I don’t think I’d be tapping into ancient history if I asked you to think back to the UPS ad campaign that featured the question, “What can brown do for you?” I feel just a little bad because I have been on both the shipping and receiving end of brown’s services many times, but I’ve never really stopped to consider even thinking about reciprocating. So today, it’s all about what I can do for brown.
You see, recently, we ordered a crib from an online retailer and were told it would be coming via UPS. We liked this prospect because the lab I order my prints from always ships via UPS and they’ve proven themselves very reliable and careful with my precious cargo.
Once the order was processed and updated in the retailer’s database, they sent us an email with tracking information and a link to UPS’s website. The tracking information indicated that our crib would be arriving on the 7th, which was not totally unexpected, but still a bit longer than we would like. However, since we only paid 97 cents for shipping, I guess we got what we paid for.
We clicked through to the UPS site, just to check and see where it was coming from, more out of curiosity than because of some actual need to know, and discovered that it was coming from Hodgkins, IL–basically from Chicago. That’s good news because we know that it’s only about an 8-hour drive (or so) from here to there. Best of all, UPS indicated that it would actually deliver on the 6th. Hey, great surprise! Brown comes through for us again!
As time drew closer to the actual arrival of the crib, on the 5th, I believe, we went back to check on our (big) little package’s progress, and were a bit surprised by what we had seen:
(Okay, no laughing about the “delivered” bit…I didn’t capture this until after the fact).
What, you don’t understand? Let me show you.
The package left Hodgkins, IL, and traveled to Kansas City, KS. No problem.
From there, it went to Salina, KS. Feel free to click the images if you need extra help with visualizing this.
It left Salina and went to Lenexa, KS.
From Lenexa, it took a trip to Manhattan. See the problem yet?
From Manhattan, they finally decided they could take it out to us, after making a grand total of THREE trips past our home.
Here’s the way Google breaks it down:
- Hodgkins, IL, to Wamego, KS: 625 miles, 9 hours and 34 minutes
- Hodgkins, IL, to Kansas City, KS, to Salina, KS, to Lenexa, KS, to Manhattan, KS, to Wamego, KS: 1011 miles, 15 hours and 48 minutes.
That means UPS went 386 miles out of its way, which should’ve added an extra 6 hours and 14 minutes. That wouldn’t be so bad, except that the way that UPS did it actually added over 77 hours to the trip.
I guess Google doesn’t account for bathroom breaks and fast-food stops.
So, because I don’t want UPS to think that I never did anything for them, here‘s what I can do for brown.
all the standard catastrophes 