FedEx: Setting The Bar As Low As It Goes

Every company has their particular foibles. Invariably they all have some crock of shit policy or way of handling things that leaves much to be desired. However, none have as many stupid policies that have given me as many bouts of irritable bowel syndrome as FedEx. Those conspiring fucks.

Organizations with the worst policies:

1. The Nazis
2. Westboro Baptist Church
3. FedEx
4. Every health insurance company
5. Super villain meetings

Please allow me to outline the primary and accurate ways in which FedEx unceremoniously fucks me, you and everyone via its services.

Mandated Shipping Bafoonary

The below table will outline the exact shipping timeline for a recent package I ordered with 3 day shipping on it

Date	Activity	Location	Details
18th	Picked up	Minnesota
19th	Arrived at FedEx location	Indianapolis
19th	At destination sort facility	San Diego
21st	At local FedEx facility	San Diego
22nd	At local FedEx facility	San Diego	Package not due for delivery
22nd	At local FedEx facility	San Diego	Package not due for delivery
22nd	At local FedEx facility	San Diego	Package not due for delivery
22nd	At local FedEx facility	San Diego	Go fuck yourself
23rd	Delivery at our discretion	San Diego	Hold your god damned horses

We can see that two days after I ordered the package, it was in my city. Yet it was two days after that before they began attempting delivery of said lovely box. Clearly, I ordered three day shipping on the package and they, quite foolishly, got it to its destination in only two days. Clearly this oversight could not go uncorrected.

Extrapolating turds of corporate stupidity from the delivery schedule, we come up with the following excerpt from the FedEx corporate guidelines

When a customer says "I'd like my package to come in no more than three days, please", by god, we'll sure as hell get it to them in no less than three days. Why, delivering it in any less than three days would be aspirational, and wholly unacceptable.

Should, by some unexplained bout of cognizance, a shipment arrive at its destination early, protocol dictates that you must deliver it between 1 and 3 days late, so as to remove any poorly speculated thoughts of competency.

It's better to waste time and warehouse resources by sitting on a package ready too early, then to set a reasonable and pleasant expectation with our consumers. Hell, if they wanted in a package in 2 days, instead of 3, they should have paid for overnight delivery.

Financial Rapery

You might be confused into thinking that since FedEx is loosely affiliated with couriering packages around the global landscape, that it might have a vague notion about accurate pricing models for said task. Yet, upon being tasked with shipping a package to another company, and collecting exorbitant fees to do so, we discover that HOLY SHIT there's a 100% chance of having to pay customs to get the package into said country. Should the upfront costs to the consumer reflect this cost? Absolutely not. Allow us again to refer to the FedEx corporate guidelines:

So as to best falsely curtail the expansive costs of global shipping to the end-consumer, FedEx subscribes to a very specific pricing model. Upon receiving a package from the consumer, and very precisely calculating transit costs (conscious of shipping them on a daily basis), FedEx mandates that you collect exactly 12% of the actual shipping costs from the consumer at this time.

The rest will be billed to their home address roughly 3 weeks later, with a feign sincerity about how it cost more than anticipated to deliver said package. This leaves the consumer with a exaggerated feeling that FedEx is a painless, and cost-effective choice in global shipping.

Sure, as a consumer analogy, if the shoppers at Wal-Mart paid for many goods, only to receive a bill in the mail later saying they owed Wal-Mart additional money not reflected in the suggested retail price of their items, they'd have their asses sued off. This shouldn't discourage us however. Why? Because fuck 'em. That's why.

Somewhere deep in the shipping contract you sign when you place in FedEx's charge a package of yours to be delivered, is a clause that basically whisks your normal financial practices away to a land where they're raped to death by hemorrhagic monkeys. In this clause, you give FedEx permission you charge you later for anything extra that it may cost them to do business on your behalf.

For example: If FedEx was being hit hard by fuel costs due to an increase in oil prices, they could opt to task an engineering firm to design and build a large cannon for the sole purpose of firing your package through the stratosphere to its destination. Alternatively, they could invest copious amounts of dollars into building a time machine, with the intent of bringing back crusaders from the 1100's to guard your package as it travels through foreign lands. In both of these cases, you would receive a bill and be expected to remit payment. How could they possibly have estimated these costs ahead of time, or amortized them in some way?

Financial Rapery 2: Electric Boogaloo

The exact same thing as above, only I'm the recipient of a package. Further making me intrinsically responsible for uncollected delivery fees the sender didn't pay.

Failure to submit to the either of the fiscal buttfucks above, naturally, results in legal claims or collections attempts against the end-user. Don't dare think your shipping experience is concluded, and that the money in your bank account is rightfully yours. It's FedEx's money, you just haven't been notified of that yet.