constance | file under correspondence

Dear People of UPS:

Please allow me to share with you the delightful story of how I have spent my evening. I believe you will find it both edifying and entertaining! I know I do.

I was expecting a package delivery this afternoon, and apparently arrived home about ten minutes after the first delivery was attempted. UPS usually leaves packages at my door without requiring a signature, but I noticed that the merchant required an in-person signature. Darn it, I thought, I really wanted that package tonight.

And I would have, and clearly should have, just waited for the next delivery attempt, but I was a little worried about the estimated delivery time on the InfoNotice: "after 5 pm," it said, and the thing is that I am almost never able to just skip out of my office at 5pm on the dot. My job is one of those jobs, I am sorry to say, where you are expected to stay until you finish your work, even if you don't finish until 6 or 7 pm. Or, you know, 8 or 9. (I know! It is crazy!)

And I was, as I say, worried, but then I noticed a number to call where you could make Other Arrangements. Aha! I thought to myself. Look at UPS cleverly working to make my life less worrisome! I will call that number and see what Other Arrangements are available to me.

And so I did! The Warm Yet Impersonal Customer Service Robot Voice informed me that there were, in fact, several Other Arrangements available to me, but the one that made me happiest was an option to pick up the package that very evening! I am not ashamed to say, People of UPS, that I leaped at that option like my dog leaps on strangers: enthusiastically and recklessly eager to commit. And The Warm Yet Impersonal Customer Service Robot Voice approved my choice, I could tell. She told me I could expect a call within the hour to confirm.

And I got my call, I did, but it was not a confirmation. Rather, it was a polite but firm rebuff: the Polite But Firm Real Live Woman on the other end of the line informed me that I could not pick up my package tonight. Really? I asked, dismayed. Because The Warm Yet Impersonal Customer Service Robot Voice told me I could! Was The Warm Yet Impersonal Customer Service Robot Voice wrong? Yes, said the Real Live Woman, politely but firmly. But I really wanted that package tonight, I said. There's no way that can happen? No, she said. You can pick it up tomorrow between 10:17 and 10:23 am, or between 2:43 and 2:44 pm. (Confession: these may not be the exact times she gave me, because I don't remember what they were, but they were highly inconvenient for people who work 8-to-5 (or -6 or -7 or -8, etc.) jobs. I can't do that, I said. So would it be possible to reschedule with another address for delivery? You can, said the Real Live Person. But I can't do it from here, so you'll have to call our 800 number to request the change.

Rolling my eyes a little at the idea of such an enormous company as UPS not allowing reschedules except through a single 800 number, I nonetheless hung up and dialed. The Warm Yet Impersonal Customer Service Robot Voice answered again, and offered me my options, none of which was an option I was looking for. I waited through five or six repetitions of the original options (each time, she sounded slightly more mocking) before acknowledging that she was never going to spontaneously offer to connect me to a service representative, and I regretfully resorted to my failsafe I-must-speak-to-a-real-person-RIGHT-NOW method, and stubbornly pressed 0 until I got what I wanted. (Thanks, people of UPS, for offering this little-known loophole!)

A Real Live Man answered. I explained my situation: that I'd scheduled a package to be held for pickup tonight, but they wouldn't let me pick it up tonight, I couldn't make it to their offices to pick it up tomorrow, I couldn't guarantee that I would be home at the stated time of delivery, and SO. I would like this package delivered to my office, I told the Real Live Man, where someone will absolutely and without fail be there to sign for it. If not me, then someone.

Oh, sure, said the Real Live Man. It'll be six dollars to make the change over the phone, or four dollars to make it online.

And this, People of UPS, is where I started to get mad. Okay, wait, I said to him. You mean you're going to charge me to make what is essentially my third choice of delivery options, because you couldn't make the first two choices work for me? Yes, he said, firmly but politely. (I've got to hand it to your Real Live People: they have got firm-but-polite and polite-but firm down. That's some masterful training program you've got!) And you might not believe it, given the nature of this letter, but I was struck speechless for a minute or two. It was only six dollars, I know. And six dollars is really not that much money at all. But it was the principle of the thing. Look at it from my point of view, and you might understand why this was not a viable option for me.

I collected my thoughts and my temper, and decided to admit defeat. It was not a graceful admission, I have to say -- it was a pretty surly one -- but it was an admission all the same. In the end, I just asked him to change my notification back to what it originally was: out for delivery tomorrow, to my home address, scheduled for sometime after 5pm. I'd just work through lunch and sneak out the door at 5.

He made the change for me. He said he made the change for me. And I would get a call from my UPS center within an hour to confirm. And so I hung up and waited.

Again, I got the call. Again, it was the Polite But Firm Real Live Woman. She sounded, frankly, approximately 20% less polite as she told me that I needed to call the 800 number she'd given me in order to reschedule properly. But I did! I said, flabbergasted. I called the number and Real Live Man told me he'd make the change and route it to you, and you'd call me back! And you've called me back, so I'm thinking he did what he said he was going to! And she said, well, if he did -- as if anyone but someone at that 800 number could have entered the information! As if I had the power to randomly hack into the UPS system and upload my information to have her call me and confirm that the package would be reattempted for delivery tomorrow as originally scheduled! -- it wasn't handled right, and you'll have to call back to --

I AM NOT CALLING THAT NUMBER BACK, I said. AND YOU ARE HOLDING MY PACKAGE HOSTAGE. AND I WANT IT. (I lost my temper somewhat spectacularly at this point, People of UPS. I am not proud of it, and wish to extend my deepest apologies to the Polite But Firm Real Live Woman. who, after all, was only doing her job.) She waited (probably politely and firmly, though it was difficult to tell) while I took about twenty deep breaths to calm myself down, and when I was able to speak in lowercase again, I said, Look. Why don't you just leave everything as is. Just leave it set in the system to be picked up at your offices tomorrow, and I'll skip lunch and come down between 10:17 and 10:23 am, and that will be that.

No, wait, she said. If you'll hold, I'll see what I can arrange. And she put me on hold for a few minutes and came back to say that she was going to have to call me back. And so we disconnected, but she called me again in a very few minutes to tell me that it was all arranged: my package would be put out for delivery tomorrow, with a delivery time scheduled for sometime after 5 pm (which I WILL BE HOME THEN NO MATTER WHAT I HAVE TO DO TO GET THERE, I PROMISE). And I thanked her reasonably civilly, and she said, Thank you for being so understanding. And you mustn't hold that note of irony in her voice against her, because I know that I deserved it.

So that, People of UPS, is how I spent my evening. Five phone calls, two humans, a robot, and the better part of an hour to get me back to where I started and would have stayed if I'd never picked up my phone in the first place. I'm inclined to blame the robot, for making such abandoned promises on behalf of your company, but I'm also constructing a tidy little conspiracy theory. Either way, though, I have to say that at this moment I am thinking that you guys kind of suck.

On the other hand, I was trembling with outrage when I started this letter, and now I'm feeling a lot better, so there's that. I haven't written a letter like this in a long time! I'd forgotten they could be so cathartic!

Anyway. Thank you for being so understanding.

Yours most sincerely,

tofty