So. Refresh, refresh, refresh.

The roommate was home, so I was continually checking in with him. He kept telling me that the UPS guy doesn’t get there until 3:30 or 4pm, and that he had not in fact arrived yet. So, I left work early to go home and wait (or go home and not wait).

And, wouldn’t it figure, there in my complex was the UPS guy. Facing the wrong way.

See, we’re in the back of my apartment complex. So, to pass the UPS guy somewhere before my building, facing towards the front of the complex is not a good thing.

And being who I am, I decided to stop.

“Do you have a package for me? I live further that way.”

“I don’t think so, but let me check.”

“I have a tracking number…” (At which point I pulled out my laptop and opened the email with the tracking number in it. Amusingly enough, there was open wireless, so I even opened the tracking page and showed him that it was out for delivery.)

“I don’t have it,” he says, “But let me give you the number to the office in Pontiac and you can call them and ask. Tell them you talked to Mark Oswald.”

So home I went, with my little piece of paper and called the UPS office. I was transferred to someone in shipping (or something like it) and Patty answered the phone.

“Hi, Patty, I have a problem. My online tracking info shows that I have a package out for delivery, but I just spoke with Mark Oswald who does the route for our apartment complex and he said to call you because he doesn’t have it.”

So Patty goes into the system and checks around a bit, asks a couple more questions, and finally comes to her conclusion: “I don’t have a record of your package even having an arrival scan. So that probably just means that your tracking information is wrong.”

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the online information just a publicly accessible web interface containing the information in their system? It had an arrival scan and “out for delivery”. So… How, if it’s pulling information from their system, is it just not there.

I didn’t figure trying to argue system design with Patty was really going to help anything, so I just said ok. She said to call back again tomorrow and they would see what the deal was.

I think they just lost my package. Which, thankfully, isn’t my fault according to Dell, but at the same time… I want my laptop. : (

Feh.