DHL said they would deliver my parcel of wine between 11:52 and 12:52 today. It arrived at 11:35. I had just decided not to go upstairs to do a small job, just in case this happened. I won't complain that their timing was in fact off by several minutes.
And as is correct, the driver asked for my year of birth, for an alcohol delivery. I am well into my 70s, but it was still the correct thing to do.
Is this a euphemism?
No, it is a straight description! Nothing to see here, move on >.....
The alternative is delivery systems that won't let the driver sign the delivery off until the earliest time.
Leading to them parking up until it's time.
Sometimes they are sympathetic! Since I've started having Ocado deliver in the 08:00-09:00 slot I've noticed they are less likely to ring the bell early if they arrive early than when I had it later in the day, even waiting outside (until I went out to reassure then that I was in fact up!).
nib
Every aspect of what a driver does, is controlled by management.
A computer takes traffic estimates into account, when predicting the arrival, but traffic cannot be accurate without minute by minute corrections.
The shelves in the truck, are loaded in a particular order. The truck driver is given a route to drive (only a certain direction of turn is allowed). Some companies, even point a camera at the drivers eyeballs, and he can be questioned later about "distracted driving incidents". It's really all rather odious.
The trucks can be tracked by automated GPS tracking, and this allows management to determine whether the driver is pissing into a bottle, off the side of the road. Or, whether the vehicle is stationary for too long. I don't think any time is allocated for pissing.
Paul
You had better luck than us.
I had ordered 2 OS maps, which were due to arrive early this afternoon.
Luckily, we were out when the parcel 'arrived'.
I say 'luckily' because as we got back, we noticed a sodden brown paper parcel/envelope lying in a puddle, just inside the garden gate[1]. It had been raining heavily all day. Had we _not_ been out, we would probably not have found the parcel for another 24 - 48 hours.
[1] To be fair, the garden gate is less than hip height, so seeing and hitting the puddle from outside was not a great feat of skill.When I visited the Ordinance Survey website, they had been keen to offer me the water-resistant version for a slightly higher price. I thought this was because they were maps of the Lake District - maybe they just knew a lot about delivery drivers.
Our Ocado deliveries are for the 4-5pm slot. We sometimes get a call asking if we would mind them arriving early - but, in your case, I can see that ringing someone before 8am might not go down well.
It isn't just traffic levels. One factor which has a significant effect on deliveries around here is time of day. A delivery van can park pretty much anywhere they like during the bulk of the day - do the delivery and go on to the next. After (say) 4pm, our road (like many others) is full of nose-to-tail parked vehicles, leaving a choice of stopping in the road and blocking all traffic movement[1], or wander up & down the road for half a mile searching for a spot.
[1] Supermarket deliveries have to spend several minutes gathering all the bits & pieces of the delivery together, so it isn't a "I'll only be a minute" job.
g You're lucky to have Ocado deliveries. We are in one of their
I have this almost infallible method of getting someone to knock on my door. I just drop my pants and sit on the loo.
That's a similar technique to the one used by Gerald Durrell on one of his expeditions. He was on a lonely island, waiting for hours for a boat to come and take him and his crew off and back to the mainland. There was no communication available. He instructed his porter to unpack the kettle and portable stove, and to start to brew a batch of tea, to the porter's amazement, and immediately the boat came into view.
The reason I mentioned it was on Saturday, our Sainsbury delivery was
11-12, and the van arrived at 10:20 and parked up till 11:00If anyone was wondering why Sainsburys are that bit more expensive, I wouldn't consider it a mystery.
Which is unlikely to happen as most of these drivers seem to be either self employed and/or on a very tight delivery schedule per delivery. I've had real time tracking saying that I'm 100+ delivery on the list. Some delivery drivers are only paid per delivery (not packages per delivery) and have a limited number of driving hours per day. Around my way at least one of those driving hours is the time taken to get to/from the depot to the area where the deliveries are to be made.
I would assume anyone selecting that time slot is probably an early riser or is up because they have to get to work.
We are! For the last two weeks our deliveries have arrived complete, and without any 'substitutions'! We would open a bottle of champagne, but like a lot of other things they are usually out of stock.
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