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Comment by enraged_camel | Hacker News Reader

It's not about laziness. Fedex and UP ruthlessly measures the efficiency of their drivers by timing their every single activity. This information is displayed in real-time to managers back at the warehouse, who can see, for instance, if a particular delivery is taking longer than average.

This is why many drivers game the system by skipping deliveries that they think will take too long, or (for packages that require signature) wait for only ~5 seconds after knocking on the door before deciding that you must not be home.

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Wouldn't that then imply that you would get worse service from Fedex and UPS, where the drivers have more to gain by cutting corners? But the reality is really the exact opposite.

I don't know what the criterion is for not leaving a package, but it typically seems that UPS or FedEx will leave a package whereas USPS will not. Even for trivial, cheap packages like a roll of posters, USPS will leave a dreaded pink slip requiring me to visit the post office. While I have had that happen with UPS, those incidents are few and far in between. For me leaving the package is often the difference between getting it or not.

I will say, I usually work from home if I'm expecting something important and that UPS often does not seem to knock or if they do they've hired the world's quietest knockers. Perhaps they think I'm not home since I have a concealed driveway and just don't bother, but it definitely seems their high expectations do have some drawbacks.

If UPS does not meet it's promise, sometimes the paying customer is reimbursed ( first hand experience with Farnell delivering to me, while speaking with UPS service personnel ).

It's highly dependent on where you live and the individual driver assigned to your route.

I used to absolutely wonder in confusion why people complained about the USPS - where I grew up it was always cheaper and generally more reliable than UPS or Fedex. Plus if you ever had to go into the Post Office the people were downright pleasant and competent.

Then I moved to Chicago, and I instantly realized the reputation was deserved. It was essentially two entirely different postal systems, you would simply not recognize them as the same "company".

UPS and Fedex I've both had utterly fail for me living in different locations, just lazy worthless drivers happened to be assigned to me.

I will say all the complaining about "leaving packages to get stolen" needs to stop - if you're concerned get a box to put them in. Otherwise it's not reasonable to have these guys wait on you to come to to door. Sure it's only 30 seconds, but that's 30 seconds multiplied by 200 each day. Sure there will be some shrink just like a retail store, but it's still overall much more efficient.

My USPS drivers are so shiftless I have no reason to believe they would put packages in a box if I had one. They have left boxes on the driveway in the rain even though there is a covered porch a few feet away. I routinely get my neighbors' mail. USPS is so bad that I do everything I can to not receive mail.

> Otherwise it's not reasonable to have these guys wait on you to come to to door. Sure it's only 30 seconds, but that's 30 seconds multiplied by 200 each day

The only place I've had packages left outside is in the US. In every other country, every package that doesn't fit in the mailbox requires you to come to the door (or in many cases, it will require you to pick it up at a local postal pickup point, usually a nearby supermarket/convenience store/gas station)

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