Monday, March 12, 2012

A while back, I ordered a couple of items.  Seemed like a rather straightforward process, one I’ve done many times in the past.  Order the items, pay and wait to have them delivered.  But then…the postal systems—all of them—got involved. What should have taken a mere two to three days to arrive ended up taking a month to get to my doorstep!

Originally, the items were sent via the United States Postal system’s priority mail system.  Not my favorite, but the seller and I believed this was the best way to ensure delivery by a specified date.  The estimated date of delivery came and went with no show of the package.  I put out a search for the missing items.  The postal system admitted their mistake.  Though we had no way of knowing at the time, just how involved that mistake would be.

Seems the US Postal system lost the tracking ID number for the package.  This left the sender and me with nothing to go on but the original number of the tracking label that had been printed out.  But that number does not allow an individual or post office to track the progress of a package.

Frustrated, the sender then placed a recall on the package.  By now, it was over a week overdue.  Thankfully, it had been insured, but we still wanted the goods to be found.  Another week went by.  The package was finally returned to the sender with no explanation as to what had happened to it or what “vacation” it had taken while MIA.

This time, the sender decided to ship the package to me via Federal Express, them having a much higher percentage of delivering packages on time and without incident.  But alas, apparently, this package was doomed.  So it’s fate with Fed Ex matched that of its experience with the US Postal system. 

Again, the delivery date came and went with no sign of the package.  Again another search was initiated, this time through Fed Ex.  Again another recall was placed with the package eventually being located and returned to the sender with no explanation as to what had happened to it or where it had “vacationed.”

Options quickly diminishing, the sender decided to mail the package this time via UPS.  We both held our breath, hoping upon all hope that this time it would make it from Pittsburg to California without incident.  We were told that the package would take a mere two to three days to arrive.  Logging onto the company’s tracking website, we were encouraged to watch every single step of it’s mailing process be intricately listed from the second the label got affixed to it being loaded onto carrier.  And then, much to our surprise, the package arrived a full day early! 

By this time, the seller and I had become friends, having engaged in daily discussions of the progress of the elusive package.  I didn’t hesitate to notify her of the package’s delivery, something that immediately put her mind at ease.  So, though it should have been a relatively simple process to ship a package from Pittsburg to California, it was anything but, requiring the US Postal system, Fed Ex and finally UPS to pull off the job!