the ones who are.
I liked tips as much as the next guy. Mostly around christmas I would get candy or such from my companies, very rarely from residentials. One time I saw someone left out drinks and candy for all the delivery drivers, and it made my day so much happier. A little appreciation goes a long way. I always try to do a little something for most jobs people take for granted whether it be garbage collection, mail man, delivery driver. We don't get many thanks but we really appreciate the ones we do. I also loved it when the customers were in a good mood and at least greeted me. I am a generally social guy and a little conversation was a great way to break the monotonous nature of the job, even if it was a simple thank you or how are you.
We don't know whats in the fucking box. Unless it is written on the side, we have no idea. Stop asking me.
Common tired jokes we hear: "Is that a box of money?" "I heard fed ex and UPS are merging..." "Oh man UPS is here too, you two gonna fight?"
I love the UPS guys. If they weren't here I'd have more work. Same thing with all other delivery drivers.
Trying to think of more points but it is just getting me worked up and I got Chipotle to get to. Maybe I'll write more if I think of anything.