This is going to be a rant with a question at the end, asking how to end this infinite loop of nondelivery?

So my friend bought a new laptop from Lenovo back in December. It was supposed to be delivered by UPS but of course they were going to attempt to deliver it while my friend is at work.

He attempted to have it delivered to a relay point and the website agreed to this. The relay point never received it. When we called customer support, they said they can’t deliver it to a relay point. Despite the site letting us reprogram it to one.

Next, I chatted with Lenovo and they were like the agent cannot talk to UPS directly. There is an internal department that handles this, according to them. It will take three to five days for the investigation. No news after five days.

We called UPS again and they said they would deliver it on Monday. And then eventually on Wednesday before 1PM. My friend took half day off in the morning for this. The delivery guy called my friend at 3PM to deliver it. He asked to reprogram it to Friday. The deliveryman agreed. And now we are waiting.

If this package still doesn’t arrive, two weeks later, I am going to lose my mind!

This is even the abridged version. There was one point where the customer service person told us to go get it at the relay point when the website clearly said it wasn’t there.

I don’t understand how delivery companies like UPS fuck this up and insist on delivering during the workday.

What or how do you manage this endless circus of customer service representatives not being accountable for contradictions? Has someone cracked the code and figured out how to get it delivered at a proper time?

A couple of years ago I heard a knock, went to the door, saw the FedEx guy walking away, called out to him, then again and again, louder and louder. He just walked into his truck and drove off. And my front door was right on the street, so there's no way he didn't hear me.

Today my mother opens the door after a knock, and the driver's driving off. And he waves at her as he goes.

I have lots of other complaints about FedEx, and I wonder if these stories are symptoms of a dysfunctional company, mistreating workers, etc. Or maybe we're just on the beat of a dude with a 'tude.

I was watching this video. The auto-translated subtitles are not great, but I followed along a bit.

We tried 15 types of Biryani

It made me realise that in the UK I have access to a very limited selection of biryani. From a supermarket it will look like this: https://www.iceland.co.uk/p/iceland-chicken-biryani-375g/87458.html. I'm missing so much knowledge about an enormous region that covers over a billion people.

I'd be really interested to hear about biryani, especially regional variations with different ingredients. What things are essential and often missed? What makes a biryani great?

I'd also love to hear more about delivery - those "handi" ceramic dum cooked to order pots look amazing. There's another video here of an "unboxing" - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Q5OA4XiGl34 , and the makers have a video here too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6nE1Nla3u0

Mods: I put this in Tech because Amazon is a tech company, if this is the wrong group I apologize.

For the last several purchases I have made through Amazon, not only has the advertised "expected delivery date" been wrong, Amazon hasn't even shipped the product by the delivery date. The day I expect an order to arrive, I get a notice from Amazon saying it's "running late" and the new expected delivery date is anywhere from 4 to 10 days away.

This is on top of the fact that I have Amazon Prime. Prime eligible meant "it would be delivered within two days" for the better part of a decade. They slowly transitioned away from that to "two days delivery after it ships," and now it seems like half of everything takes 5-8 days to deliver, even with Prime.

Anyway, the reason I reported them to the FTC because I believe they are advertising misleading or downright incorrect delivery times in hopes of winning your business over a competitor who is honest about their delivery times. If I want a monitor and Best Buy has it for $200 with 3-5 day shipping, and Amazon advertises it being delivered on day 3, I'm probably going to go with Amazon if I'm in urgent need of a monitor. But then the third day rolls around and Amazon indicates "oh, well, it's probably going to be 3-4 more days." If I had known that, I would have just gone with Best Buy, where I know it would have at least been delivered in 5 days; now I'm stuck waiting a week for Amazon.

I don't even know if this is something the FTC cares about. But it should. I encourage everyone to report this if they've encountered the same issue.