Erci and I like wine. We like wine from several places, but we are particularly fond of wines from Bonny Doon Vineyard in the mountains over Santa Cruz, California. We like Bonnie Doon wines so much that we tried to join DEWN (their wine of the month club) way back when it was illegal to ship wines via mail-order into Virginia. We did a little research and discovered that the reason it was illegal was because the big alcohol distributers did not want to give up their monopoly, and that this retarded law (written by alcohol distributer lobbyists, and passed by Virginia’s notoriously retarded legislature) was hurting Virginia wine makers and small out-of-state wine makers alike.
We joined the “Free the Grapes” campaign which took a while but eventually got the stupid law repealed and now it is legal to mail-order wines both to and from Virginia, much to the delight of everyone except the monopolistic alcohol distributers… they may find my lack of sympathy disturbing. We were finally able to join DEWN and try some of Bonnie Doon’s eclectic wines about every other month.
UPS has very attractive repeat shipping rates for small businesses, so attractive that many small businesses will only use UPS for all their shipping. It is simpler and cost-effective, and I applaud both the small businesses and UPS for a generally good arrangement. However, it does limit choice; and I’ll get to how that can be a problem later.
There is another law, designed to protect minors from getting their hands on alcohol, that states that none of the shipping companies can leave packages with alcohol without the signature of an adult of drinking age. It’s a pretty strictly enforced law, and I blame none of the shippers and carriers for following it, the penalties are rediculously high for violations.
Erci and I are both professionals who work in office buildings, pretty long hours. The chances of any delivery catching us at home are next to negligable. We simply are not home that often. in a perfect world this would be no problem, we could notify the shipping companies that we are never home, that they can save themselves a trip and simply call us when a package comes in and we can stop by the warehouse on our way home (it literally is on the way home for UPS, Fedex, USPS, and DHL) and sign for packages. Fedex and USPS both do this routinely when the shipper says signature is required and provides our phone number. For some reason the Chantilly branch of UPS is not able to do this simple and time/effort saving trick.
Chantilly UPS insists on putting the package of alcohol, clearly marked with our phone number and the fact that we are almost never home during the day, on their delivery truck. Invariably they leave a sticker on our door with a phone number to call UPS and warning us they will only try twice more to deliver and that after that it will be held at warehouse for only 5 days. Annoying, but we can deal with that. We call UPS’s 800 number, go through voice menu hell for 10 minutes, and instruct them to hold the package at the warehouse for customer pickup. Warehouse is on the way, and warehouse hours are much better than delivery hours.
Every two months the shipment comes in from Bonnie Doon. Every two months we get three successive days of stickers on our front door (they ignore the phone calls and keep trying to deliver). Every two months I call and go to the warehouse, only to find that they have continued to try to deliver and the package is not there for me. It would be funny if it happened once. Every two months makes me an incoherent ball of rage. This last time takes the cake:
Thursday: 2/8 come home to find sticker, call UPS 800 number and instruct them to hold package.
Friday: 2/9 go to UPS warehouse Chantilly… they do not have package, it’s “on the truck” again, sure enough – sticker on door with “2nd notice” on it
bastards
Monday: 2/12 I don’t bother going by warehouse, and sure enough we get 3rd sticker marked “Final notice” – I call again anyway and instruct them to hold at warehouse for customer pickup
Tuesday: 2/13 – snow day, astonishingly I am working from home all day!!! No UPS delivery truck. Great – they finally are holding it at warehouse…
Wednesday: 2/14 – second snow day, again home. UPS truck goes through neighborhood, stops at three neighbor’s houses (I was shoveling) and not at ours – great, package must be at warehouse.
Thursday: 2/15 – more important errand
Friday: 2/16 – I go to warehouse to pick up package, guess where it is…. On the #&*%&A%$ truck!!!
To hell with Chantilly UPS, they can take the wine and shove it. I call Bonnie Doon and reluctantly cancel the standing order because they can’t switch to another carrier and UPS Chantilly are a pack of idiots.
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