Don’t take me wrong, before you master the art of picture taking you will go through a healthy dose of frustrations (my being using  external flash light with my Canon XTi). If you do not have patience, you may not survive the initial numberless out of focus, over and under exposed shots that have been ruined by an amateur photographer (this means YOU).

I was fortunate to be asked by my priest to be the official picture taker from some church events, so I got to take many of very rewarding pictures lately. What a blast!  First Communion, Corpus Christi procession, new altar boys’ introduction and the Christmas Eve dinners. So many pictures, so much disk space to use, so little time!

Even today, I got to take few family pictures, which will bring a lot of joy not only to me, but to the folks I am photographing. Even one of the headers for this blog is a panoramic creation of my afternoon walk to the local park.  With the help of Photoshop CS4 and a good use of adobe tutorials, I managed to create a decent looking background headers for this site (look for the island with few pelicans at my city’s artificial lake).

Don’t you wonder why is it that as you expect 2-3 packages from your vendors to arrive on UPS, they arrive on … 2-3 different tracks. Same company, same distribution location, and still – multiple runs of multiple UPS tracks (sometimes minutes apart) are almost a daily occurrence in my neighbourhood.  Oh…. and let’s not forget about the other UPS  tracks that keep driving up and down the street all day long with a sadistic pleasure of  watching you in the window waiting … and waiting … and waiting.  Waiting for the  packages that left local location for delivery 10-12 hours ago. 

I could WALK faster guys, with a monkey doing flips on my back!

How is it, that a 21 century folks of UPS cannot figure out how to do their basic business:  CONSOLIDATION?. It seems it is more about not delivering packages before the promised day.

Here goes my message to UPS: guaranteed delivery means only NO LONGER THAN, and not NOT EARLIER THAN.  As I get to watch individual deliveries, I can see the madness of the corporate “wise guys”, who will make the delivery sit in one of their warehouses to make sure that the TWO DAY GUARTEED does not turn in to a possible NEXT DAY SURPRISE.  Instead of  straightening customer loyalty,  not to mention the obvious cost savings,feelings of  resentment and disappointment sets in in most of our minds.

One should explain to the corporate brainiacs of UPS that a people who need guaranteed delivery in one or two days are still going to pay for this promise, others will not be forced into picking a more expensive option. Do these guys truly believe that I will pick a $30 delivery option on a $7 eSata cable, which Newegg.com had on sale?  Do they have ANY illusions that this type of logic is not going to backfire? Instead of new revenues, or easy way of savings millions in unnecessary overtime and gas, you will have thousands of people writing stories, ridiculing your absurd business practices. 

I don’t know if UPS is the only carrier plagued by this phenomenon, but from the comments I read on many shopping portals, they seem to hold the top stop in this game of madness.

Shape up UPS!  The folks of US Postal Service are passing you in customer satisfaction, and this cannot be good for your health.

Update:  My new camera arrived 12 hours and 3 minutes to travel 10 mile to my house after being aged in UPS Oakland for …. wait for it…  3 days, and this is not even a record.

Finally, lets explain the title a bit. Long time ago, one of my friends explain to me about managers and people that they hire. “A” (Top notch) class managers hire “A+” class employees.  They seek people who are smarter than themselves, people who will make them shine and successful.  ”C” class managers hire “F” class employees.  Lousy managers who are afraid that by hiring a little bit smarter people, the world will not appreciate their contribution, and they won’t be able to keep their jobs. They think, that doing so they look better in comparison.  Well… how little do they know.