2001-07-25 - 11:56 p.m.

At the Mercy of UPS (Again)

Sigh. I knew it would happen. If you do this long enough you start to repeat yourself.

The short form: there was a major UPS screw-up today with my new comics.

My relationship with the United Parcel Service is mainly detailed in the link above, but I'll encapsulate it here.

Once upon a time, in a golden age long ago (1995) my distributor used to deliver my new comics to me with their own van. Ah, life was so easy then. And get this, they did it for FREE.

But alas, when Diamond Comic Distributors became essentially the only comic distributor in North America they instituted some cost-cutting measures. First, they had UPS doing their deliveries for them, and second they charged us for it. So not only do I have to put up with the vagaries of UPS delivery, but it costs me several thousand dollars a year.

Let me restate that - getting our new comics is now a big pain in the ass, subject to irregularities, and we have to PAY for it.

Hmmm.

Nope. No matter how I look at look at it, it's not a good thing.

Because the UPS truck delivers rather late in the afternoon around here, I have to pick up our comics at the UPS hub, about 12 miles away.

The UPS hub is a huge cinderblock building, the size of several aircraft hangars scrunched together. It reeks of diesel fuel and it's full of guys wearing brown shorts. On my list of favorite places to hang out, it's pretty far from the top.

Just looking at the number of lost-looking piles of boxes lying around on a typical Wednesday makes me wonder why they don't lose boxes EVERY week. Well, this week the law of averages clobbered me on the head again.

I was supposed to get eight boxes and only got seven. And not only that, I knew the missing box was a 40 pound box, so that meant it had comics in it. Boxes with comics are more of a pain to lose than other, lighter boxes which contain toys or other merchandise. Comics are much more time-sensitive. If we get some titles a week late because of a lost box, people may buy them elsewhere, and I'll be stuck with them.

I had the fellow at the UPS hub look for the box, but it did not turn up. In fact there were TWO boxes missing at first, but he found one.

So back I went to Frown Town, short a box. When the Manager opened them up back at the store, our worst fears were confirmed - we completely missed three of the week's hottest books - Wolverine, Green Arrow and Batman.

When I found this out I did everything humanly possible to track down the box. I called the UPS tracking line, and according to the recorded voice, the box had shown up at the UPS hub. I then called the hub and had a real person check again - no luck. I even called the other store owner who usually picks up the comics with me - he had not picked up our box by mistake. However, he was missing three boxes himself. This was not good news - it meant that the screw-up was bigger than just us.

A couple of hours later the box turned up - it had been delivered to a comic store in a nearby city by mistake. How it got there is a mystery. The box was marked "hold for pick-up" and the only address it had on it was that of the UPS hub itself.

So I hopped in my car and drove the 20 or so miles to get our wayward box.

It's been hot the last couple of days, and today was no exception. Again, I was getting baked in my car - it has no air conditioning and a black interior. I passed a bank with a thermometer outside and it read 90 degrees. It certainly felt that hot, but at least it wasn't as muggy as it had been the last couple of days.

I got to the other comic store and had a nice visit with the store owner, who's been a friend of mine for several years. He and his assistant were unpacking the comics from their boxes - and counting their losses. Whereas I had been missing one box, they were missing FOUR. They are a significantly bigger store than me, but that is still a much bigger hit than I got. Ironically, they were missing the same titles that were in the box I was just picking up from them.

He was unconcerned about his missing boxes, because he knew where they were - at a comic books store some 150 miles to the east. How on earth did they get there? God only knows.

So what we have is a big annoying mess. What's most perplexing is that one explanation doesn't cover all the mistakes. Obviously my box wound up at my friend's song because some dumb UPS employee didn’t take the time to actually read the label on the box, but rather assumed that it was a comic store box going to the big comic store with all the other comic store boxes. But that doesn't explain everyone else's missing boxes.

It's not a mystery that I'm really that eager to solve - unless it happens again. One time we lost boxes because UPS misplaced a whole truck.

As you can tell, I love the fact that something vital to my business depends on acts of fate like that.

Anyway, I don't think I spent very long in the other store, but when I got back in the car I got two examples of how very hot it was.

On the way there I'd bought a soda in a plastic cup from a fast food place. The soda was still 2/3 full and some of the ice was still unmelted. However when I picked up the cup by the 1/3 that had no cold soda in it, the plastic was as soft as cheese.

There was also a receipt on the passenger seat from a fast food place that was printed on some sort of heat-sensitive paper. The heat in the car had turned the entire thing pitch black.

So that was the tale of the Missing Box. I'd like to think that I won't have to bore all of you (and myself) with another story like this, but I don't think that's likely. As sure as rain and snow, there will be more Adventures in Mis-delivery with UPS.