Re: Pulse Rifle - DESTROYED BY UPS!!!
I don't think handlers beat up fragile boxes on purpose. At least not all of them. There are jerks everywhere of coarse.
The tetris thing is acurate. That's how they describe packing even, like tetris. It's all about getting as much down during a shift as possible. Most of the time a packages well being is less important that getting your cargo can or trailer loaded or unloaded.
In my area, we relabel stuff. Either the system didn't read it, it was damaged, whoever sent it was a moron, etc. Belts drop stuff down chutes and onto big metal slides where they wait to be tended to and corrected. In another part they drop down chutes onto a belt that circles around until they can be gotten to. It creates lots of potential damage situations. Especially when badly packaged machine parts or stupidly large or heavy boxes come down. They come down with enough force to literally crush small boxes and peoples limbs potentialy, so one must stay on their toes. If our belt jams up, we'll do whatever it takes to get it un-jammed because having it stop is a no no. Maintenance does the same thing all around the building. It's not really about your packages in the end. Its about how many they can shove in and out in a 4 hour shift. Warning labels, sensors, orrientation arrows, fagile stickers, they don't mean jack. The system doesn't care, and more often than not, we're too busy to care.
My advice if you MUST ship UPS (I mean we do have awesome tracking if nothing else) is to pack it like you expect it to be thrown down a flight of stairs then have someone jump down the stairs and dive bomb it. Also, tape it very very well. Make sure there are no other labels and that all your information is correct. Try very hard, no to hand write your label. It will almost always go to Excpetion (my area). If you box comes down there its more likely to be harmed in the gauntlet than in any other area. Theres a reason they neglect to talk about the area in tours and on TV shows. It's where bad things happen the worst.
The PR, which is a real shame to see busted up like that, either got caught in a jam or got hit by something heavy, I would say. Even the most ruthless loader or unloader will rarely go out of their way to destroy something to that degree.
To give an idea of how nasty some of the jams are, I've seen UPS break a high strength polymer gun part. This part was so strong that it could be beaten with a sledge hammer, run over, and parked upon by a 2 ton truck and still function without more than a scratch to its exterior. Somehow one of them arrived with a hole punched through it. Now that, is some scarey stuff. :wacko
