Never. I mean it. You might as well shred the money you'd spend on it and throw it at passing migratory birds - you'd have more success and less frustration.

Chuck Goolsbee is so mad at UPS for abject failure to deliver his "Saturday" package that he is actually yelling, an act so uncharacteristic it scares John Welch, who otherwise thinks nuclear explosions are minor inconveniences.

Basically, after paying extra for Saturday delivery on a package that absolutely had to be there overnight, the driver got within 4 miles of the house, decided it was "remote," and refused to deliver it - or check in for the rest of the day, so no one at UPS could reach him:

Then the human being, whose title I can only assume has the words 'Customer Service' somewhere in it said something that finally made me, the one of the world's most calm and patient people, go completely bonkers:

"Can you call the Consulate?"

I paused for a second to consider the completely illogical statement that I just heard.

(pardon the all caps, but in this case it is really required…)

"WHY SHOULD I NEED TO CALL THE CONSULATE? THEY DON'T HAVE THIS PACKAGE. I DON'T HAVE THE PACKAGE. YOU HAVE THIS PACKAGE!! I AM TALKING TO YOU BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE PACKAGE THAT I PAID TO HAVE DELIVERED TODAY! YOU NEED TO FIND THE PACKAGE AND DELIVER IT TO ME. OR TELL ME WHAT I NEED TO DO TO COME GET THE PACKAGE. THIS IS NOT THAT DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND."

The moron kept blubbering excuses and apologies while I frankly… lost it.

"I RUN A 24/7 OPERATION, I KNOW WHAT IT TAKES TO GET STUFF DONE, EVEN ON A WEEKEND. IF I RECEIVED A CALL FROM A CUSTOMER, COMPLAINING OF A FAILURE OF MY STAFF, I WOULD BE DOING WHAT I COULD TO FIX THE PROBLEM… NOT TELL THEM EXCUSES… SO WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO TO FIX THIS??

My family, who has never seen me act like this, all ran to the basement and cowered in fear.

"WHY WOULD I EVER TRUST UPS WITH MY BUSINESS, EVER AGAIN?? WHY CAN'T YOU CALL SOME MANAGER AND GET THIS PROBLEM SOLVED RIGHT NOW? WHY HASN'T ANYONE THERE CALLED ME BACK, DESPITE REPEATED PROMISES TO DO SO? WHY IS THIS SO DIFFICULT??"

Lather, rinse, repeat.

We've had the exact same problem here. My dad and I got mom a new food processor for Christmas (of the right color), and I paid extra for Saturday delivery so we'd have the option of giving it to her on Christmas Day instead of on New Year's Day when we did our gift exchange, as planned. Amazon shipped it UPS…

…and it was the exact same story. The UPS trucks drove by all day, but according to their package tracking, they "attempted to deliver" at 10:30 AM, but "address was not a business" (I never claimed it was) so they "rescheduled it" for Tuesday, since Monday was Christmas Day.

I was both here and awake at 10:30 AM - they did not try to deliver the package. If they did, it consisted of no more than driving by the house and refusing to ring the bell or knock on the door. I called the customer service center, and they said that I could come into OKC and pick it up - except I'd have to show up before 5 PM when they closed, and they didn't know if the truck would be back by 5 PM or not. Just like Chuck's scenario, they "couldn't reach" the truck driver that day.

Oh, and if I told them I wanted to come pick it up, but if I missed the 5 PM cut off, then I'd have to come back to OKC on Tuesday to pick it up. Once they mark it for pick-up, they'll never attempt delivery again on that package. If I didn't make it to the city within 3 days to pick up the package, they'd send it back.

Fortunately, we didn't absolutely require it on that day, and I only paid $1 extra for the Saturday delivery attempt, having had experience with UPS in December completely losing packages before. (I'm not kidding, Justin can vouch for it - I had to have a shipper resend a $450 package in December a few years ago. Apparently they delivered it to some completely different address and it got stolen. UPS paid for the replacement, too.)

That wasn't on a Saturday, but this other was. One other UPS Saturday delivery I remember was the same way - they didn't even try and marked it as if it had been my fault. It's a gigantic fraud from Brown upon the world - they take tons of extra money for Saturday delivery and they simply do not deliver, keeping the money and blaming you.

If a vendor insists on using UPS, never use them for Saturday delivery. Ever, ever, ever. Sorry, Chuck; I don't know if posting this earlier would have saved you any pain, but I doubt it. Good luck getting a consulate to change shippers.

(Via John Welch.)