Shit not going to plan unless you micromanage every last detail
Shipped a critical piece of computer hardware back east overnight. IT guy back east that handles the IT for the office it was going to clearly knew this was happening a few days prior to this so I assumed he would make arrangements to have access to the office it was being delivered to today so he could receive it.
He did not make arrangements and it didnt get delivered because the office is otherwise closed due to corona.
We have to deal with similar shit on industrial stuff.
We have 'bad' customers that will bitch and moan at us to get a shipment out for them, as if their fucking hair is on fire, then we'll see the shipment marked as undelivered/refused a day or two later. Either they have odd dock hours they don't tell us about (one place was like 'oh...we only receive before noon, then we lock the dock') or their lazy ass warehouse peons DGAF and will be AFK behind the building on a 30m smoke break, and the delivery driver just /shrugs when he can't find anyone and just returns the skid back to the hub. (then the receiver wants US to eat any charges for delivery issues)
Recently we had a place where they gave us contact information for someone that was out for a knee replacement, and the delivery driver showed up, couldn't find the address, called the guy's cell # and he didn't answer (because he was on medical leave). Then the skid came up as 'missing' and set off a 3-week fiasco
We shipped a small valve to a customer once, late in the day, via UPS Next Day Air Early AM for Saturday delivery, per their instructions. Except they had us ship it to their house. Even better, they had the weekend off, so...they brought it in to work with them...on Monday. Meanwhile people in the plant (24/7 operation) where sending out a shitstorm of emails asking us
WHERE THE FUCK IS THIS VALVE?!?
It's especially frustrating when I'm shipping something I had to build for them in a rush, putting all my other work to the side to bust my balls to get it done, and then we'll be like
"Wasn't this a fucking rush? We need the delivery address!" and then it takes a week for their corp to work out internally where something is even fucking shipping.
On the flip side, I love the customers that literally DGAF how much a courier is to hot-shot a part to them. The other day I got a ballpark quote for a local courier to deliver a 40lb part to a power plant 5 hours away, and to get it there before midnight or so, which was like $750 or $800. Guys like this are usually like
"why are you even asking, yes I'll pay that, shit that's nothing, I don't even need PO approval, my expense card will cover everything". Or they won't even ask us to set up shipping, they'll just bluntly ask
"when will it be done?" and 6-8 hours later one of their employees shows up with a flatbed truck from 2 states away.