Thunk

Calendar August 28, 2006 | Posted by Aubrey Turner

One of the side-effects of working at home is that you quickly learn the habits of the various delivery drivers.  The UPS guy, in particular, is interesting to watch, as he usually runs from the truck, dumps the box at the door, hits the doorbell, and takes off at a run for the truck.  Unless he needs a signature, all that’s left of him by the time I get to the door is the rumble of his truck in the distance.

Today’s offender, though, is the DHL driver.  It’s really comforting to be informed that your new hard drives have been delivered by hearing the THUNK of the box as it hits the concrete in front of your door.

I wonder if they’d treat the boxes differently if they thought I was home?  I keep my truck in the garage, so unless I’m standing at the door or the lights are on people usually don’t know anyone’s home during the day.

Category Categories: Domestic Affairs

4 Comments

  1. Phelps says:
    August 29, 2006 at 12:56 pm

    My experience says, no, they don’t treat them any differently unless you are waiting for them at an open door.  (Just having the door open isn’t enough.)

  2. Bobby K says:
    September 3, 2006 at 6:50 pm

    Do they treat those 80 lb boxes labeled “CARTRIDGES- SMALL ARMS” any better?

    I’ve had UPS manage to drop off a 1U server, bent in half, longways.

  3. Aubrey Turner says:
    September 3, 2006 at 7:18 pm

    I don’t think they do.  I also found it interesting that they would just leave those at my door, despite some of them requiring an adult signature.

    I had FedEx deliver a box once that was supposed to contain a case of .45 ACP (20 boxes of 50).  Instead, all that was in it was *one box* of 50 rounds.  I nearly fell over when I picked it up because I was expecting it to weigh about 45 lbs and instead it only weighed about 2 lbs.  It appeared that they had broken the box open, took out 19 of the 20 boxes, then sealed the case back up.  I suppose it’s possible it got dropped somewhere, but being resealed with only one box makes me suspicious.

    I called Cheaper Than Dirt, who filed a claim with FedEx and then shipped me another case.  In the end I got my ammo, but someone at FedEx got 950 rounds of .45 ACP along the way.

    I’d sure like to know what they did that would bend a server in half, though.

  4. Bobby K says:
    September 5, 2006 at 2:39 pm

    My best guess is that they were using the case to chock the wheels on a truck or something.