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Sounds a lot cheaper than OOOPS, I mean UPS.

I work for an enviromental lab here in town.  We send and receive a lot of
packages.  We switched to Airborne years ago for several reasons.  Price
and service are better than the other carriers and we don't have to worry
about our samples not being delivered in a timing fashion and their being
kept at the proper temperature.  Most of the water and soil samples we
receive from our costomers (from all over the country) must be kept at or
below 4 degrees C and have a hold time limit on them from the time of
sampling at the customer site and being analyzed.  UPS and FedEx both had
problems with maintaining the temp and with delivering things on time.  There
is always someone at the lab daily from about 6:30am til at least midnight
from Monday through Saturday (and usually Sunday as well).  FedEx was well
noted for waiting less than 5 minutes, on Saturdays, for the guy to get from
the lab to the login (delivery area) (getting from the lab intails stopping the
analysis he is currently doing, removing any gloves and/or lab coat that may be
contaminated and walking out to the door).  FedEx would leave a note stating
that the package could be picked up Monday after 5 at the local office.  UPS
did the same sort of thing.  No way the sample was going to be kept cool over
an entire week-end, the object of using an overnight shipper is so that the
samples, which are shipped to us in coolers with blue ice packs, are received
in time to get them into our big walk-in coolers before they warm up. 
Customers were not happy with being told that they would have to resample
because their sample(s) had been destroyed by the shipping company.  We have
never had that problem with Airborne.

My latest gripe about UPS is that they'll leave a note on our door saying
they'll try to deliver again the next day--but they will not tell us what
time they attempted to deliver nor what time they'll try again.  For the
"modern" family (with two working parents, kids who are out all day at
various activities, etc.) it is unreasonable to expect us to sit on the
front porch waiting all day for their delivery (which invariably turns out
to be five minutes before you start waiting, or five minutes after you give
up).  I'd make the attempt if I had a reasonable idea when they'd show up.
I guess I should be glad they don't leave the package for others to steal.
 
In regard to waiting for people to answer the door, we've had fairly good
luck after putting a note on our door saying that it takes X minutes for
us to respond to the doorbell.  Of course, having a wife with a broken leg
probably provides a better-than-average excuse in the deliverypersons' mind.
 
For time-critical deliveries I'd expect delivery companies to try a little
harder to deliver (although from their perspective, if they "waste" too much
time on one deliery, it might make them late with another time-critical
delivery).  Fortunately some companies (such as Airborne) are able to deal
with this issue.

For those modern families with two working parents, if either one has an 
office job it may be possible to send your UPS packages c/o your work 
address. As long as your company is willing to receive personal packages 
for you. this would eliminate the problem. Some will, some won't.

Another good method in a lot of situations is to have your packages held
for pickup at the FedEx, etc. station.  (Assuming the station is convenient
and it's hours reasonable.  UPS comes in last place on this score.)  I used
to do this with FedEx and ship P2, letting me get packages by 9AM but only
pay for afternoon service.

You can also have stuff shipped to a friend, neighbor, or relative who's
around all day in some cases.

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