Filed under: Anecdotes
Working in a bike shop you quickly get excited about the delivery people. The UPS dude especially. UPS seems to be the standard method of shipping for most of the distributors, I’ve heard the term brown santa a couple times, and its true. It’s usually like Christmas morning once you start taking in the new inventory. Throwing the craft paper/bubble wrap/newspaper/whatever over your shoulder looking for that new component you ordered for yourself. Federal Express is just a bit less frequent and only a little less exciting. It’s probably different in other parts of the country maybe.
One driver we frequently get, Jim with UPS, is a rad dude. When he can, he’ll hang out and chat a bit about this or that. Sometimes merely about the weather, or about coffee, other times (probably when he’s been cut off by a cyclist or something similar) he asks how we (bikers) do what we do in some specific manner depending on the circumstances I’m guessing. Pretty casual dude—nicely open-minded, but I can tell that while he’s interested, he doesn’t ride a bike too much.
Getting a shipment of bikes is another story. It is exciting to open up a box with a new bike it it, but that wears off after the first few that you need to assemble. The delivery person though, that’s completely hit or miss; these shipments usually come from some miscellaneous charter company. The guy the other day was really nice and helpful. He actually used the tommy lift on the back of his truck, volunteered to take his pallet with him. This stands out by the numerous others that have affirmed that we’ll get charged more if he has to use the lift, while standing around looking bored, this dude insisted that me and my boss shoulder the full pallet that’s on the back of his truck four feet off the ground. Not wanting a blown-out back and a couple hand’s full of splinters, I told him to cut the plastic off and hand us the boxes if he wouldn’t mind. As he drove off, we noted the truck number and called the company to voice our opinion of their driver’s service.
Delivery days can be easy going sometimes and completely chaotic others. This time of year—like everything in the bike industry probably—always pretty casual. We’re approaching Spring, our orders are getting bigger, the chaos will be increasing soon enough. I can’t wait. If it’s really bad Jim’s just gonna have to settle for a smile and a howareya!
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love the new blog – good stuff
Comment by fuckgas 02.07.09 @ 11:39 amLeave a comment
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