doing things right

[dadiOH]

Not if it is your own carrier. Which it was.

Nor with anyone else depending upon how you negotiated the terms of your contract. Your thinking is kinda constricted here, Wade :)

[dadiOH]

Anytime I hear about something like that I think of Hawaii's capital building.

Wife and I lived there for decades and, for a while, she had to be downtown at a building across from the construction site. She didn't drive at the time so I took her and waited in the car while she did her bit of business. While waiting, I watched the construction guys.

One in partiular. He and his backhoe were busy moving a large pile of dirt from one place to another. When moved, he would move it back again to where it was originally. He did this day after day, week after week, month after month. Why in the world would he do this? Only thing I can think of is because the contract was time + materials.

[Thomas]

I observed the same thing. What it turned out to be was a different guy each time in training.

[Frank]

This was not that kind of situation but what you describe sounds like a government job.

County park was expanding a ball diamond with back-fill. Trunks were coming in, dumping dirt in a pile, another truck came along, they filled it with the dirt and he drove out and dumped it where fill was needed. A friend asked the supervisor why they had to transfer the dirt to another truck and just dump it where needed from the first truck. Supervisor said the first truck was too big to do it but friend observed that both trucks were the same size.

I sent a letter to our local rag about this boondoggle. Some people were pissed in the county. I got a threatening letter and my son who is Jr. was getting irate phone calls.

[Wade Garrett]

Even if you own the carrier, next-day delivery operations still cost more that batching last-mile delivery every few days. Sunday costs more too, if not now, then soon once you get big enough for the van drivers to try to organize.

Contract carriers will still cost more for weekend/Sunday delivery too. UPS, FedEx, DHL only have skeleton staffs on duty weekends and USPS on Sunday. You could be the world's greatest negotiator but the carriers won't give you a weekday price for Sunday delivery.

I've rarely bought from Amazon but the very last time I did, I happened to be looking out a front window as a thuggish-looking Bozo in a medium-sized white van with the Amazon logo on the door pulled up and "parked" facing the wrong way in front of my house about 5-6 feet from the curb.

Instead of coming up the walkway, he proceeded to trudge through my wife's award-winning flower beds and decorative plantings, then straight across my carefully-tended lawn to the base of the flight of stairs that leads to my front door.

He then heaved a package containing a $650 precision electronic device up the flight of stairs where it slammed against the brick wall before thudding down onto to the concrete front door landing. I went outside and called to him but he ignored me, got back in his van and sped off.

Email and phone complaints to Amazon got no response. Concerned about concealed damage- and annoyed- I decided to not even open the shipping carton and just returned seals-intact it on their dime for a full refund.

Any contract carrier driver who received a customer complaint like that would get reprimanded or fired- though probably not a postal droid ;-)