Pandemic Shipping Info. from a Cat
Cats are experts in a lot of things. We’re awesome at catching mice and keeping your pantry safe, we excel at keeping your stress levels down, and in some cases, we’re life savers. But did you know that we’re also experts in…boxes?
If you think about it, this makes sense. We spend a lot of time in boxes of different sizes and materials, and while previously I may not have cared how those boxes arrived in the living room, this is something I’ve started paying a lot of attention to, so I feel uniquely qualified to tell you about boxes right now.
You see, I’m paying a lot of attention to boxes with the whole my-humans-never-leave-the-house-anymore thing going on, because suddenly we have a lot more boxes in the house, which is great because with seven cats we all need at least 3 boxes from which to choose from at any given moment. Only the humans are both complaining that boxes are taking longer to arrive, and this is a crisis because Little Squishie likes to sit in and eat our boxes, so we always need a steady supply of new ones.
How do the boxes get to my house? There are three major companies who deliver boxes — UPS, FedEx, and DHL. All three of these companies are *super* busy right now, but why?
Remember how I mentioned my humans are staying home? Apparently I’m not the only one stuck with homebound humans these days — lots of humans are staying home. And if humans are staying home, that means they sit in front of the glowing box and buy things, and those things arrive in boxes, and there are a *lot* more things getting delivered than there used to be. In fact, 47% of humans said this year they’re more interested in buying from a glowy box than last year! That’s a lot more stuff ($190 BILLION!).
The three companies are hiring more humans to deliver the boxes. UPS said they’d hire 100,000 humans, FedEx said they’d hire 70,000 humans, and DHL said they’d hire 7,000 humans. But it takes time for humans to learn things (seriously, you have NO IDEA how long it took me to train the female human on how to pet me properly). And with more humans at work, that means more humans could get sick and have to stay home. And that means delays.
UPS said you gotta order your boxes by Dec. 15th if they’re going ground and you want them by Dec. 24th. FedEx said the same thing. If you pay to have your boxes shipped faster, you can push it to the 21st or the 22nd, but I don’t know if I’d risk not getting my boxes. DHL has shipping adjustments on their website, and some boxes could take up to an extra 15 days to arrive!
And the other thing? There are no guarantees for FedEx or UPS, so if your boxes doesn’t get there on time and you’re mad, there’s nothing you can do about it, because they suspended their guarantees. DHL didn’t, but they’re kinda different (most of their business is international).
My point in all of this is simple. If you want your boxes on time (and oh boy do you want your boxes because I will be SO MAD if I don’t get my boxes!), you need to start ordering your things NOW.
