Luck? Prepaired? What the...?
Feb. 7th, 2003 09:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolphins_logI wasn't going to go into the events of yesterday, those events that didn't matter. Something happened today that was... rather freaky.
We have a customer that wanted their $32,000 order shipped to a freight consolidator in Seattle so that it could get to Alaska with less freight cost. That came to 18 boxes of freight. Since I drive by the UPS base station in Bremerton on my way home I thought I'd just load up my father's Toyota T-100 and take it there myself. I'd save the customer some money.
The load in the truck was a bit precarious. There were two levels of nine boxes each. the second level was above the truck walls and would easily slide off if they weren't lashed down. I chose to drive the back roads. I had about an hour and a half before UPS closed.
The turn signal was dead, so I killed about a half hour fixing that. Napa was kind enough to lend me the tools since my tools were on their way to Bainbridge with my father and my car.
With a hour left I headed out of Poulsbo towards Bremerton. When I got to Silverdale I realized with dread that I had forgotten to bring the address with me. I pushed on, hoping that the address was in the UPS computer.
I made one stop because a passing driver warned me that my load had shifted. "EEK!"
I got to the UPS base and found no address. I did, however, remember the customer's phone number in Alaska, and I had one of those calling cards with minutes on it. As I keyed my way through the prompts they told me I had 6 minutes. Just enough. I got through to the customer, but the owners were out of town in Arizona. The clerk had their cell phone number though. "Just a second." tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick
He got back on the phone and gave me the number. I got back on the phone and keyed through the prompts. The prompts told me I had one minute left. That was not enough. UPS was about to close. I called customer service and recharged the card.
I then got through to our customer in Arizona. They were in their car on their way home from a nice dinner. They happened to have the address, and "Why are you shipping it UPS? Can't you drive it to Seattle? Here's the address. Boyer Alaska Barge Lines West Marginal Way South West." I got the freight out. YEAY RESOURCEFUL ME!
So that was yesterday. Here is the freaky part:
Today when I got to work to process the invoices I saw that the ship to address on the picking slips was 4th Avenue South and not West Marginal Way SW. I imagined with more dread, 18 boxes of freight showing up at Boyer's Office rather than their terminal. I imagined them refusing delivery. I imagined a long bit of time before the freight came back to us. EXTREMELY HEAVY SIGH!!!
I got Boyer's phone number from information and gave them a call. I told them my dilemma, about how the freight is going to West Marginal Way SW and was that one of their addresses?
"Sir, that's the address of our terminal, yes. We purchased Boyer Barge last year and moved out of 4th avenue. That 4th Avenue address is a vacant warehouse. We're not tenants there any longer."
Okay, I'm in a bit of shock. The address that I was going to send $32,000 worth of freight to, had I remembered to bring that address with me, is now an empty warehouse. If I had not called for the correct address... Had I instead, returned to Poulsbo to ship another day instead of pushing on, confident that something would work out... All that freight would have ended up on an abandoned loading dock in SODO [no, UPS would have brought it back]. But, Wow!
Luck? Opportunity? Preparedness? Freaky, but sometimes... I'm betting most of the time... things work out.
We have a customer that wanted their $32,000 order shipped to a freight consolidator in Seattle so that it could get to Alaska with less freight cost. That came to 18 boxes of freight. Since I drive by the UPS base station in Bremerton on my way home I thought I'd just load up my father's Toyota T-100 and take it there myself. I'd save the customer some money.
The load in the truck was a bit precarious. There were two levels of nine boxes each. the second level was above the truck walls and would easily slide off if they weren't lashed down. I chose to drive the back roads. I had about an hour and a half before UPS closed.
The turn signal was dead, so I killed about a half hour fixing that. Napa was kind enough to lend me the tools since my tools were on their way to Bainbridge with my father and my car.
With a hour left I headed out of Poulsbo towards Bremerton. When I got to Silverdale I realized with dread that I had forgotten to bring the address with me. I pushed on, hoping that the address was in the UPS computer.
I made one stop because a passing driver warned me that my load had shifted. "EEK!"
I got to the UPS base and found no address. I did, however, remember the customer's phone number in Alaska, and I had one of those calling cards with minutes on it. As I keyed my way through the prompts they told me I had 6 minutes. Just enough. I got through to the customer, but the owners were out of town in Arizona. The clerk had their cell phone number though. "Just a second." tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick
He got back on the phone and gave me the number. I got back on the phone and keyed through the prompts. The prompts told me I had one minute left. That was not enough. UPS was about to close. I called customer service and recharged the card.
I then got through to our customer in Arizona. They were in their car on their way home from a nice dinner. They happened to have the address, and "Why are you shipping it UPS? Can't you drive it to Seattle? Here's the address. Boyer Alaska Barge Lines West Marginal Way South West." I got the freight out. YEAY RESOURCEFUL ME!
So that was yesterday. Here is the freaky part:
Today when I got to work to process the invoices I saw that the ship to address on the picking slips was 4th Avenue South and not West Marginal Way SW. I imagined with more dread, 18 boxes of freight showing up at Boyer's Office rather than their terminal. I imagined them refusing delivery. I imagined a long bit of time before the freight came back to us. EXTREMELY HEAVY SIGH!!!
I got Boyer's phone number from information and gave them a call. I told them my dilemma, about how the freight is going to West Marginal Way SW and was that one of their addresses?
"Sir, that's the address of our terminal, yes. We purchased Boyer Barge last year and moved out of 4th avenue. That 4th Avenue address is a vacant warehouse. We're not tenants there any longer."
Okay, I'm in a bit of shock. The address that I was going to send $32,000 worth of freight to, had I remembered to bring that address with me, is now an empty warehouse. If I had not called for the correct address... Had I instead, returned to Poulsbo to ship another day instead of pushing on, confident that something would work out... All that freight would have ended up on an abandoned loading dock in SODO [no, UPS would have brought it back]. But, Wow!
Luck? Opportunity? Preparedness? Freaky, but sometimes... I'm betting most of the time... things work out.
