I’m on my porch when I witness a neighbor run out in front of a courier delivery truck.

Neighbor: “Hey! I was expecting two packages, and you only dropped off one!”

Driver: *Leaning out of his door window.* “I only had the one. It could be with another driver.”

Neighbor: “Nuh uh! I ordered both at the same time on Amazon! They should be coming together!”

Driver: “I would recommend you check the tracking details of each item, even if they’re on the same order.”

Neighbor: “Nuh uh!”

My neighbor said ‘Nuh uh!’ a lot.

Neighbor: “Go back to your truck and check again! I need both packages!”

Driver: “Sir, I only have the one. Please step aside.”

Neighbor: *Stepping closer to the truck.* “No! I’m not moving until I have my package!”

Driver: “Sir, I have other deliveries to make.”

Neighbor: “Mine… first!”

Driver: “Sir, I have over thirty more stops to make before I can go home to my wife and kids. Either you step aside to let me finish my deliveries, or you get personal same-day shipping to Hell.”

The neighbor stood his ground for another second, but then stepped aside, and the truck went on its way. My neighbor looked my way and saw me watching. 

Neighbor: “You saw all that s***, right?”

Me: “I did, and it was glorious!”

Another truck from the same company came by that afternoon with his second package.

I’m a manager at a local BBQ chain with three restaurants in town, some franchises in a couple of different states, and a booming nationwide food-shipping system. I worked in our drive-thru and our dining room for years, and last year got the manager promotion in our office, so now I mostly deal with taking call-in orders, catering, paperwork, and inputting shipping orders.

Our shipping is bonkers. We input over three thousand orders per week for a whole month and a half during Christmas, and our plant is working overtime every day just to get them out. We have a deal with a popular shipping company for some discount shipping prices and guaranteed two-day delivery (since it’s food), and generally it goes really smoothly, with few issues.

Until we get to the Christmas when the COVID vaccine is being shipped out on an emergency level. The shipping company we work with has its headquarters here in town, and over half of their fleet is reallocated to shipping the vaccine overnight without warning.

For us, this means that every shipping order we’d put in for the week before Christmas gets pushed back by a week. December 24th, the last day orders could be received, was a Thursday, so roughly five thousand orders had to be delivered in a three-and-a-half-day period. This made for some unfortunate, threat-level midnight, unplugging my phone just to get a moment of peace, holiday-ruining pandemonium.

A lot of customers were super understanding, more than willing for me to push their delivery back with no guarantee it’ll get there before Christmas because of the circumstances. I’m grateful to them. However, as usual… There were 37 instances (I counted) where someone said I ruined their Christmas dinner/presents/and in one instance, their sanity. Trust me, customer, right back at you.

Some were casual “f*** you’s”, or “I don’t know what we are going to eat for Christmas dinner now”, or “can’t you just ship it through a different company?”

Two interactions have stuck with me:

The first is an order going up north. It’s December 24th, and she hasn’t gotten it yet and is leaving town in a couple of hours; understandably frustrating. She’s the first customer I’m talking to at 7:30 in the morning.

Customer #1: “It was supposed to be delivered yesterday, and I’m leaving for [State] in two hours. This is my family’s Christmas dinner. What are we supposed to do if it’s not in before I leave?”

Me: “I’m so sorry, ma’am, when I pull up the tracking information, it says it’s out for delivery, but I don’t have a specific time listed here. Once we send it to shipping, it’s out of our hands.”

Customer #1: “Out of your hands? So, you just hand it to [Company] and hope for the best? What kind of business model is that?”

This is where I explain the shipping delay reasoning.

Customer #1: “Well, that’s just ridiculous. I didn’t order a vaccine, I ordered BBQ for my family. So, what, if it comes in after I leave, it’s just going to sit on my porch rotting for a week?”

Me: “Unfortunately, I can’t say what time it will be delivered, but if it is after the time you leave, we can issue you a reshipment for January or a complete refund. I apologize for the issue, ma’am, but this is the most I can do for you at the moment.”

Customer #1: “So I’m not going to be here when it’s delivered, and it’s going to sit rotting on my front porch. You can’t see any more information on when I’ll receive it?”

Me: “Unfortunately, it only says by the end of the day.”

Customer #1: “So it’s going to sit at my house for a whole week rotting. Someone is going to see that and break into my house.”

Me: “Excuse me?”

Customer #1: “Someone is going to see this food f****** rotting on my front porch and rob me because they can tell no one is home. My family is going to get robbed over Christmas because of you.” 

I didn’t know how to respond, so I stayed silent.

Customer #1: “So when I get back from my mother’s and my house is f****** robbed, it’s going to be because of you and your s*** company. What’s your name? I want to make sure I get the right person on the police report.”

I give her my name, she cusses at me a little more, and I hang up. Twenty-ish minutes later, I see her number calling again and let it ring because I don’t want to be cussed out again. She calls again, so I take a deep breath and pick up cheerfully.

Customer #1: “[Shipping Company] says they can’t track my package without a shipping number. Give that to me.”

Me: “Okay! Let me get that pulled up for you.”

I can hear her talking to someone else while I’m pulling her order back up, and I hear her call me stupid and laugh. Whatever. I get the tracking info pulled back up and give her the tracking number, which she makes me repeat twice slowly.

Customer #1: “Great, now can you tell me why you didn’t f****** think to give that to me the first time I called?”

Me: “Ma’am, if you requested it, I would have handed it over at the beginning. I apologize that we had to speak again.”

Customer #1: “You should have known I would need the number. Are you just f****** stupid?”

Me: *Silence.*

Customer #1: “Right, well, I hope I ruined your Christmas like you ruined mine.” *Hangs up.*

Second interaction.

Another lady calls about her package. She’s very nice and understanding about the delay. Says her presents also are delayed, she’s frustrated already that her family had to push celebrating Christmas back by a week, but she’s dealing with it the best she can. I thought our talk was going very well, very sane, and I set her up to have her package re-shipped when it works for her. Then we get to the end of the call:

Customer #2: “Thank you for helping me out here. Now, I’m not happy about it, but I will have to curse you.”

Me: “…what?”

Customer #2: “Have a merry Christmas.” *Hangs up.*

I literally spent the rest of the day sweating, thinking something was going to happen to me or my family. I have some friends who dabble in witchcraft, so I can only assume that’s what she was alluding to.

Thankfully, despite ruining thirty-seven Christmases and literally being cursed, I had a wonderful time with my family. I told our higher-ups that if I’m taking shipping orders next year, they’re either paying me double or allowing me to end phone calls when customers start showing their a**.

I work as a customer service agent for an online store. A customer’s package is being shipped by USPS. The tracking shows:

Tracking: “As per the agreement between the customer and carrier, this package has been redirected to a new address.”

The customer calls me upon receiving this tracking update and immediately loses it:

Customer: “This is your fault! I set it to be delivered to this address! You did something! You fix it! You fix it right now!”

I try to explain, but every time I open my mouth, she yells louder.

Customer: “You people are incompetent! You changed my address! You—”

I finally get half a sentence out.

Me: “Ma’am, the carrier redirected—”

Customer: “Why would they do that?! They can’t do that!”

Me: “Ma’am, I just need to confirm—”

Customer: “—Well, I do have my mail forwarded to another address, but that shouldn’t happen with packages!”

And suddenly, the entire mystery solves itself.

I take a long, quiet sip of my coffee before explaining to her that mail isn’t just stuff that fits inside envelopes.

I filled a box to the brim with products in a large order and hand-delivered them myself to the customer after work on the way home. He’s one of my first few clients in the business, a very nice elderly gentleman, so I sort of knew him through chats, etc… 

Got a call the next morning from him saying everything wasn’t there, and the box was only half full. He wouldn’t lie, so I was flabbergasted trying to work out if he would really try to do a bogus claim. He seemed genuine, but adamant that the box wasn’t full, and stuff was missing. This was not possible. I did the order myself.

So, I told my staff to hold fort while I go and check. I got in the car and drove to his house (mostly out of curiosity). My staff were surprised I was going off like that.

I knocked on the door and was let in. He then showed me the box that was half empty.

Me: “That’s the box from last month.”

Every box has dates and codes when supplied, etc…

Me: “See the dates? It’s not the one from yesterday. Have you got any more of our boxes anywhere?”

Client: “Hold on, there’s one of yours in the kitchen cupboard.”

This was the one from yesterday, and full when opened. He apologised, which seemed genuine, especially since he had brought out the new box. I assume maybe some sort of cognitive condition, e.g., dementia, at least it wasn’t avarice or malice.

I get back to the office, tell sales to add ” forgetful” to his profile. He called back a few weeks later to apologise and told us he had an infection, which made his memory fuzzy.

To this day, I give that as an example of why the dispatch staff and the delivery drivers should make sure they follow our delivery protocols to the tee.

I work in the shipping industry as an office professional. During my career, I’ve had several jobs, and one of those was manning the import desk. My job consisted of sending a cargo list to customs, sending notifications to customers expecting cargo, and so on.

Important to know for this story: all shipments can usually be kept track of in three ways: via a booking number (given to the shipper at the time of booking), a container number once your cargo has been loaded into a shipping container, or a bill of loading number (BL number for short, this is the number of the document proving ownership of the cargo). All three are unique numbers, and you need at least one of them to track where your cargo is.

This is a telephone conversation that, unfortunately, happens in some variety several times a week.

Customer: “I am expecting a container from China; can you tell me when it will arrive?” 

Me: “Certainly, sir, can you let me know the booking number or BL number? Or maybe the container number?”

Customer: “No, they didn’t give me that. It’s furniture from Shanghai.”

Me: *Already feeling where this is going.* “I’m sorry, sir, but we need more information to help you. Do you know on which ship it has been loaded?”

Customer: “No, but they told me it is on the way. Can’t you just tell me?” 

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but we receive several ships coming from China each week, and each of those carries a few thousand containers. We really do need a booking number, BL number, or container number to help you.”

Customer: “It was sent to me by [seller that we ship dozens of bookings for from several locations each week], does that help?”

Me: *Trying not to scream.* “No, I’m afraid not, sir. Please check with the company that sent you the goods and ask them to provide you with the numbers we requested.” 

Customer: “But why can’t you just look it up?”

Sometimes we had to go through several rounds of this to get the customer to understand that no, we do not just ship only their container separately on a ship, and yes, we do need the booking number to track one booking amongst hundreds of others.