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This Only Happens At Christmas-My Ups Woe Story Of The Day


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Well I a few years back gave up shipping pottery to customers at x-mas due to the fact that double boxing and extra padding did not hold up to godzilla x-mas traffic . My only breakage occurred at x-mas season when shipping. Say I send out 40-60 packages a year-zero breakage except at x-mas. So I have a whole page on my web site explaining this and why I choose noit to ship now.

Now this year I had a customer contact me last week and ask for an exception and the nice stupid guy I am shipped her 4 mugs to Texas-(I have not yet heard if they are still in one piece).

I will add I know how to pack as my two boxs of 48 dinnerware items shipped from my pacific ocean town to Long Island made it fine last month.My customers always comment on how well packed the pots are.

So on to todays dilemma

Two weeks ago in another state at an Art show I sold a woman a 4 piece cannister set-I told her to be carefull when unwrapping as the lids are upside down wraped well with each pot. She e-mailed me and in this new age smart I phone world I got that message Saturday night after 12 hours at show that she broke her lid unpacking it.

The story now shifts to what I choose to do about this and I'm all about customer service-I called her that night and said I would take are of this and make a new one-I got the millimeter number I finger in to underside of lid (advanced tecnique)  as she sent me a photo of it.

So I made two spares and wrapped them well last night and my UPS driver picked the package up today at 3 pm during the x-mas madness shipping marathon going on everywhere around you.

At 6 pm I thought I would check the tracking number and e-mail the customer the tracking number and tell her when its going to show up-(on a side note I charged her just for shipping as this will make her a happy customer)that when I see that the package was dropped off about 1 mile down the road to a person on the same street name and and same Name of person but wrong home address and state at 4 .45pm today.

I call ups and due to holiday volume it takes about 40 minutes and two hold periods and the package investigative section to nail down this-they call the person (while I;m on hold) and talk story to them. The agent (secret package agent I think) tells me they will pick it up in am and get it back into system. I tell them my driver is overworked and give him a raise and so the story ends here I think

But as in most things in life it does not end here-the phone rings about 8 pm tonight and its my driver calling me===

Part two tomorrow

 

Just a reminder about shipping pottery before the holidays-think twice as stuff happens -twilight zone stuff

Hey what has brown done for you today??

Mark

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This is making me so nervous about the three boxes of ware I shipped to Texas three weeks ago and haven't heard yet if they've arrived. If I'm lucky the shop owner was busy and since everything was as she expected didn't bot yet to email me to say everything was ok. Fingers crossed!!!!!

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Part two

So the driver calls at 8 pm and is still out on route and says he got the notice about my package and not to worry as its in his truck. Turns out he said he tossed it into a drop off  by mistake and before he noticed it a few dogs came  after him and before he could drive away  after slamming his door to keep them out the woman came running down the drive saying my package was not her's and he was to frazzled with the dogs on his tail to enter that into the scanner-hence the drop off  showed up as dropped but he had the box back.Later on route he got the message about the mix up and called me ( I know him well as I ship more than I would like to)-so all back to normal with those cannister lids thay only have to get another 1,200 miles in one piece. They are packed to throw the box which they will and  do but if they drive over it or some pit bulls chew them they may not make it.

So the next time you choose to ship something keep in mind it may go south with a pack of dogs.This only happens at x-mas.

Mark

 

Norm I think I know this guy  you pictured saw him at my last Art show.He a friend of yours?

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I am not sure what their logistics are for parcels but I did Christmas cover last year for the royal mail and lets just say I would never want to send a parcel through them.

 

Even if your parcel is placed well in its container somebody else could throw a very heavy box on top and that could easily smash anything inside.

 

I agree, avoid christmas parcels as they tend to be left to the temp staff and they don't care as it is only for a month.

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Just to add some gas to this fire.

I made an exception to my never ship after Thanksgiving to a customer who asked me for an exception

I sent 4 mugs to Texas ground on the 11th of December-just tracked them tonight and they are in Illinois- I have no idea whay they went there as Texas is not on that path.

Now it usually takes 7 days for a package to get to Maine or Florida from my Pacific ocean location. Its past 10 days and its a boit far from Texas still-looks like its going to make x-mas eve delivery on the 24th

This will be an all time record of 14 days-and most likley a flattened double box of shards.

I cannot wait for this call-If you need another reason not to ship around x-mas-this story is another.

Maybe I should mail a tube of epoxy to her now??

Mark

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Dayem, if we got air miles for shipping distances, we'd all be vacationing someplace warm with fruity drinks!  I've got three outstanding boxes at the moment, the rest have been delivered, reasonably on time, although I still haven't figured out why there was a side trip on a few of them!

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