I've given up being able to receive certain items via mail where I live in NYC. Amazon only ships via UPS. They smashed two $300 humidifiers in a row by bouncing them around on their sides despite the box clearly labeled to only move while upright. I'm still waiting to get a refund on one of them weeks later. They managed to break both tripods I ordered as well. I kept the second as gluing the broken bit is easier than dealing with yet another return.
When a Bike Company Put a TV on Its Box, Shipping Damages Went Down (2017)
131–140 of 278 posts
Re: When a Bike Company Put a TV on Its Box, Shipping Damages Went Down (2017)
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's cute, but wrong. Even the most law-abiding delivery company is going to end up with some parking tickets, so it makes sense to budget for them. You may as well decry the budgeting for legal as saying the company wants to break the law.
> Even the most law-abiding delivery company is going to end up with some parking tickets Why? If you don’t park illegally you don’t get tickets. They aren’t random or accidental.
> Why? If you don’t park illegally you don’t get tickets.
Incorrect; if you don't park illegally, you are less likely to be ticketed each time you park.
On an individual scale, this might result in never getting a ticket, on a large delivery company’s scale, it's pretty much guaranteed not to.
Re: When a Bike Company Put a TV on Its Box, Shipping Damages Went Down (2017)
#133"Someone" put this up on HN 2 years ago....
Re: When a Bike Company Put a TV on Its Box, Shipping Damages Went Down (2017)
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
The odd thing about this is that it can be much more work to handle things roughly. One time I was waiting for a flight and watching the activity out the window, and the guy who was transferring bags from the little truck-train onto the ramp that slides them up into the airliner was throwing each bag into the air and onto the ramp. It was clear that it would have taken much less effort to just set each bag onto the r…
My favorite from checking guns a few times is that I notice that the only thing they don't toss is the guns (which are obvious because they're marked and padlocked unlike anything else). Guns are set aside, loaded last, unloaded first, and moved carefully. Everything else, tossed.
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Re: When a Bike Company Put a TV on Its Box, Shipping Damages Went Down (2017)
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
This does not surprise me much. I think it comes down to incentives. The package handlers only have a certain amount of time per package. There are few if any consequences for being rough, and it saves time, so of course the package handlers end up being rough. This isn't the only time you see this sort of selfish behavior from delivery companies. As a cyclist I commonly encounter delivery trucks parked in the bike l…
the drivers are basically incentivized to break the law When a delivery company has a line item in its budget to cover parking tickets as a cost of doing business, it's already decided at the corporate level to disregard the law in favor of making a profit.
In Manhattan every UPS driver gets tickets except when buildings have commercial parking. Nobody cares. They hire a law firm to settle on $0.25/$1 and it’s done. Meter maid makes quota, lawyers paid, city gets money.
Re: When a Bike Company Put a TV on Its Box, Shipping Damages Went Down (2017)
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just as deflating the tire illegal. Imagine there's no bike lane and you ride on the street, or when you wanna ride more relaxed, you ride on the sidewalk. It's not a problem either way if everybody is somewhat relaxed. But with your mindset, everyone's against everyone. Phew... It just riddles me. If you were in a car, you would be the type of person that honks at cyclist because in their mindset, it's illegal.
Riding a bicycle on the sidewalk is illegal in almost every state and country. Riding a bicycle in the street is never illegal. I think you should learn the rules before you tell people that they should risk their lives for your convenience.
> Riding a bicycle on the sidewalk is illegal in almost every state
It's illegal in 8 states; unclear in 18; even if it was illegal in all of those it would be a slim majority, not “almost every state”.
https://bikeleague.org/content/bike-law-university-sidewalk-...
Re: When a Bike Company Put a TV on Its Box, Shipping Damages Went Down (2017)
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
You know these people, so do you have any insight as to why they did this? Is it envy? “Screw this guy getting his fancy TV that I don’t have.” If not, what? It seems needlessly cruel. I assume these are good people?
I've worked on multiple shipping and loading docks. If you haven't had this type of work experience it would be difficult to understand that the entire line is one big connected system. If just one person stalls their part of the process, the other pieces both upstream and downstream are affected. And believe me, everyone on the line instantly knows who is falling behind and you'll begin to feel the eyes on you immed…
I can corroborate most of this. Basically it's a stressful job, with low pay, weird hours, and very high turnover. Some people handle the stress better than others. Generally when people leave, it's because they burn out, or reach some kind of "last straw" moment, or get physically injured (often the back, from lifting improperly and/or too fast). The company doesn't care, they're just using you up and they'll hire a new one when you leave.
"Fragile" and other special instructions printed on the box are kind of insulting if you think about it. On the one hand, I'm a "professional" doing this for a living, so it's not like I need instruction from your I've-never-loaded-a-truck ass. And on the other hand, do I look like I have time to give your precious package special attention and follow your additional instructions for how it should be handled? It will be handled like all the rest. Maybe worse now that you pissed me off.
My pet peeve was the packing. If you've done a proper job of packing, i.e. fulfilling your responsibility to secure your stuff, you quickly find you don't need to proclaim "Fragile" on the outside. But if you don't pack well, and then write "Fragile" on it, you're kind of trying to transfer your responsibilities to me, and deserve a lesson.
This was judgmental young me talking, by the way. It's been a while since I did this. But speaking of judgment I also should mention the ultimate worthlessness of most of what people went to the trouble to ship. I handled a lot of B2B stuff, such as a region's worth of cigarette advertising for all the (insert name of convenience store chain here) in that region. Invariably marked "Fragile."
Re: When a Bike Company Put a TV on Its Box, Shipping Damages Went Down (2017)
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's cute, but wrong. Even the most law-abiding delivery company is going to end up with some parking tickets, so it makes sense to budget for them. You may as well decry the budgeting for legal as saying the company wants to break the law.
Don't the parking tickets have to be paid by the driver though, and not the company? FedEx doesn't even own their delivery trucks, the drivers do.
Parking tickets are against the registered owner. Moving violations are against the driver.
Re: When a Bike Company Put a TV on Its Box, Shipping Damages Went Down (2017)
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
Last I checked UPS Ground charges $0.90 per $100 of declared value (first $100 is included for free) (FedEx Ground is $1 per $100; first $100 is also included for free).
so basically it's a $9 fee if you want "decent" treatment for your packages.
No, it's 0.9% of value beyond $100, not $9.
Re: When a Bike Company Put a TV on Its Box, Shipping Damages Went Down (2017)
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's cute, but wrong. Even the most law-abiding delivery company is going to end up with some parking tickets, so it makes sense to budget for them. You may as well decry the budgeting for legal as saying the company wants to break the law.
> Even the most law-abiding delivery company is going to end up with some parking tickets Why? If you don’t park illegally you don’t get tickets. They aren’t random or accidental.
If you park millions of trucks perfectly legally across the country, you will almost certainly get erroneous tickets. Traffic wardens are not infallible - that's why we have traffic court.