Star Date – October 2014, yes this was “in the can” this long, you will understand soon enough.

As a micro business, I live and die by deliveries. I need parts to repair, build and modify technology in order to take care of my clients. I also rely on parts from vendors like Brownells. That is part of the “Global Economy”.

I miss DHL! I tried to use them exclusively in my shipping out and in when possible but over the years they just have not been able to compete or for some other reason they have come, gone, come, gone and now seem to be international only.

My UPS driver is great, works with me, never an issue! Insert angelic sounds here. They work with me, help me with deliveries and in general are very good to excellent to work with. I do admit, during the Holiday’s I have had an issue or two, directly related to temporary drivers delivering to the front door, not under the car port.

FedEx is my Ex. I hate them, it seems I get a new driver every 6 months. They don’t know where to leave a package and seem to only care about getting done for the day.

The story here is true. It has happened dozens of times to me so it is not a “one-time” isolated event.

I was waiting on a delivery for a customer’s parts. As a quick reminder I am an IT / “computer” guy. This product was sent FedEx “Home” delivery. As you may well know, some items require a signature and that can be a pain in the neck since I am usually out serving my customers, not sitting at the office.
Day 1 – “attempted” delivery was 12:43pm.

Day 2 – delivery 11:47am. with note, ‘if you are not here next delivery we are sending your crap back’, yes, I am paraphrasing.

Day 3 – I was at the office, however magically did not hear the door.

Now look at those times and ask yourself, what part of “home” delivery does that cover? Who has a single income house with spouse at home anymore? I can name or list six family’s I know that are that way. The Wilder’s, the… ok, I can name one family I know lives that way!

So the first two attempted deliveries, the driver was back at the Fed Ex warehouse before 2pm. Then 1:32pm on Friday for the 3rd “attempt”. Yes, he was done with his day of deliveries at 1:32! What!?!?

FIRED!!! Is what he would be if he worked for me. How many “home” deliveries did he (or she) leave notes for because they raced between customers?

NON “CUSTOMER SERVICE”

Before I totally postal let’s talk about the FedEx phone number on the door tags.

What to speak to a human? Don’t count on it! What a PITA!

And the voice recognition SUX! I am a native Texan, so I speak slow and clearly. I also have lived in Missouri for almost 16 years so I can pronounce correctly. “D-T-1-2-3-4-5..” when asked for my door tag does not mean “so you want to speak to our Dubai office?”.

I finally get a human on the phone. I am polite to begin with, the whole “more flies with honey than vinegar” thing. I do admit and did admit to the lady that I was frustrated with the delivery times, the phone system and difficulty in getting to speak with a human.

I did sense that she had a J-O-B and did not give a crud about me as a client. All I got from her, literally, was “the script”.

BTW, if any of you used to work for FedEx customer service and have a copy of the script, I would love to publish it.

How do I know it was a script? Because I ended up making four calls trying to find the warehouse (more on that later) and literally was told the EXACT SAME WORDS in the EXACT same order! I had to ask the last person if he was a human. It took three times of asking while he was speaking the holy script before he came out of the script coma and told me he was indeed a human.

Back to the 1st call. “Our home deliver is 8am to 8pm”. I tried to get that lady to repeat what she said, and she did, and I asked her to “think about what you are saying, does it seem off to you?” with an blank stare (or I presume so since there was no response) “are you there?” “yes”, me “Ok thinking about what you said, home delivery, when people are at work…” needless to say my blood pressure is getting up writing this. Then I noted the times her “delivery” driver was back at the warehouse, me “how do you have 8am to 8pm delivery when for the last three days the drive has been finished by 2pm?” the bold is where I added emphasis to her. Her response was “when the driver is done for the day he is done for the day.”

To her I should bow down to FedEx, you know, the customers are that annoyance that interrupt my nail filing with phone calls.

I gave up trying to open the eyes of the zombie and asked for the address of the warehouse. She told me “2057 North Barnes Ave, Springfield” I get into my vehicle drive across my county, into another county through the city and … you guessed it, no FedEx at that location, a church and a Honda motorcycle shop and the road dead ended. There was nothing but dirt at the address she gave me. Yes, quality customer service.

So I Googled FedEx locations on my phone. Four locations came up, none are the warehouse. I drove to where the old warehouse was. Nope, nothing, nada!

I call back and get a 2nd Zombie, repeat the above conversations with me injecting, “in case this recording is listened to by humans, this is not how to solve customer issues” and such. I got less and less polite. What should have been a 10 second phone call turned into a 10 minute one. With, get this, the wrong address given again!

3rd call, pounding the “0” key until the @#$%* machine gives me a human, this time a male zombie who needs “2 methods of confirming who I am”.

WTF! I gave you my 1st, last name, mailing address with zip code and both door tag numbers! Zombie #3: “I need to know the senders name and address”, Me “In the name of Jesus I rebuke the zombie in you! Now I know I have the human sole for just a moment, look on what you have typed, I am on the road, I only have the door tags, the purchase was from Amazon (yes IT people use Google and Amazon, the secret is out), give me the freaking address of the pickup location of my package”. Zombie #3 “For Security reasons I need 2 methods of identification…” I am so ticked at this point I can’t hear the rest of the Zombie’s words.
Me: “Let me spell it out for you, you should be able to give anyone who needs the warehouse location the address, right”, Zombie #3: silence then “I need..”

8 minutes later I get an address. Which is not near the one given by Zombie 1 or 2 and not any of the four that Google came up with. 2960 N Martin Ave, Springfield.

Now I finally get there, about 4 miles from the 1st address, but about an hour after my stop at the first incorrect address.

I hoped to put a video or at least pictures of this place, its signage, tall fences with barbed wire. It was a frigging military fort. Of course if they ticked every customer off like me, I see why they need it! I decided, at this point not to go back and get them. If you go there, check the sign for “customers” check out the “entrance”. Now figure out how to get in.

Fortunately for me there was another lost soul, trying to get out of the facility. I had, from the other side of the 10 foot barbed wire fence, assist, and let me in.

I get into the fort, I mean building, and it has the magnetic lock which thank goodness was not working. Then you walk into a cell, a 4 foot by 10 foot caged hallway. Some jerk came to another magnetic door said “got tags” and stuck his hand out. Holy Crap! And I don’t mean Jesus’s diaper. BTW he is dressed exactly how I say not to in my article on how to dress. He is “tactical” but a moron. How do I know, I looked for the knife, pepper spray, and handgun. He only had the knife.

Oh, yeah, there was no one at the reception desk, his was in a back office I could see through the glass of despair.

Another young man came with my package, opened the door, allowed me in and sat it on the desk. He then confirmed it was my package by asking my name, nothing else, no “two forms of verification”.
He then asked “how are you doing?” with a pleasant smile and a true positive attitude. I wanted to let him know what I had been through but I refused to. His dress was that of a dock worker, not an influencer. So I lied “Ok thanks”. All the while I was praying, “LORD, please let me be nice.”

I asked if he had my door tags, they had my notes on them, he did not. I thought about asking him to find them but “tacticool” jerk walked by, gave me a glance, that if it was not for Jesus, would have sent me on the path of kicking his assets.

I took my package, escaped out of the fort of doom, through the chain link and barbed wire fence of despair and to my car, said another prayer. This was more “God, if you placed a plague on the middle management, customer service trainers and all executives of FedEx, their families and their pets I will proclaim your name like Moses to Pharaoh.” So far nothing, but maybe he has a better plan.

Until we meet again, keep your booger hooker off the bang switch until on target and ready to fire, unless you are FedEx, then…