I live far from a hub. Used a certain nameless shipper for dealing with DELL because that's all they use(d at the time).
Each time hardware would arrive, it would be physically tortured - once a huge dent in the bottom of the frame (did they drop it repeatedly on a guardrail out on the freeway?), once broken IN HALF!
Sending was equally fun. A large multiprocessor cabinet was to go overnight. Pickup time: the guy brought a van too short. He simply dumped it over on its side and slid it in (despite THIS END UP stickers all over). Off to the terminal!
Didn't see it for a week. They had no idea whatsoever where it went. Turns out the guy was late to the airport, so just dumped it into a truck going somewhere. A truck on an odyssey of discovery apparently, finally turned up a week later in Tennessee.
I work next to a hub. I want the option to just walk over there and pick it up there rather than wait for hours, refreshing the "track package" page waiting for "delivered" so I can run to the dock only to find it is already being carted around the building looking for my desk. Email me when it arrives at the hub, and I'll pick it up before the truck would have left to haul it around for hours.
Some guys I went to school with have started a company trying to solve this problem. It involves having your package delivered to a glorified electronic mailbox in your area. The courier delivers it to the box; you get an email with a pin code for retrieving your parcel. http://corporate.bufferbox.com/
Such a system has been deployed countrywide in Germany, by the former national post office. It's really, really useful, especially since you can even send off packages from there.
Each time hardware would arrive, it would be physically tortured - once a huge dent in the bottom of the frame (did they drop it repeatedly on a guardrail out on the freeway?), once broken IN HALF!
Sending was equally fun. A large multiprocessor cabinet was to go overnight. Pickup time: the guy brought a van too short. He simply dumped it over on its side and slid it in (despite THIS END UP stickers all over). Off to the terminal!
Didn't see it for a week. They had no idea whatsoever where it went. Turns out the guy was late to the airport, so just dumped it into a truck going somewhere. A truck on an odyssey of discovery apparently, finally turned up a week later in Tennessee.