That’s not as bad as getting this notification from Amazon: “We temporarily lost signal from your delivery driver, but your order is still on the way.”
retailer: your thing is ready to ship!
me: is it on its way
retailer: no
me: does the carrier have it
retailer: no
me: so what did you do
retailer: well we put it over there
me: ...
retailer: and printed out a label
me: ...
retailer: and put a label on it
me: what do you want, a fucking medal?
what's funny about it is, they're celebrating the fact that their system can generate alerts about any time an action causes a row to be inserted into a database. The label printer causes an action_occured event.
retailer: but we did our bit
me: congratulations
retailer: ...
me: that's like the absolute minimum you'd have to do to get something to me
retailer: but we did a thing!!!!
me: ok so can I track it
retailer: no
me: why not
retailer: because the carrie-
me: carrier doesn't have it yet yes I know
me: you see the problem here
retailer: what problem
me: this isn't like an actual step I care about
retailer: what, printing a label?
me: no. I do not care about that
retailer: well what do you care about?
me: I care about when it's actually on its way
retailer: but it is on its way!
me: no it's not
retailer: yes it is
me: can you see it
retailer: yes
me: is it moving
retailer: ...
me: is it moving
retailer: ...
me: is it moving away from you and getting smaller
retailer: ...
me: I thought so
retailer: but you don't understand we did a thing
me: look, see
retailer: ...
me: what you did was this
retailer: ...
me: your workflow says that the status of the thing I want changed from "no label" to "label"
retailer: yes! we did it!
me: I don't care
retailer: ...
me: I literally don't care
retailer: but-
me: oh look you're competent well done
retailer: but we thought you'd want to kno-
me: do you know how many emails I get a day
retailer: ...
me: do you fucking know
retailer: is it
me and retailer: too many
me: yes. too many.
retailer: ...
I feel the same and yet I'm pretty sure what I really care about is the arrival of the package on my doorstep. Reading that it's "on its way" is only interesting insofar as it gives me reasonable hope of arrival on a particular date.
So in theory, if the seller could credibly assure me, "USPS will have it in four days (and then take three days to deliver it)", that would be as nice as knowing USPS had it and would take a week to deliver.
Excuse me, no. I use a local service that aggregates several different courier services so I can compare prices and select the best one depending on where I’m sending, that integrates with Shopify.
Similarly, retailers must not offer me a pre-order of a thing so far in advance that I completely forget pre-ordering it by the time it's released to ship... 😬
I used to work for FedEx Customer Service and let me tell you, most of us are just as confused about it. The problem is that we are being watched like hawks and have to pretend the policies and how the system works are perfectly sensible.
notifying me of a shipping label feels like a step or two below giving me a participation trophy. like i'll take it but i feel vaguely patronized by it
Comments
me: is it on its way
retailer: no
me: does the carrier have it
retailer: no
me: so what did you do
retailer: well we put it over there
me: ...
retailer: and printed out a label
me: ...
retailer: and put a label on it
me: what do you want, a fucking medal?
me: congratulations
retailer: ...
me: that's like the absolute minimum you'd have to do to get something to me
retailer: but we did a thing!!!!
me: ok so can I track it
retailer: no
me: why not
retailer: because the carrie-
me: carrier doesn't have it yet yes I know
retailer: what problem
me: this isn't like an actual step I care about
retailer: what, printing a label?
me: no. I do not care about that
retailer: well what do you care about?
me: I care about when it's actually on its way
me: no it's not
retailer: yes it is
me: can you see it
retailer: yes
me: is it moving
retailer: ...
me: is it moving
retailer: ...
me: is it moving away from you and getting smaller
retailer: ...
me: I thought so
me: look, see
retailer: ...
me: what you did was this
retailer: ...
me: your workflow says that the status of the thing I want changed from "no label" to "label"
retailer: yes! we did it!
me: I don't care
retailer: ...
me: I literally don't care
me: oh look you're competent well done
retailer: but we thought you'd want to kno-
me: do you know how many emails I get a day
retailer: ...
me: do you fucking know
retailer: is it
me and retailer: too many
me: yes. too many.
retailer: ...
“Amazon”?