Welp, I got it Tuesday night, which was an adventure in and of itself:
I left work about 4:30 to be home when the UPS guy came, since he usually shows up between 5 and 6. About 5:45, I had pretty much given up on him showing up, and checked the UPS tracking number once more.
Akk, it’s got an “Exception”! The details spit out some random gibberish about not having the correct Company or Customer Name on file…
So at this point, I’m wondering “Why did it take them 12 hours on the truck before they realized this? What does the driver of the truck know that the people scanning it onto the truck at the sorting depot didn’t?” So I call UPS and talk to one of their ever useless customer service reps, who basically told me there’s nothing they could do until it showed back up at the sorting facility and got scanned back in, so I should call back about 10:00.
Now, excuse me for continuing to wonder why in the hell their system can wirelessly update to let me know over the internet that there’s a problem, but the customer service rep who is in one of their corporate offices can’t tell me what exactly was wrong or provide any way of fixing the error until the package is scanned back into the system?
In any case, all ranting aside, I got my original question answered at about 6:45 - when the UPS driver showed up.
Apparently, the package had been shipped to the wrong address, but had my name on it. So he got over to the incorrect address and the people there were obviously not me. After scanning in the error, he looked at the name on the package and realized he knew where I lived - which is really just a sad statement about the amount of online shopping I do - and made a special trip back to deliver it before heading back to the sorting facility.
At this point, there’s no doubt in my mind that you’re wondering “What the hell was so important?”. Well, it was my “little” Christmas present to myself:
Anybody got it yet?
I’d show you the whole thing, but the digital camera I was using wouldn’t auto-focus correctly… I guess the convenience of instant photos is a give and take.
Specs »
- 1.67 G4 Processor
- 512mb RAM (more already ordered)
- 120gb hard drive (5400rpm, unfortunately)
I’ve already got everything loaded up, now it’s time to enjoy this puppy and settle in so I can track down some software (more coming on this in another post).
So if you’ll excuse me… I’ve got some Mac’in to do…
I hope you said a VERY big thank you to the driver - service like that is virtually dead these days.
I nearly burst into tears and hugged him… It was a very emotional moment (well, at least for me…).
The really funny part is. When I first saw the exception on their website about the incorrect name on file, I was bitching to people on IRC that I was on a first name basis with the UPS driver for our neighborhood, that we’d stood outside and talked at random on several ocassions after he made a delivery…
It’s all about making personal connections. If I were a psychology student, I might write a thesis on the matter. As it stands, I’m far too lazy to do anything like that.