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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.
I've seen something crazy, but not that crazy. That's just ... crazy.
And I thought the MSDN CDs ya get posted were bad.
They come in a box about the size of an Eee PC (but taller), and contain just a CD in a sleeve cover.
Cost of shipping 150$?
Sounds about typical for HP. Back many years ago when I was primarily an HP-UX SA, excessive packaging was the norm as well.
"I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend unto the death your right to say it." -- Voltaire
Often times when you ask the shipping department to take care of a package containing hardware, let's say in a 12 x 12 x 4 cube, they are nice enough to protect by putting it in a box with extra padding. Sometimes, when you note it's out of IT and don't notice it's already reboxed, they'll do it again.
This is not that unusual. Clearly they ship out their licenses in a box. I'd just use an envelope like those free ones from the shipping companies. But why ask why, put it in a box. Got many boxes? Put the boxes in a box.
Why not be thoughtful and put 32 pages in one box? This presumes the shipping department knows what's in the box, and even they know, why would they want to deal with all these extra boxes when they can ship them off to the customer.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
My experience with HP have been increasingly disappointing. Recently I contemplated the purchase of an HP network printer / scanner. Most network printers with an integrated scanner implement the scanner as a host-based scanner over USB. The HP unit I found seemed to be the exception. Until I read the data sheet more closely. The network scanner degrades resolution to 200dpi. For full resolution scanning, dust off your host-based USB interface. What I found annoying about this is that the brochure blithely advertised "network scanning" as fully supported.
I have a colleague who swears by HP at the enterprise level, but at this point, I wouldn't buy a consumer level appliance unless I had first exhausted the alternatives.
(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.
Remind me to never request a printed manual from HP. Every page would be in a different box.
Now that is _truly_ dirty paging. Yikes!
Ever tried ordering a 100-page printer manual from HP? I ran out of space in my lawn after the third trailer truck arrived...
Futurama Madhouse
.
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.
I feel like being forced to download HP's 600MB installer just to get one printer driver is the software equivalent of this packaging phenomenon.
HP : Hewlett Packard, Heaped Packaging, Heavy Paper, Hopeless Paperweight, Highly Priced...
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
Weird, I use email to ship keys. Its faster and *much* cheaper.
Happens with a lot of companies I have known. One company ordered around 40 new PCs' from IBM. The PC's arrived from IBM in a pair of 2m x 2m x 2m cube boxes on the inside of the container. The driver asked if our IT department happened to have a forklift truck available as it would save time unloading.
Well, we didn't, so we had to cut open the boxes and make a little door so we could get in - they had been filled to the brim with styrofoam peanuts and promptly flooded the back of the container before spilling onto the parking lot.
Then, one by one we got the monitors and main units out - all two hundred of them. By the time we were finished, there were enough styrofoam peanuts on the ground to visualize the airflow around the building. They would form streamlines and vortices all around the parking lot. It was our job to chase after every single one for recycling.
Now, mail-order companies seem to enjoy putting the smallest items in the largest boxes. Once ordered some new memory cards and hard disk drives. Each order arrived in a large desktop PC sized box filled with large plastic air-bubbles (empty sealed plastic bags filled with nothing but air), styrofoam peanuts or foam padding. In each case, the padding took up about 20 times as much space as the original item.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
At first I thought this was just a prank pulled by someone who didn't like HP, but after reading the comments I seem to have to believe it's true. It makes you see this in a whole new light.
-- Cheers!
The shipping department at HP probably get monitored on how many cubic ft of parcels they handle, with a bonus for the supervisors if they ship more than 300cuft of parcels per day.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
My...that's a big package.
There's actually a good reason behind why the power cord(s) is/are packaged separately, and hence in their own boxes - international differences in electrical sockets.
It would suck for inventory and man power if you constantly had to manage how many of each of your servers have continental europe, british, north american and so on power cords with them in the box.
By venturing more than 3 feet into the depths of this 'box' you agree that any encounters that may result between the entrant and any:
I - trolls
II - goblins or
III - beings of origins
a - Extraterrestrial
b - Indeterminate
c - Unknown
are the sole responsibility of the recipient.
Furthermore, you agree that any objects discovered therein, including but not limited to:
I - treasure,
II - artifact,
III - relics of historical significance, or
IV - the shipped product
are to remain the property of HP, inc. in perpetuity and are to be returned with 28 calendar days, with attachment of a check for the full value of any life insurance policies, savings, properties or outstanding paychecks of any of the intended package recipients who may have perished within.
Look at the packaging for a few screws!
EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
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."
This is the craziest I've ever seen personally.
A box arrived in the mail. It was maybe 10 x 6 x 4 or so. Inside that was a manila envelope. Inside that was a small box, slightly larger than a jewlers ring box. Inside that was a clear plastic pill bottle. Inside that was a small ziploc baggie.
Inside that was ONE styrafoam bead, like from a beanbag chair. it was the replacement foam bead for an anemometer.
If it turned out to have actually contained HP hardware, it would have been a much bigger waste of packaging.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
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.
Paper recycling is pointless. It biodegrades...
Theoretically. Practically, no, not once it goes into a landfill. That's why you can still find readable newspapers from half a century ago.
As a rule, stuff doesn't really biodegrade once it goes to the dump.
I just got hired by HP and I am awaiting for my contract to arrive in the mail. Its taking awhile so I hope its because it will be coming in a huge box like this.
From the strength of your opinions I'm guessing you've never seen a paper mill or know that making pulp from trees for use in cardboard creates sulfur dioxide.
'Here is a list of things recycled paper is environmentally better for than virgin paper: less bleaching, less energy, less pollutants, more benign pollutants, less impact on natural resources, less water, less waste to dispose of. The only waste product that is more of a problem with recycled paper is the sludge produced by removing ink and additives. However, this sludge is material that would otherwise be in landfills and it has repeatedly been proven to be non-toxic.'
- From The Society for Natural Resources Conservation, Cornell University
Yeah, I know you're going to come back at me with a quote from Rush Limbaugh or some advertisement you saw on tv... Or dismiss Cornell University as a hippy haven of intellectuals... Whatever.
Large warehouse management systems usually have a "footprint code" (or some other similar term) for all the items in the system that they ship. If someone is lazy and doesn't put one in (or uses some default setting) then the system picks the wrong size box to ship the product. The crew working shipping can't change it so they just ship it and tell the monkeys in charge they've got a bad footprint. *Hopefully* someone cares enough to actually change it to the right code. I've seen 100 CD's go out in 100 separate boxes for this reason.
No its the fact that Ron Paul is a nutbar is the reason that people don't like Ron Paul.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
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...
You are spot on with this comment. The problem with hemp is the fact that it is called hemp and this word is synonymous with marijuana so in the eyes of the public it is bad and for some competing business this is a good thing to foster. What many people fail to realise is that linen which is still a prized fabric is actually made from hemp and linen can last quite a long time (well over 100 years) because of its hard wearing properties (maybe that is why some business don't want to compete with it). Many beneficial products can be made from the hemp plant (not the one you get marijuana from) and today many countries are starting to realise that this plant has been much maligned. For more information on hemp this site is a good start .
Anyway back on topic. I get software informational updates from HP and also from other vendors and most vendors do provide a cardboard box with one or two slips of paper. This IMHO is annoying because I have no use for the box and in many cases the slips of paper are just as useless. From my personal experience the best vendor for reducing waste is Redhat. (others may have different experiences) I only get email advisories which is all I want. Actually many years ago HP did this as well.
Oh and what happened to "quote", even "blockquote" does not work properly?
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
... What many people fail to realise is that linen which is still a prized fabric is actually made from hemp and linen can last quite a long time...
I don't think so. Linen is made from Flax fibres http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linen as a simple wiki reference can confirm. My grandparents grew up in an area where flax was grown for linen production.
It's called the ICC, Intel C Compiler. The reason people pay for it is because it is the fastest damn compiler out there. Every time I see compiler tests done there is always some back and forth, some are faster at one thing, some at others. Newer ones are generally faster than old ones... Then, at the top of the pack, is ICC. It produces the fastest code in EVERY test.
Now if this were Intel marketing material, ok, but this is every test of the compilers I've ever seen done by third parties. Intel's compiler just knows how to produce extremely optimised code for their processors.
As such, it is no surprise that people buy it.
I once received a large box from HP containing several smaller boxes of stuff. The final one was one of those 9x12x3 boxes other people have mentioned. Inside it was a single sheet of paper that read, in its entirety: This box intentionally empty.
It can also be done more cheaply with Xylene (paint thinner). I just love to see huge chunks of styrofoam melt into a goo! :D Plus if you're really out for a good time, the resulting goo should still be flammable...obviously there are safety and environmental issues there though.
Back in high school, we used to mix Styrofoam and gasoline. We'd hit the furniture store dumpster after closing on delivery-day and load the cars up with all the Styrofoam we could stuff in. Then go out to the desert, pour a couple of gallons of gas in a waste basket and start chucking in the Styrofoam. Pour our the resulting sludge and light. It burns hot and burns for a long time.
Very environmentally unfriendly and you're likely to inhale way too much vaporous gasoline, but good fun for juvenile fire-bugs.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.