Amazon Delivery. It can suck big time!

Today, I came home to a pile of packages in front of my doorway's indoor mailboxes.  One problem.  ALL of these packages were delivered to the wrong place.  ALL of these packages should have been delivered to the next doorway.  Amazon's captive last mile delivery service screwed up big time!  

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Sadly, almost every business requiring home delivery uses last mile delivery services.  UPS, FedEx, and USPS all tend to give decent service.  (I have my issues with UPS, due to a screwed up delivery they made several years ago involving a new cell phone.)  However, when firms use contractors such as LaserShip and CDL Last Mile, that's when quality goes to hell.  And that's what has happened with Amazon and its captive last mile shipping companies.

Years ago, I used to get delivery of precooked meals from Freshly.  Once each week, I would expect to receive an insulated package containing 6 meals, which I would then eat during the week.  However, Freshly lost money having me for a customer, as they had to give me refunds for improperly delivered packages.  Out of 13 deliveries, only 4 of them were close to being delivered according to the shipping instructions on the package.  Half of these packages were delivered to the wrong doorway, and placed in front of the wrong apartment.  So, I dropped Freshly, and started looking for pre-made meals at the local supermarket.  I preferred Freshly's quality. Yet, if I couldn't count on acceptable deliveries, it wasn't worth my time to call in for refunds on what seemed like a weekly basis.

A couple of weeks ago, a neighbor's insulin shipment was delivered to my door.  The person making the delivery didn't care which group of 6 apartments he dropped the box at.  Instead, he made the package drop, and said "to hell with it."  Luckily, I spotted the problem, and a neighbor took care of delivering the box to its intended recipient (with an apology for accidental opening).  What would have happened if this box was left in front of an apartment that was vacant (which happened to one of my Freshly shipments)?  This woman would have been without an essential medication.  This is inexcusable!

When I tried to contact Amazon, I reached a chatbot - which couldn't understand that I was complaining about someone else's products being delivered to me.  Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to have Amazon call me.  This is just as well, as I want to get this fellow fired.  He doesn't deserve a job if he can't get a simple delivery straight.  

 

PS: A lot of people are having problems due to last mile delivery services.  I'd rather pay for shipping and know I'm going to get my goods delivered correctly.  Too bad that I'm in the minority in this country....

 

Sometimes, it's the little things that count

Sometimes, it's the little things that count.  As I reported in my prior blog, I had more unsatisfactory deliveries of my Freshly box than I had satisfactory deliveries.  All of the problems related to my Freshly deliveries were related to LaserShip and its Gig Economy business model - it is an Uber for last mile package delivery.  LaserShip is well known for poor quality delivery service, and the vast majority of its Yelp reviews only assign the company a single star - the lowest possible ranking.

So why do I start my first real post in this blog on something other than life as a Transgender person?  Well, not everything in a Transgender person's life focuses around gender identity, gender presentation, or gender manifestation.  Most of the time, our lives focus on the more mundane things such as commuting to work, buying groceries, getting together with family and friends, etc.  Once we start living our lives as our authentic selves, we continue to deal with our normal trials and tribulations in addition to the new headaches of people reaction to our authentic selves. Freshly delivery is one of those normal trials and tribulations - something I'd be dealing with whether or not I was transgender.

I had skipped a month's worth of Freshly deliveries, as I had a freezer full of both Freshly and Top Chef meals.  These meals needed to be eaten before any new meal deliveries were made.  Today was the first day in a month that a new Freshly delivery was expected at my door.  So I decided to check the Freshly site to track the delivery, and I found something that pleased me very much:

It looks like Freshly has finally decided to use another "Last Mile" delivery service to get their product to my apartment.  LaserShip would misdeliver my meals by roughly 12 noon.  CDL had not yet misdelivered my meals by noon, and I take this as a positive sign that CDL would rather its delivery men and women to get the job done right than to get the job done quickly.  However, only a track record of satisfactory deliveries will prove whether this is a positive development or not.  And today's delivery was a success - the Freshly box was found in front of my door at 3:00 pm, exactly where I wanted to find it.