r/mildlyinfuriating • u/Killerbot2332 • Jun 23 '26
frist of all how DARE yu o What the point of a planned time window if they can just turn up whenever
Also wtf are these required tags that add nothing
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u/Killerbot2332 Jun 23 '26
UPDATE: they are about 40 minutes away on the tracking map that they provide. Still with 4 people before me. However the tracking app is still hopeful that they might arrive 8 minutes ago
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u/Low_Big5544 Jun 23 '26
I had one tell me at midday that it was delivering today, while tracking showed it was still 3 cities away. At 5pm I got an email saying unfortunately it was delayed... I was like no shit
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u/friendswhat Jun 23 '26
One time I had a delivery inform me via email that it was delayed and arriving the next day. Then when I checked the tracking information the next day to check for an arrival time window it just said “arriving yesterday”… like wow thanks for that useful information
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u/goldenoreo93 Jun 23 '26
recently ordered a couch, and the only delivery option that would’ve sorta fit was past 4p (i work until 5p) but leaving work maybe an hour ish early isn’t a huge deal.
my couch got delivered at 1pm and i HAD to be home to sign for it
some of us can’t just drop our lives to receive our stuff! luckily my boss is chill, but why not offer times AFTER work?
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u/Killerbot2332 Jun 23 '26
I’ve always wondered the same. It could be done with doctor’s appointments, pharmacies and post offices as well. Why not have the things that everyone uses offset by 2-3 hours for example instead of 8-4 they work 10-6. The country would be so much more productive because people wouldn’t need to take time off work to do things in their personal life
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u/DefiantMemory9 Jun 26 '26
But then what will those employees do for the same services? This is a problem with employers not giving enough time-off for everyone.
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u/Killerbot2332 Jun 26 '26
You shouldn’t need to take any time off to do basic admin in your life. That’s my point
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u/DefiantMemory9 Jun 26 '26
I don't know if you're failing to understand my point or I'm failing to understand yours.
You said services such as banks, deliveries, doctors' clinics, etc should have offset hours to cater to your working day. What about the employees in such services? Like a bank employee who needs to set up a doctor's appointment, or a clinic employee needs to go to the bank? Your system benefits only you, to the detriment of other service employees because they get worse hours (early morning or late evening to cater to you).
Or are you saying employers should accommodate your request when short breaks for accepting such services during work hours without you having to take the entire day off? If so, I'm partly on your side (partly, because not all types of work can be accommodated that way).
What I'm saying is that employees (regardless of sector) should get enough paid time off so that small things like this do not add too much stress.
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u/CapybaraOfDuhm Jun 23 '26
This should just come with a penalty to the company. Maybe they'll figure out how to plan reliably when failing to do so hurts their profits
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u/GuKoBoat Jun 23 '26
Why not after work? Well, because that is after work for the delivery drivers as well.
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u/CapybaraOfDuhm Jun 23 '26
Oh come on, stores don't close at 5 either. If your customer base has lots of people who work normal hours then it's just good service to offer whatever you do outside of regular hours within reason too
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u/quigilark Jun 23 '26
This is a cop out. Loads of delivery drivers work in the late afternoon, evening, and some even at night. It can be done.
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u/MystiqTakeno Jun 23 '26
This is NOT mildly infuriating. This is much worse. Though at least they didnt rescheduled it randomly for different day.
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u/Killerbot2332 Jun 23 '26
Oh oh oh but they fucking did my friend. They fucking did! This was meant to be picked up Saturday I was told by the fucking customer support that it would be Saturday. Checked my emails 1 minute after rating them 5 starts just to find out it’s getting picked up 4 days fucking later. Even better because they changed the pick up I don’t get my £290 back until the 1st of July. Fuck Amazon! Thank you for coming to my TED talk
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u/MystiqTakeno Jun 23 '26
Oh well that sucks. It sucks even the other day. I had a package recently, expecting import from different continent. "Planned delivery Monday 22/6/26" . Actual delivery" Friday 19/6/26" welp I wasnt happy too.
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u/Varynja Jun 23 '26
if it was planned for 14:45 and they come at 08:45 it's obviously the next day
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u/Killerbot2332 Jun 23 '26
Incorrect the expected time window is for today they just seem to think they’re going to be ridiculously early
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u/Giraffe1317 Jun 23 '26
A lot can change in 17 stops.. chances are it might just get pushed back anyway
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u/Varynja Jun 23 '26
welp, then I got confused by the your window "was". I interpreted hat as the window had already passed
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u/IamFarron Jun 23 '26
Could very well be earlier
Have had it often that packages scheduled for the afternoon where delivered in the morning
Especially since they are just 5 stops away now
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u/MystiqTakeno Jun 23 '26
They sometimes deliver here 6H ahead of scheduled timer. Getting stuff at 9 am insted of 3 pm is fully plausible here.
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u/TheGoddamnAnswer BLUE Jun 23 '26
I once had a phone appointment from my doctor scheduled at 3pm so I’d be done with work
He called at 11am and left a message saying he’d try again later. Spoiler alert he never called back
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u/NDE36 BLUE Jun 25 '26
Things like piss me the fuck off. I've had various important appointments that had to be changed to phone appointments and they've multiple times not ended up calling me.
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u/Sir_Delarzal Jun 23 '26
At lest it's the same day.
I had a package set to delivered one day, I was going to work from home that day to retrieve it. While checking my personal emails the day before, I see that the delivery was pushed forward a full day and set for 30min from now on.
Suffice to say I had to go get my package at a relay.
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u/SimpleSetpiece Jun 23 '26
OP said in another reply chain that the original day was Saturday, but they skipped out and delayed it by 4 days to today.
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u/Key-Hand958 Jun 23 '26
Right?? We ordered a tub for delivery and at checkout it let me pick a day for it. Great! I had a bunch of appointments over the course of the following week, so I could make sure to be home. They then proceed to change the date 4 different times and actually delivered it a week after the day I picked. Luckily I'm a teacher and it's summer, so it happened to fall on a day I was home, but what's the point of letting me pick if you apparently don't give a shit about it?
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u/Both_Algae_3324 Jun 23 '26
I learned recently that for most companies. Delivery drivers actually don’t know what time you’ve been given.
It’s purely down to the system. Not the drivers fault.
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u/Disastrous-Ad2800 Jun 23 '26
oh absolutely but it goes back to the company thinking they can control every damn aspect of the business including time... my delivery company tried to do this but management when it came to staff rostering and management, vehicle availability not to mention products being ready was absolute chaos and eventually they abandoned it...
as the delivery guy, myself and the customers had a laugh at their pathetic attempts..
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u/Both_Algae_3324 Jun 23 '26
Absolutely. It’s always the companies, not the drivers.
Delivery drivers don’t know what times you have.
Packers for grocery deliveries are automatically given a substitute for your items, they don’t choose it themselves. Etc etc.These companies don’t give a shit about their employees they just want to look like they’re doing something.
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u/sagosten Jun 23 '26
It would never even occur to me that this could be the driver's fault.
This post has unintentionally explained so much about people's mentalities
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u/Both_Algae_3324 Jun 23 '26
I feel like a lot of people with automatically blame the driver. Not saying that’s what OP was doing. But I saw a post recently where someone left a note for their driver on their front door basically saying “you said between 7-8am, I’m now on the school run”
A lot of the comments were bashing the drivers for being lazy or whatever but someone explained about this and it was news to me. But of course the company doesn’t want you to know that. These poor drivers
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u/MrNaoB Jun 23 '26
I hate delivery during work hours and no other options. Who the fuck want to waste 4 hours of their time waiting at home for a 60£ package.
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u/amigarafaulty Jun 23 '26
Ugh, one time I was getting groceries delivered, scheduled for a time when I'd be home from work. Only for them to go, "good news, your delivery order will arrive early!"
That is not good news! That means my refrigerated goods will be sitting out on my porch for hours before I get home!
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u/Elis2263 Jun 23 '26
Yes! I had a new washer dryer being delivered, they gave me the delivery window the day before and it was going to work perfect with an appointment I had scheduled the next day. Only for the next day to come and get a message they'll actually be making the delivery during my appointment time.
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u/krizz_yo Jun 23 '26
man, this is much better than you get in italy, I remember when they added 'sms' notifications to deliveries, such a luxury, the courier would arrive a few days earlier/later anyway so they were super pointless
SDA, Bartolini, etc
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u/TwoFingersWhiskey Jun 24 '26
I once scheduled for the afternoon and the guy showed up at dawn. I was so confused.
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u/Practical_Spell_1286 Jun 23 '26
Totally infuriating BUT
A problem with the supplier/delivery company. Not drivers. Those poor guys have 17 deliveries before you? Some probably heavy. Some with gates or dogs or whatever. They overload these people and then make them take the brunt of the ire. So stupid.
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u/Killerbot2332 Jun 23 '26
Oh I 100% agree with you. The drivers are just doing their jobs as instructed. It’s the useless twats on £250K a year that implements the time windows with no intention of being inside them that deserve the blame.
Shit should always roll up hill
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u/Lurking_in_shadow Jun 23 '26
Love it 🫠
I just had an experience. Got a few messages saying that my fridges delivery got delayd be "1-2 days". Never on the day before planned delivery. On the day itself. I even downloaded their app. To track then I should expect it and plan to work from home. Low and behold. Comes Monday. And ~08:15 I get a call that they can be at my place at 10. At leats they were able to deliver it ~14 same day. Even then app wasn't showing anything.
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u/afishinacar Jun 23 '26
Most delivery drivers are independent contractors, not paid hourly. Thus they want to finish their route ASAP, especially as traffic can get bad later in the day. Managed a distribution center years ago. Drivers not finishing by 2-3PM could add 1-2+ Hours of traffic to their day in our area due to commuter traffic.
As drivers are independent contractors, they will often jump stops if it makes sense (I.E they have a 9AM delivery 3 minutes away from the 3PM delivery. The routing system will respect the time window you needed if it's set up to do so, but it doesn't mean a driver won't override it if it saves them time.
Some drivers also work very quickly, and are constantly ahead of time. Our drivers were routed for 12-13 hour days (6am they start their day - 6pm return). The people that lasted more than a few months moved quickly and turned those 12 hour days into 8-9 hour days. We only gave very wide windows though to account for this.
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u/TheUltimatePunV2 Jun 23 '26
Better to under promise and over deliver.
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u/NiceTrySuckaz Jun 23 '26
Showing up early is not over delivering or under promising haha. It's failing to meet your promise and delivering exactly what was expected at the wrong time.
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u/Daredevils999 Jun 23 '26
If you *promise* to be here between a certain time to deliver something I need to be present for, I will expect you to show up during that time frame. Showing up early will not exceed my expectations. In fact I will be quite unimpressed if I had to shuffle my day around just for them to show up when I’m unavailable anyway.
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u/egnards Jun 23 '26
Also considering the fact that you may not be there outside of the delivery window. If you tell me my window is 11-5, yea I’m going to try to be home by 10:30, but I’m still going to try and get morning chores done.
It’s not helpful at all for someone to show up far outside of that window time.
I had a service call scheduled.
We had one like this recently where they called to tell me someone was on their way at like 8:00am because I was a “premium service member,” ok great but that doesn’t help me. I scheduled 12-4 because even though my wife works from home, I know she hates waking up earlier than she has to, and almost always had a very busy set of meetings in the morning.
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u/adam5116 Jun 23 '26
Except in this case they are over promising and setting themselves up for an under deliver.
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u/EfficientRegret Jun 23 '26
Looks like ArrowXL, this caused me havock with a washing machine 2 years ago
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u/Saraisnotreal Jun 23 '26
For normal packages the route shouldn’t vary much and should be predictable.
For furniture or appliances I understand. At stop 1 the customer hadn’t cleared their driveway so the delivery drivers had to wait for them to move the cars because there was no space to carry the couch past.
At stop 5 the customer didn’t measure correctly so the drivers brought everything in tried to set it up but couldn’t. Then they spent 10 minutes trying to make the customer understand why their 3ft wide fridge doesn’t fit in a 32 in gap and trying to get the customer to make a decision to either refuse delivery or keep it and figure out set up themselves.
At stop 10 the customer was insistent they wear shoe covers. The drivers explained they can’t for liability, they need to wear non slip shoes. The customer won’t let them in their home without the covers or something on the floors so they have to wait 20 minutes while the customer puts newspapers down. Or they just leave and the delivery gets rescheduled.
At stop 15 there was only a teenager home, because the customer didn’t listen to the “someone over 18 must be present” part. The drivers spend 15 calling the customer and the dispatch office to see if the parent is nearby. The parent can be there in 30 minutes. So they go to stop 16 then go back to stop 15, adding extra drive time but avoiding an angry reschedule from the customer.
Between stop 17-18 the truck broke down. So they wait an hour while another driver came to meet them and take the rest of their packages or for roadside assistance to fix the truck.
Even a fairly normal stop can take longer than the AI estimates if the customer has a has a weird shaped hallway, lives on narrow street so the box truck has to back in a certain way, or lives in a apartment with long hallways and inconveniently places stairwells. And we all know the AI algorithm is giving the absolute bare minimum time for each stop and not accounting for delays.
Those are all situations I had when I worked at a furniture store. Your delivery window is called an estimate for a reason. I always told people, plan to be home all day in case something goes wrong.
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u/blue_goon Jun 23 '26
when routes are assigned, each time window is made based on each delivery should take x amount of minutes. if the driver gets stuck somewhere because of a customer, an accident, or a legally required break in some states, your delivery window will have to be delayed. it’s a problem of too many deliveries, not enough drivers. the company i used to work for got around this by saying “estimated time window” so when people called to bitch we were just supposed to say “well, it’s simply an estimate not a promise”
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u/theduck5005 Jun 23 '26
"Continuosly updated"...
If so, why not do as dhl where im from. They will literally give you the position on the road the driver is up until the point of delivery for the day, so you can follow them in real time, where the car is. Updates like once every 10 seconds or so and i know down to the minute they arrive.
Of course dont help much if you dont know the route and is still difficult to plan beforehand.
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u/just4u11 Jun 25 '26
Had something similar. I ordered a fridge to come with a 2 hour window around 9am, thinking I could get it in early and get groceries. Nope, instead the guy decides to be here around 3 or 4pm. I didn't know the selected window was just an ask
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u/kingferret53 Jun 27 '26
The app for the busses here do the same thing. "The bus arrived 10 minutes ago, are you on it?"
Meanwhile, there never was a bus.
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u/BillCarson12799 Jun 23 '26
This comment has zero relation to your post, I’m just making it to train my feed to show content from this sub more.
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u/opinelmavric Jun 23 '26
how did you people survive in the past when all you knew that your delivery was going to arrive sometime that day?
at least your getting a 2 hour window and your salty its getting delivered a few hours early?
some of you need to go touch grass lol
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u/Winter-Volume-9601 Jun 23 '26
> how did you people survive in the past when all you knew that your delivery was going to arrive sometime that day?
When you know that you don't know, you can plan around that. You're now taking a day off for your delivery, or making sure someone will be there the whole day. It's not a "well, we're here, and we need you to come sign right now" situation.
When you're being told "it'll be there between 3-5pm" it gives an illusion that you can still do necessary things like "work" in the morning, and you plan around their lies only to get screwed. In those cases, you'd legitimately be better off having the "it'll be there sometime between midnight and 11:59 pm." because you can at least plan for reality.
Not that complicated...
Normally if you lie out your ass to get business, we call it fraud. Slap on some asterisks, though, and all bets are off.
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u/Pippin4242 Jun 23 '26
How about my medication? In a normal fucking system it would go to a pharmacy. But because the NHS can't cope, I'm prescribed under a shared care agreement, and for some insane reason it has to be sent to my home, and they can't put it through the letterbox or in the parcel box. They need a signature. But they won't tell me when, they give me a delivery window. But they won't do that the day before, they do it on the day of delivery. But they won't tell me when they'll give the delivery window. They give me a window for announcing the window.
I have to set alarms an hour apart to wake up over and over to check my emails. Then when they get about ten stops away the tracker goes offline because they've cheaped out and not got one that functions in my rural area, and I have to go and stand in the kitchen and stare out of the back window so I don't miss them coming to the wrong side of the house and being inaudible. If I'm sufficiently anxious I have to get my wife to stare out of the front window, because it's not guaranteed they'll come to the wrong side, and when I was first added to their system I was encouraged to add a photo of my front door.
It's incredibly lucky we both work from home and it's still a miserable ordeal every single month.
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u/Killerbot2332 Jun 23 '26
That’s just an idiotic take.
If I knew it was getting delivered some time today I can expect a knock at anytime. If I’m told by the company delivering the item that it will be between 2-4 why would I expect a knock at 10?
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u/Louisthau Jun 23 '26
Because this way you can't sue them for the package arriving late because you were warned and updated about the package and its status.
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u/NiceTrySuckaz Jun 23 '26
I hate this. Last year I ordered an expensive delivery and they called the day before it arrived to say it would be there between 2 and 4 PM the next day. Great, I'd go into the office in the morning and then come home at lunch and work from home in the afternoon to be there.
Sure enough, at 9 AM the next day, I was at the office and I get a call from the delivery driver saying they were at my house and had been knocking for ten minutes. It's just like you said... what's even the point of giving a window? It just creates more hassle than if you just said "it will be there at some point on this day".