Annoying people at UPS

I had to pick up a package at UPS today. It's a bit of a complicated story of how I ended up having to pick it up rather than have it delivered to my house. But suffice it to say that when I had tried to reschedule the delivery date of the package originally, I got stuck in automated phone hell and screwed the whole delivery option up to the point where I just decided that I needed to pick the package up myself. As a side note, when you call UPS, call during normal business hours. That way you can talk to an actual person who can help you with what you're trying to do, instead of starting an annoying cycle with the automated gal who tries to help you during off hours and can't understand anything outside of the automated options.

Anyway, back to my trip today. I live within several minutes of the UPS customer center, so you'd think this would be a quick trip. Since I worked from home today, I headed out about 1:30, which I figured would be better than trying to go during lunch hours. When I got there, there were 3 people in front of me in line and one customer being helped at the counter. Of course, there was only one guy behind the counter, so I could already tell I'd be there a little while. I don't expect anything different. As long as I've been having things delivered and occasionally having to pick things up, UPS has never done a good job at staffing at the customer center. I absolutely love my delivery guy - he's super friendly and very willing to work with my time needs. But the customer center leaves a lot to be desired. However, as I said, I have come to expect this, so I figured it would be a good 1/2 hour until I got to the counter. Two of the people in front of me were of pretty much the same mind. However, one older couple who I'll refer to as Ma and Pa, were quite despondent over waiting. I heard Pa mutter, "we'll be gangin' up on ya'll here in no time" no less than 15 times while it was just the few of us standing there. It was as though that was the only thing he knew how to say. A few minutes later, another person walked through the door, and Pa got a little gleam in his eye and said again, "ye, we'll be a' gangin' up on ya in no time". Over and over. He finally tapped the woman in front of him on the shoulder and informed her of the same thing, to which she politely replied, "yeah" and then turned back around.

Finally, a guy came out of the warehouse and started assisting with the customers. When Ma and Pa got to the counter, the UPS guy asked them if they had printed out a label for their package, to which they replied, "no". Lemme tell ya - there were signs everywhere and the first thing that you see when you enter the store are computers instructing you how to print out the label for your package. So, he walks Ma and Pa over to the computers and shows them how to enter information and print out the label - 3 times. He then walks back over to help me.

I didn't stick around to see how that one turned out, but all I could think of was if Pa had spent a little less time staring down the guy at UPS and muttering the same thing over and over like a psycho, and a little more time reading the 50 signs around him, he might have figured out the whole label thing before holding everyone else in line up...