UPS - Your Computer Repair Depot?

dcsmith writes "UPS and Toshiba are entering into an agreement to have UPS provide warranty service on Toshiba laptops. Might not be as weird as it sounds -- they claim that the bulk of the effort in a computer repair is moving the computer and the necessary parts together. The actual repair itself is often trivial. I'm not sure I'm onboard 100%, but if its a faulty display or a bad CD drive, this might actually work ..."

Comments

UPS Transforming Organ Donation/Transplantation

[morcheeba]

This is basically the same problem organ transplantation has - transporting and speed is essential. Hearts and lungs must be transplanted within approximately 4 hours after being removed from the donor. Livers can be preserved between 12 - 18 hours; pancreas can be preserved 8 - 12 hours; intestines can be preserved approximately 8 hours; kidneys can be preserved 24 - 48 hours. (quoted from ) I wouldn't be too surprised to see the UPS people coming out from the back room in scrubs (and shorts, of course), and then washing up really well before going back.

Closed the loop

[Anonymous Coward]

Since they're responsible for breaking most of the notebook computers during delivery, they decided to close the loop and profit from it.

DIY

[Anonymous Custard]

I wish companies offered discounted DIY warranties, where they shipped you the part and a short instruction sheet and you could replace it yourself, even for semi-complicated things like keyboards.

Basically, it'd be a warranty on only parts, but you could choose to supply your own labor (instead of paying them to do it).

Re:Soooo

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I don't think I trust the brown men with my laptop.

Racist!!!

Yeah, its true.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll post this AC for fear of being hunted down and slaughtered by my evil UPS-corporate overlords... but the rumours are true. We, at UPS, really do drop-kick your boxes. Off the trucks to the belt isn't so bad, the damages happen in the trailer. They crank the belt up so high that packages will literally start piling into the ass end of the trailer if your packers aren't working fast enough. Unfortunatly, most of the time the only way to work fast enough is to not give a shit about the packages, and just start throwing them. But of course, the managers would never slow the belts down, because then we might be a little late *gasp*. So yeah, you basically get trained to break things.

After a while it becomes fun though, almost like a game. We do all sorts of stuff to your crap. Sit on boxes, stand on boxes, drop boxes, throw them, kick them, drop heavy boxes on lighter boxes... its a great stress reliever really! Some highlights from my UPS-trailer career include:

- Sliding on packages down the rollers like a slip'n'slide.
- Taking long, heavy automotive parts like suspension pieces, and using them as javelins to impale other boxes
- Finding the absolute heaviest package on the truck, lining it up over some other boxes, and then going "Oops!" as you roll it into the belly to smash the other boxes
- Using any sort of metallic crate, case, or box, and tossing it onto other boxes so the sharp corners rip into the packages
- Building a wall of packages until only a small, 2 ft gap is left at the top of the trailer, and then taking small, light packages, and drop-kicking them over the wall like a football player. We even keep score (honestly, we do).
- Having shotput competitions with really heavy packages. The bags we use for letters are really fun, because you can swing them like a hammer-toss for extra distance.
- Playing "smash-up-boxes", or "Darwinism". Basically two guys take random boxes and throw them at eachother and see which one survives the impact the best. The winner then takes on a new challanger. Its supposed to find the "ultimate package", but generally it just leaves a whole lot of beat up crap scattered around.

Oh, and don't bother labling your packages "fragile". For one, they don't get treated any better than anything else (the ONLY packages that get treated with kid-gloves are the specially insured high-values). For a second thing, fragiles can actually be treated WORSE than regular packages. Probably 75% of everything we move has a "fragile" sticker somewhere on it. Even if the part is an 80lb chunk of metal, you idiot customers still seem to think its "fragile" and that we need to gently carress while placing it in the trailer. So when we see boxes that are marked fragile, its kind of insulting. Especially packages that are obviously not fragile, or overly labled ("OMG FRAGIEL PLZ DONT DROP OR STAND ON END PLZ K THNX BYE!!"). We target those packages for extra abuse :).

Other things we hate and tend to abuse are boxes that are shitty and falling apart, or just too thin to hold their contents correctly. Since those kinds of things tend to bust open easilly, we like to drop the heavier stuff on them to see what happens. Also, be wary of heavier boxes with shifting loads. If a worker is ever injured by your box (contents shift and smack you in the face, box opens and contents fall on your foot or whatever), then your package will get the "royal treatment". Royal meaning we royally beat the fuck out of your stupid goddamn package. ;)


Anyways, I hope that little insight into UPS was enough to convince some of you to never ship with our shitty fucking company ever again.

Cheers! :)