I Hate all Couriers

I am fairly sure I will never purchase another piece of equipment from Dell unless it severs all ties with Purolator Courier. Purolator is a disaster. The last time I ordered equipment, I dutifully followed the package's progress on the Purolator web site, taking note of the expected arrival date. I arranged to stay home from work, so that I could take possession of said package and avoid an inconvenient trip to the depot.

Suddenly, the status of my package changed from in transit to returned to depot, or some such status that meant I was not at home when the driver arrived! The blasted courier wo/man did not come to the house and, on top of that, left no note! I called, and was able to arrange delivery for the next day. I took another day off work and guess what? The same thing happened. No courier showed up and the status indicated that the package was once again en route to the depot. I sent a very angry email, 'cause it was impossible to get through to the bonehead on the phone.

How can a company call itself a courier if they fail to even attempt delivery? What's the point of sending something by courier if one has to travel to the depot (usually located in suburbia) to retrieve the package? Why can't they deliver packages to residential addresses during evenings and weekends?

This week, I was expecting a package from UPS, that strange courier that likes to call itself "brown", like shit. Brown is not such an impressive business colour, even if it has been the New Black for years. I worked for this company for part of one summer, by the way. So, I came home on Monday, and saw a note stuck to my door. None of the fields that could have been filled in were filled in. All were blank, in other words, except for the comments field.

There was no indication if this was the first, second, or final attempt to deliver. The date of new attempt field was blank. A field at the bottom read: "In your absence the package(s) was left at: Front Door, Back Door, Side Door, Garage, Neighbour, Other. None of these boxes were checked. In the comments space something illegible was scribbled.

I thought that I would need to take a day off work to wait, but there was no indication of when the package would be re-directed, so I called, and waited and waited. I wanted to tell them that the least they could do is indicate that another delivery attempt would be made. After reciting my waybill number, the dude says:

"The package was left at the side door."

"I don't have a side door," says I.

"Are you sure?"

"Quite."

"What about a garage?"

"Nope"

"Porch?"

"I don't have a porch either" UPS dude advised me to look around. I have to say that I was stunned. I only called because I wanted to know when it was going to be delivered. It's lucky that I even called. Now, he told me that the package was left somewhere, and I had no idea where and the note didn't say where.

On my cell phone, I circled the house, looking here and there. For some unknown reason, I looked behind my new City of Toronto garbage bin, and there it was. How bizarre. It could have been there for days, had I not called the idiots. And then, it all made sense. I was finally able to decode what looked like:

"h eft Ai sio/E" I guess that said "left at side."