Not UPS

One of our customers is a medical supply company which sends its equipment out with us to the patients, wherever they may be: hospital, nursing home, or home. On occasion, they send us to pick it up again.

Yesterday I got one of those return runs. It was a huge complex, one of those places where the main building is a large "C" enclosing their parking lot on three sides. Finding the main entrance (they had signs with arrows) among the many, I walked up to the main info desk and asked for the specific location I had been given. The instructions went something like, "Go down that hallway, take the first left down a long corridor, pass through the blue double doors, well maybe they're green or blue-green, and the nursing station will be on your left." I enquired whether this was the closest entrance to that nursing station and was assured it was.

You wonder how some people hold their jobs. I walked. And I walked. On my way I passed two more entrances, and through many double doors, none of them blue. Or green, for that matter. Finally I stopped at the first nursing station I found and asked where the blue doors were, since that was my landmark. She was very puzzled. She knew nothing about any blue doors. However, this was in fact my destination, and she had the case of equipment I was there to pick up.

"But I just called twenty-five minutes ago, and they said UPS was coming out tomorrow. I haven't even had time to find it a box."

I assured her that sometimes they sent us instead of UPS, that it was all enclosed in a case and thus didn't absolutely require a box, that I could get it there safely without one.

"Well, they said you'd be coming with a UPS label for it. Do you have a UPS label?" This was said with a look that assured me she was checking my bona fides, and she wasn't going to let the case go out the door with just anybody. I patiently explained that UPS sends all its packages to a big central distribution area, and ships out from there. It's handled by lots of different people. I, on the other hand, was delivering it straight to the company requesting it, and didn't need a label to know where I was going. After about another second of indecision, she suddenly decided and thrust the case at me. But just in case I was somehow pulling a fast one on her (how would I have gotten the information on what and where to pick up? I'm psychic?) she asked for my name. I gave it to her along with spelling the company name and giving her my driver number.

Then I left via her entrance door and took the short path across the parking lot.