UPS Update: Fail

So, that package that UPS wasn't able to deliver on Wednesday because I wasn't home (for once)? Well, although I was home most of yesterday, they neither delivered it nor left a second notice, so this morning I looked on their website and it said oh sure, we delivered that yesterday! And I said did not, until I noticed where they said they delivered it: not to my home, but to a local convenience store that apparently doubles as a UPS pickup spot. Which, yes, there is a spot on the notice to mention that they plan to do that.

You might think, as I did, that because they didn't check off that box, that isn't what they planned to do, but apparently we would be wrong to think so. What, just because they checked the box indicating that they would try again to deliver it the next day, you were expecting them to try again to deliver it the next day? Why, I suppose you also think they should have indicated which reason they had for not being able to leave the package in the first place, as the form allows, and even put the correct date at the top of the notice; you're so demanding. The 5th, the 6th, close enough, eh? It's not like one day here or there really matters, right? In deliveries that people might be waiting for...

Sigh. Fortunately for me, this was nothing urgent. And the store is about half a mile away, hardly a major inconvenience; in better weather, I would have walked over. But it's the principle of the thing.

(Though at least I was able to get a Powerball ticket while I was there. $700 million would soften the inconvenience quite a lot.)

I'm not even going to bother to complain, as I'm quite sure it would get me nowhere, there's nothing they could do other than promise to do better next time, and I'm equally sure that they aren't all that interested in providing better service. But I can't help contrasting it with another recent mistake I saw and how it was handled.

I belong to a professional organization, at least through the end of the month (the old company paid the membership fee, which I don't think I will do on my own), and yesterday they sent out an email about a new course they were offering. I couldn't help wincing to see the unnecessary apostrophe in "Ten Characteristic's of" in the name of the course, but I deleted it and went on with my day.

Today there was another email from them, with this:

They apologized, and included a coupon code for the course. Nicely done, people.