Reliably Unreliable

Here at the Armed Fenced Northern Florida Compound, we have an electric gate on the main approach road to discourage riff raff and also possibly function as a choke point in dark times. I had some problems with it, and they merely served to confirm what I already knew about human nature.

The gate has a box with a keypad, and you push numbers to get in. The opener was installed 19 years ago, so I would guess that by now everyone in the county has the code, but I still make delivery drivers and the power company use it because I don’t want to find out how to change it. You push the buttons, the gate opens, it stays open while you do what you have to do, and then when you leave, a sensor by the driveway tells the gate to open again.

UPS has the code, but lately, they have been refusing to put boxes on my porch. I’ve had to walk over 100 yards to the gate to get my wet boxes covered with leaves and lizard poop.

What do you do when you have a UPS problem? You use UPS’s website, which has all sorts of ways to put you in touch with caring UPS employees. Right? I mean, the site actually encourages you to try.

Thing is, UPS has deliberately changed everything so it is virtually impossible to have any kind of communication with them. You complain to Amazon, and they tell you to complain to UPS. Then you find out it’s easier to have lunch with the Great and Powerful Oz.

Amazon could complain to UPS, and UPS would listen. But Amazon doesn’t want you bothering Amazon. Just keep buying that Chinese stuff with the funny names Chinese people think sound American. “Honey, look at my new IZMURDNULL golf pants!”

I think those names are like the Chinese characters ignorant millennials have tattooed on their bodies. You think it means, “courage of tiger,” but it really means, “fat chick pay me $300.”

Maybe Chinese factory owners make their US-educated kids make up those names, thinking they must have learned something at UCLA.

Feng Sr.: What “IZMURDNULL” mean?

Feng Jr.: “Courage of tiger.” I need the Bugatti keys.

In the past, you could call the UPS number and yell “AGENT!” over and over until the phone tree wilted and gave you a person. Now you go to the site, get a bunch of prompts that don’t apply to your situation, and then receive instructions to get lost. If you call and yell “AGENT!”, the system tells you you can’t have one, and it hangs up.

None of the web prompts matched my problem, and that was deliberate on the part of UPS. I had a driver who would not put boxes where they were supposed to be, and probably three million people had the same problem today, so obviously, they do not want people with poorly-placed boxes calling them. They would be inundated.

You can’t just go to the local UPS hub and ask for help, because they will shoot you when you try to scale the fence. UPS doesn’t like riff raff any more than I do. Okay, perhaps they won’t shoot you, but you can’t complain in person. That’s my point.

I tried to use the site in spite of the lack of relevant options. I picked a prompt which was not very appropriate, figuring some human being might read it and decide to do something even though I had responded to the wrong prompt. Unbelievably, UPS contacted me. A guy named Bill at the local hub seemed to be very upset that my boxes were being rained on, and I think he really tried to help.

He thought I hadn’t entered my code on their site. I told him I had. He said he couldn’t see it, and that meant his drivers couldn’t see it. He was convinced this was the issue. He gave me a number for UPS tech support.

I called and got one of the Indian guys.

Here’s something you need to know about phone customer service people. Generally, they have no interest in solving your problem. What they really want is to get rid of you. They look for ways to justify sending you to other representatives in other departments, and one of their favorite tricks is to connect you without permission, very quickly, while talking over you, before you can scream and tell them they’ve made a mistake.

Aedidev the CSR: OkayIamtellingyoutheproblemisnotwithourdepartmentyoumusttalkto billingpleaseholdwhileIswitchyouhaveagooddaynamaste…

You: STOP STOP WAIT WAIT

Aanandaswarup the other CSR: Hello, can you please repeat the long story you told the other CSR and repeat all the facts he did not bother to provide me with?

The Indian guy told me the general tech support people could not help me. He said the UPS My Choice tech support people were the problem, so he gave me their number.

I called and got a lady with an accent so weird I suspect it was fabricated by AI on the spot. She told me all the My Choice people could do was track packages. Which is why their department is called “tech support,” I guess. Totally appropriate.

I think it was the next day when Bill called me again, and he was distraught to learn that UPS had been no help at all.

At some point, I started telling Bill I thought the driver was the problem. I said the gate had had some issues, and I had had another driver who was a trainee, and he had been too cowardly to drive through the gate because he thought he would hit it.

No, no. Bill was positive the driver could not see the code.

I ended up talking to another Indian guy. This one started talking over me and repeating things he would have known were not true had he actually listened to anything I told him. I was somewhat abrupt with him. I said things like, “PLEASE STOP TALKING” so I could get a few words in.

Eventually, he told me to wait, and then he stopped talking. But I could still hear everyone in the boiler room in New Delhi talking around him. And I heard something that sounded like labored breathing.

I started asking him if he was there. I asked if he was all right. I think he had some kind of fit. After a while, he started to talk. He said he could not help me and that he would send me to another department. Then a robot voice came on and asked if I wanted to take a survey, giving answers to be recorded. I took the survey, explaining my complaints in detail. Then the robot said the survey couldn’t be processed, and it hung up on me.

I followed up with Bill and told him the second Indian guy seemed to have some kind of problem, and maybe someone needed to check on him.

I really said that.

Bill and the foreign lady continued to call me, and Bill also emailed. The lady was really annoying. She would say she was going to call at a certain time, then miss the time, and then call me when I was doing important things.

She always sounded the same, but she insisted she was different people. I kept asking her if she was the person who talked to me before, but she denied it.

AI. It’s coming for all of us.

Packages kept landing outside the gate.

Today, I saw the driver by the gate, and I walked out to talk to him. He said he had the code, but the gate had refused to open twice, and it was closing so fast it hit his truck. He was leaving packages in the rain to avoid being trapped or hitting the gate.

Exactly what I thought had been happening, had happened. Being old is like being clairvoyant. You get so familiar with human failings and incompetence, you always seem to know what’s really going on.

We talked for a while and did some experiments, including one where he drove through the gate. He barely moved. No wonder the gate closed before he made it. A garden slug could have passed him. It was bizarre to watch. But he was right about the open time being too short. The control box needed to be opened up and looked at.

He seemed a little nutty to me, and he definitely could have made it through the gate (like the Fedex guy and me) had he not had a bizarre fear of normal acceleration. Still, the box needed to be worked on.

I decided to go ahead and pay a tradesman. The people who built the house left me an opener manual, and it had two phone numbers written on it. A guy named Kenny.

I called Kenny, and he was surly. He said you can’t get Powermaster parts. He said the cost for a service call was $150. I asked if he was planning to do service or sell me a new box. He said he would sell me a new box. Then I asked him whether he was planning to charge me a $150 service fee for giving me an estimate on a new box.

You can see how the conversation went. The only thing I was sure about after we talked was that I was not going to do business with Kenny. If you’re a crabby old crank when a new customer calls, you’re going to be a horror for the duration of the job. Kenny, if you ever read this, this is why you work from a cell phone and your competitors have big, beautiful websites and nice shops and trucks. Get a life.

The box is from 2004, and Powermaster, the company that made it, has decided to cut off parts and support entirely. Their rationale is that it’s too hard to upgrade the boxes to current federal safety standards, but that doesn’t really apply in situations where customers want repairs, not upgrades. Their new boxes cost $3000. Why would anyone buy one after being told to forget about parts for an older one?

They encourage people to contact them via email, and they do not answer emails. It’s a good system. It works.

I have some documents that have some application to this old box, so I took a look. I also took some gut shots of the electronics. I found the potentiometer that makes the gate stay open, and I fixed it so it holds the gate fully open for 70 seconds. Even Mr. Magoo should be able to get a UPS truck through in that amount of time. On a good day, Joe Biden should be able to get his Corvette through in 70 seconds.

So I called UPS and told them what happened. No, I didn’t! I’m not that stupid. I taped a note to the keypad by the gate, saying it had been adjusted and would stay open for 70 seconds.

I did try to email Bill. UPS rejected the email instantly.

“MAIL UNDELIVERABLE

This email conversation thread has expired, and your message will not be delivered. No further action will be taken by UPS.“

Yeah, that’s not rude or anything.

What’s with the boldface? Is that supposed to be scary? Am I being scolded?

The inside of the box has a lot of dirt and crud in it, so I plan to take half a day, put a tarp down by the box, open the box, undo and clean all the connections, apply terminal protector, apply sealant to the box’s access plate, and close it up. I should be able to get another 10 years. The Powermaster people may be a little jerky, but the components in the box look basic and tough.

I think I can put an electric eye on the box to let it know when cars are in the gateway, which would be nice, because no one wants a gate that closes on cars. Driven by people they want to see, I mean.

Driver: STOP! I just wanted to tell you about the Jehovah’s Witnesses!

Gate: GATASAURUS CRUSH!!

They sell aftermarket electric eyes. I just have to find the right contacts to attach one to, and then I have to modify the box so I can run a wire into it without letting rain in. Pretty simple compared to other things I’ve done. I would rather just call someone, but I can hear the spiel already. “They don’t sell parts for this old box, but I can get you a new Liftmaster…”

If I get a new Liftmaster, guess who will install it? Me. There are like 4 wires involved. I can take it from here, chief.

In short, as has happened many times before, I was sitting here looking for people to take my money, but I could not find anyone worthy.

As for UPS, I hope Bill and the Indian guy with the anxiety attacks are doing well. Base pay at UPS amounts to $170,000, so I guess they’re fine.

Wonder what that comes out to in rupees.