FedEx, what a bunch of jerks

I find that most of life's questions that begin, "How hard can it fuckin' be to..." have the same answer the person posing the question is looking for - "Who did it and how did they wrong you?"

Case in point? How hard can it fuckin' be to deliver a package from New Jersey to Minnesota? Can you get the package (which requires a signature) re-routed to a place of employment where there are many, many people capable of imparting their signature on the little clipboard?

Not in this lifetime and especially not if you're FedEx.

In a true test of chicken and egg logic, did Freddie Mitchell suck because he chose to incorporate the name "FedEx" or did FedEx suffer from it's association with "FredEx?" I like to think it's a little of both.

Before I run off on a half-cocked tangent - and it's coming, rest assured - let me say that I realize that every shipping company has its ups, downs and half-functioning customer service staff. For the record, I was only mildly rude to the people on the other end of the line today.

Let me also say that if some FedEx quality care wonk is trolling blogs looking for smack talk and other barely-conscious souls to run their switchboards, I hope they know that I'm not the only one today who had problems in my office with FedEx. In fact, this winter as our loading dock had a slick driveway up to the door, it was a FedEx driver who wouldn't listen to anyone trying to help him into the spot, clogged our lot for 45 minutes and then just drove off to let the next day's driver handle all of the deliveries for our shop.

Today I was told that calling in three days before the package was in St. Paul to have said package held in St. Paul was not enough time to actually keep the package on site. They didn't even have to deliver the damn thing and they still fucked it up.

Just imagine how badly they would have botched things if that package had to go anywhere.

Also, there is no really great way to contact the local offices from the main FedEx number... hmm... If the local numbers aren't given to the public and the 800 number can't actually communicate to the offices, exactly how does the customer ever get what they want?

Not that it matters much, drivers don't return to the shop at night, as they are subcontractors. This means if you just shipped something expensive via FedEx ground, and it's not in the receiver's hands, it's in someone's garage or apartment parking lot. Makes you feel like buying the insurance next time, doesn't it?

Finally, there is no way to contact the driver on their route once they've left. The lesson from this little communication breakdown is that if you start to drive for FedEx, your biggest worry should be a last-minute (or midday) discovery that one of your packages contains bees and a slowly deteriorating wrapper.

According to my experiences, the responsibilities of a FedEx call center rep include:

*Showing up for work.
*Finding a working telephone.
*Saying, "Hello?" when that telephone rings.

The rest is just gravy for the FedEx folks.

Also, if I were to formulate a business model for the current FedEx process, it would include:

*Pick up package and charge sender for postage.
*Place package on westbound truck or plane (east coast only); Place package on eastbound truck or plane (west coast only); Place package in street and hope someone takes it east or west (Midwest only).
*Hope for the best.
*Make funny Super Bowl commercial.

(Photo from Wikipedia.org)