Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Missing: One UPS Guy.

Tonight around 6:15 Alex walked into my office and said, "You might as well go home. I'm waiting for Marlon to arrive."

Marlon is our wonderful UPS guy. Dressed in brown, he comes to our door promptly each night at 6:00. As quick as he can, he loads his truck with packages lovingly filled by YarnMartians...and then he's off in a flash. We're always so happy to see Marlon as he tosses hundreds of boxes into his van -- because he's helping us send our customers their yarns as quickly as we possibly can. And that's important to us. (That's the "fast" part of our slogan: Yarmarket. Fabulous fashions. Fast. And friendly.)

After years of depending on Marlon, we know it's unusual for him to be late. Very unusual.

After a while, Alex grew concerned, and decided to phone UPS to find out if Marlon were okay. Well, imagine his surprise when they told him, "We're not picking up today."

Our roads were clear, traffic was moving, everything looked normal to us...so we had no idea they wouldn't be picking up.

"Your representative was supposed to call you," someone on the phone told Alex.

Aha! One of those office guys at UPS was supposed to tell us Marlon wouldn't be coming. But he didn't. And now we had hundreds of packages that we worried were not getting out.

While Alex was still on the phone with UPS, I called the Fedex office just about a mile down the road.

"Are you having pick-ups today?" I asked the young man who answered.

"We certainly are," he said happily.

"Did you know that UPS isn't working?"

"Yes! What a bunch of cry-babies," he responded.

"If I bring you my packages, can you send them?" I asked.

"With a smile," he assured me.

A few minutes later, Alex and I appeared at the FedEx office on Brice Road with some very important packages that absolutely, positively had to get there. We were delighted with the service we received. So delighted that we'll probably use them again...and again...and again...and again.

We're really happy that Marlon is okay and that our packages got out and will be delivered on time.

But I've got to tell you...if I were that UPS guy who was supposed to call us, I think I'd call in sick tomorrow morning.

2 comments:

Kathryn said...

You should consider the United States Postal Service. I usually receive my yarn within 2 to 3 days after shipping and I love the fact they deliver on Saturday.

Deborah said...

Yes. You're right. We use them, too! There are now some great hybrid services between USPS and FedEx that deliver on Saturday.