What do I have to do to get the same shipping as my coworker?

@capguncowboy Possibly Lost in Albania?

@Moose L.A. = Los Angeles LA = Louisiana

@clonetek Who really adds the dots? When I'm talking about Los Angeles, I say LA.

@Thumperchick Editors add them.

@Thumperchick saying and typing is a little different. I always say Louisiana instead of LA.

@parodymandotcom LOL taking your fingers out of your ears might help (grin)

@speediedelivery not yet, but I shall put on my TMBG cd's and see what they tell me to do.

@speediedelivery YOu could send a bag of coal to the meh headquarters using express mail...

@narfcake It's FedEx. Smartpost follows the same logic Express used to: Everything goes to a distribution center and then back out. In our case, that's the one in Chino CA and Phoenix AZ.

@Collin1000 Yeah, that's exactly what happened. Other orders have stayed right there in Chino to be handed off to USPS, though. Whatever, I suppose, as it still got to me.

@narfcake When I lived on the central CA coast, I had an order ship from Seattle to the hub in North Carolina and back to me for overnight delivery.

@PurplePawprints The moral of this story is that Smartpost always loses. Smartpost, from my understanding, is like package tetris. They hold things until they have a full truck. It's time-insensitive and it will go when it goes.

@Collin1000 They hold things longer than that. They're filling trailers. The expensive truck cabs and the valuable drivers are deployed doing more important work while the trailers get filled. (All work is more important than SmartPost). FedEx does not want to spend money housing employees away from their homes, or having them drive empty trucks around more than necessary. So the SmartPost driver and truck don't leave their homes in Texas until the logistics software is reasonably certain that the truck driver will have full loads for each leg of some complex route that will get them back home for their next day off.

@Collin1000 You need to move. Here in Chicago, I get Smartpost and Surepost days before the estimate. And that's with everything passing me to go to Wisconsin and then coming back down here.

@Collin1000 Good point. Personally, though, the Smartpost works better (if slower) for me because of the USPS handoff. UPS/Fedex can't always get in my unattended apt building, but USPS has a key. Good for those with PO boxes, too.

@mehjohnson UPS' SurePost works the same way with the final delivery being handled by the post office; my orders from TeeTurtle come this way. I don't have enough experience to say how much better they are or not, however.

@harrison It's still kinda odd that the guy beside me at work orders the same thing and his goes from Texas to Louisiana, but mine goes up and down the eastern seaboard instead. (every time)

@clonetek Guessing you and coworker live in different zip codes, so maybe some kinda automated-route-optimization stuff going on there, and your zip doesn't fit right in with same truck route, etc etc? Maybe too much effort, but you could mention it (include zip codes) to Fedex. If nothing else, their canned response could be mildly humorous. Do you feel like an outlier? ;)

@mehjohnson I live in the city, he lives out in the sticks. (think banjos)

@clonetek Ok, now I gotta go find some of my fave banjo music... But that's weird, I guess all of the 'that city' stuff gets routed off to bigger loads (heh) or something, and he's just 'that county' or state, who knows. Odd.

@harrison now my stuff has been shipped back to texas!

@harrison hey cool, one of my orders was delivered back to you! YAY (too bad thats not where I live)

@clonetek That is awesome. I'd put that in a frame and hang it on the wall..

@clonetek -Sorry to laugh at your problems, but that is too funny! You probably should think about having your stuff delivered to your coworker and getting it that way. jk (At least you're getting the max out of VMP, right?)

@clonetek do you even live in TX? LOL

@Kidsandliz nope! Louisiana.

@clonetek You mean LA?

@clonetek I've had tons of problems with both FedEx and their smartpost. UPS is always great and on time. Regardless I've had smartpost shipments pass a half hour away from me, go to Wisconsin and then get handed off to the local post office (in Wisconsin). I live in KY. On a more recent occurence, I've had a smartpost package generated 15 miles from my shipping address. Then it gets taken to a city 2 hours away, before coming back a few days later and then the lazy USPS carrier forgot to drop it off at my house yesterday so scanned and said I wasn't home to sign for it (I was home and no signature is required for the package).

@SSteve This is my favorite visual representation of of Smartpost ever. Look at it bouncing around to different states!