UPS US

The Boy sent me a book, I don't know where it started but someone handed it to UPS and it has disappeared into the Black Hole of their web-of-shelob.  It started on its journey on Monday 20th July 2020. Thereafter it was acknowledged by UPS:

Tues	21-07-20 9:39	United Kingdom	Label Created
Tue	21-07-20 20:30	Bristol, UK	Shipped
Tue	21-07-20 22:27	Tamworth, UK	Arrived at Facility
Wed	22-07-20 7:35	Tamworth, UK	Departed from Facility
Wed	22-07-20 19:00	Finglas, IE	Arrived at Facility
Thu	23-07-20 3:00	Finglas, IE	Departed from Facility
Thu	23-07-20 8:54	Waterford, IE	The address is incomplete
Thu	23-07-20 16:12	Gave them Eircode	Change is in progress.
Fri	24-07-20 2:00	Waterford, IE	Arrived at Facility
Fri	24-07-20 9:00	Waterford, IE	Delivery by end of day
Mon	27-07-20 9:00	Waterford, IE	Delivery by end of day

UPS is a vast international organisation they will ship a terracotta warrior or a skunk's head [it's the rabies testing innit?] from anywhere in the World to anywhere else. So long as you have an 18 digit tracking number you can find out where your package is. That's so long as everything goes to plan.  All bets are off if things are the least bit difficult.

Some time between 23-07-20 3:00 Finglas and 23-07-20 08:54 Waterford, my parcel was at perihelion to where it wanted to finish up. But it whooshed past at full Doppler . . .receding towards Waterford. Later that day it went for a jaunt through the next county.  Being in the wrong county, it never arrived here. That's when I first phoned the customer service line. I spoke the tracking number to their robot and s/he [sounded like a shebot] repeated it back to me, so I know their system had captured it. Eventually I got through to a real person [sounded Irish] but I had to repeat my tracking number >arrrgh<. I offered my Eircode, and he took it but was told that UPS marched to a different drummer; using Eircodes only as a last resort. Eircode was and is a huge boondoggle but it's a nationally rolled out boondoggle that is now seamlessly linked to, say, Google maps.

Friday 24/07 UPS.COM promised us delivery by the end of the day.
Monday 27/07 UPS.COM promised us delivery by the end of the day.
Tuesday 28/07 it was "Your package has arrived at a local UPS location and is still being processed for delivery." So I phoned again, got my tracking number bot-registered but had to say it again to the human operative [sounded Bangalore, female] but when she asked me to repeat the number, I hung up.  Richard Feynman has a story about getting paid an honorarium for doing a bit of public speaking. He said he'd accept but only on condition he'd only have to sign his name 13 times. But the necessary bureaucracy required . . . 14 signatures!  So massive moderate fail UPS!

STOP PRESS: the parcel is now 160km N of Waterford back in UPS Sorting:
In Transit 29/07/2020 6:20 Finglas
Another fly-past expected this morning . . .