Return to Sender, Address Unknown

I work at a small company, one where everyone has to wear more than one hat, so to speak. One of my many responsibilities at work involves handling much of the ordering. Usually this is pretty straightforward; except when one of our usual suppliers is out of stock of one of our usual parts, that's a bit of a headache, but nothing too serious.

Sometimes though we order new parts from new suppliers. This can be more challenging, since you never know how reliable and rapid a new supplier might be, especially if they are a small company located in another country, or even another continent. But large companies can mess things up too. Being larger, they sometimes mess things up on a much larger scale. . .

A few weeks ago, I placed an order for a couple of remote controls with a new supplier. This was a major, and I do mean major, multinational company — they make everything from security systems and air purifiers to turbochargers and optoelectronic polymers. These were specialized long range secure remote controls that weren't readily available from anywhere else, so I spoke directly with a sales guy in San Diego and ordered two of them. He said they would ship that very evening, and he'd have someone email me a tracking number the next day.

Sure enough, the next morning I got a tracking number. The package had left Houston, Texas the evening before, and was now in Albuquerque, New Mexico. That made me wonder just a little, since New Mexico is almost exactly opposite the direction to get from Texas to eastern Canada. Perhaps there is a UPS depot in Albuquerque, I thought, and decided I would check the next day.

The next day, the package arrived in Kentucky. That seemed much more in line with the direction I would expect it to go. Then it went to Florida, two stops in Florida to be precise, the second one in Miami.

Again, I assumed there must be a UPS depot in Miami, and since the status involved words like "customs" and "export" I wasn't especially worried. After all, this package went west from Texas to get to me, so why not go south as well? I figured the package would end up on a plane and the next morning it would be at the customs centre in Mirabel, Quebec.

When I checked the status the next day, however, it was not in la belle province. No, it was now in San Jose.

California? That makes no sense, I thought. That's completely the wrong way. Then I took a closer look at the location. San Jose, CR. As in Costa Rica.

Okay, that has to be a mistake. I emailed my supplier, not expecting any answer for a while, given there's a four hour time difference. I called and left a message around noon our time, which is still very early on the west coast. A little later I took another look at where the package was to confirm that it was indeed in San Jose. Only by now it wasn't in San Jose, Costa Rica. No, now it was enroute to Lima, Peru.

Needless to say, I called the supplier. I left him a voicemail, and he got back to me right away.

"There's a funny thing happened to your shipment, Mr. Peric. "

"Let me guess, it went to, oh, I don't know, Peru?"

The best guess is that someone in the shipping department put the code PE, which would be the correct province code, on the country code line, which was of course completely wrong. I was assured they would send out a new shipment right away, which left that evening.

And wouldn't you know it, this one went to Peru as well? Or at least it almost did, they caught the error at the customs depot in Miami. A third box was sent out right away, and I asked them very nicely to write CANADA all over this box, in the hopes that it wouldn't head down to Latin America. This time it arrived properly and correctly, and we finally got our remotes.

I do still wonder if there is some poor UPS driver in Peru searching for a Montague, because so far as I can tell from the tracking numbers, that first shipment is still listed "Out for delivery."