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HP Shatters Excessive Packaging World Record
An anonymous reader writes "HP customers will be familiar with their bizarre packaging practices (5 pounds of packaging for 8 license keys!); lets just say this story is not an isolated incident ... " I've seen some excessive packaging, but perhaps nothing to top this.
(Posting anonymously for obvious reasons)
When working for a spin-off of HP, we did a licence audit and decided we needed 500 or so C++ compiler licences for compliance. Order them. Expect a single A4 sheet back saying we're covered.
Instead, we get a pair of huge 2m x 2m x 2m boxes, on shipping palets, containing 500 smaller A4-sized cardboard boxes, each containing an A4 paper licence. This was soul-destroying fail of the highest level and led me down the path to BOFH-dom.
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I repeat: 1 roll of scotch tape in an huge box full of peanuts. Shipping was free.
P.S. I have have the receipt but not a picture of the box as it was in 2006.
Look at the packaging for a few screws!
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Someone named John Robson commented on the story linked by the Slashdot story. He said, "HP should be penalised for that."
No need to worry, John. HP is in a Slashdot story. There will be very capable people, I think, who say to themselves, "Maybe I should apply for a job at HP. Nah, maybe not."
The parent comment says, "My experience[s] with HP have been increasingly disappointing. Recently..."
That's been our experience, too. HP seems to be getting a little better, however, now that Carly Fiorina has left. Before, it was REALLY ugly.
How does excessive packaging happen? It happens because people become so unhappy working for a company that they slip into becoming robotic drones. Nothing matters. They just try to get through each day. Illogical packaging is only one of the many, many illogical things that happen every day. Those people never go to hell, because if they arrive there, Satan says, "You've suffered enough. You don't belong here."
HP has given me boxes that size for 4 screws in a plastic bag, wrapped in foam. Repeatedly.
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While I'm not familiar with how Greenpeace came up with its ranking, I do know that the book "Paper or Plastic: Searching for Solutions to an Overpackaged World" by David Imhoff included an anecdote that HP reduced packaging and lowered supply-chain losses and costs all in one.
Instead of shipping printers (perhaps only a certain model or type) in individually-packaged boxes on skids, HP had a tray-like thing (like what you get at a fast food place for drinks) that held many printers. This was then wrapped with clear skid wrapping.
Because they weren't boxed individually, you could fit many more on each skid. Because the contents were visible from the outside, forklift operators were more careful and there was less damage in warehouses.
It is very likely that HP pre-packages its licenses in these boxes, and the economics of it probably works out that most of them are sent individually. It is thus simpler for them to send out many individually-packaged boxes to customers who purchase multiple licenses, than to have someone remove the papers from the boxes in the warehouse, find an appropriate envelope to put them in, and then do something with the box.
You, the customer, would no longer get the many boxes, but they would probably be used and discarded further up before they get to you, analogous to when recycling bins get emptied into the same dumpster as the trash.
- RG>
(the "idle" comment form is really weird in SeaMonkey)
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
Wow! Looks like HP has gotten more efficient in their shipping.
About ten years ago I get back from lunch to find a huge box at my desk. Typical workstation plus monitor size box from HP with a shipping label was like 4ft+ cube. Was not exactly sure what it was so got to openning it. Inside that box was another slightly smaller box also with a shipping label listing one HP address to another HP address. This went on for quite a while til I got to a small box with padding. (If I recall the stuff have been shipped a total of 5 times adding several boxes each time) Inside that box was a large manila envelope. Inside manila envelope was a white envelope (or might have been the other way around) it has been a while. Inside that was a single 5" by 6" sheet of paper with a single license for the HP-UX 9 C++ compiler.
I had order 5 licenses... the next day another of the licenses came, though at least the outer box was not quite as large. I often wondered if it was either that there shipping system was set up for just sending license keys or if they really wanted to make sure that piece of paper didn't get lost in the mail.
The other odd thing was the licenses didn't include any serial numbers or what not, just the B code number for the software and a statement about it being 1 license.
It is very likely that HP pre-packages its licenses in these boxes, and the economics of it probably works out that most of them are sent individually. It is thus simpler for them to send out many individually-packaged boxes to customers who purchase multiple licenses, than to have someone remove the papers from the boxes in the warehouse, find an appropriate envelope to put them in, and then do something with the box.
The question is thus why are HP "pre-packing" them in boxes, rather than envelopes, in the first place?
A while ago, our company ordered an upgraded protocol license for some Intel telecommunications gear.
A few days later, a big box shows up -- I think a 2 x 2 x 2 foot cube. In that box was a wad of packing peanuts, as well as a padded envelope...
When we opened the envelope, we expected to find a license button, which would be physically installed in our equipment. There would be no reason to ship that in a large box, but at least a license button would have been some tangible product that justified shipping.
Alas, the envelope contained no license button after all. Instead, it contained a single sheet of paper complete with instructions on how to access a web site, and a validation code to use. That validation code would then give us an actual license key, which we could then enter into our equipment to unlock the extra protocol features (that were already built in to the equipment).
I can't quite put my finger on it, but something seems a little wasteful here... I'm *sure* if somebody thought hard about this, they could probably find a way to do the whole thing electronically...
It's not just overseas mail... international mail TO the US suffers that way, also. A few years ago, my father tried to send me a box of chocolates from Europe (Belgian chocolates, sent from England). Like a fair amount of my overseas mail (and my baggage, every time I fly here! I should've known better than to study the effects of terrorism on a democracy for my Master's - and admit it once to an immigration official who promptly searched me!), it arrived with a little slip indicating that it had been inspected. The box of chocolates was intact with one minor detail: all the chocolate was gone! A perfectly formed box, re-taped shut... but no chocolate.
Last Christmas, I talked to a few (usually also immigrants) people who had their Christmas purchases in the US arrive opened, also.
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