Yesterday morning at 9 am I was standing outside the FedEx depot door when it opened, (it is a hundred mile round trip.) I did all that was necessary to have it shipped, including paying with an arm and a leg. I handed my precious envelope to a surly lady behind the computer. Explained that this needed to go as fast as humanly possible (She grimaced at the screen not answering me).
I tried to make conversation with the man standing in line behind me but he reared his horsey head up at the sound of a foreign accent, exchanging a glance with the surly woman over my head saying – What? What? So I fell into silence and turned my eyes to the bright pictures of smiling spruced people bending with purpose, caught by the camera swiftly handing clean packages into polished planes and waited for her computer to start spitting out bloody paper.
Now look at that screen again. All that rushing and driving was for nothing. I paid for urgent overnight (which actually means 48 hours) and it sits in the office ALL day. Not even shipped.
On my return I farmed, and cleaned and sorted and heaved. I sat with the piglets training them to drink water from a spigot.
I let the sheep into the July field and told Daisy that the rubbish paddock was really not that bad and please don’t lean over the fences. Her udder is cool to a fast knuckle touch which is good. I mowed, weeded and picked dinner, though everything has slowed down with this cool weather, we have not been out of the low seventies in days. And I checked the fedEx tracking screen again and again waiting for movement. Maybe they just don’t update it in real time I thought.
Good morning. I checked the FedEx tracking screen this morning and our package finally moved and was sent to Indianapolis at 9pm last night. If it is going to London why was it on a truck to Indianapolis? By 3. am this morning it was back in transit to parts unknown.
Ah well. They have promised that it will be in London by lunchtime on Wednesday. I guess to fulfill this promise they have to drive it all over America for a day or so! Big breaths. It will be alright. Sometimes we are pushed in a direction we do not want to go in and our suitcases need to sit packed and forlorn a little longer waiting for the destination we had hoped for. The timing still might work if I aim to fly out Friday afternoon. What is very important now is that I make this time count. So today I am taking the tractor through to the yards and I am going to give it a good clean up. Sheila will be happy, she goes into the yards to hoover up mulberries and now that Daisy does not wait there every day to be milked it would be nice if it was cleaned as it will stay clean and the mulberries will be tastier.
Then I am going to get the long nails and my big hammer with the fat head because I am hopeless at hammering – Why are the heads of nails so small? – and I am going do repairs on the fences.
But first I shall pop into the FedEx screen again and see whether my package has moved. Tracking is hell.
Have a lovely day.
your impatient friend, celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
70 responses to “Tracking is Hell”
This is correct. I had an overnight package due to be delivered yesterday morning. As of yesterday afternoon it no longer shows an estimated delivery date. It still doesn’t. When you go to the FedEx Tracking page, you’ll see a tiny notice at the top of the page in red. It reads: “IMPORTANT! Severe flooding in Tennessee may cause some service delays and disruptions. Learn more “Clicking on ‘Learn more’ you’ll see this: Flooding in Tennessee Service Update Customers should expect delays using FedEx Express® service to the Nashville area, including Clarksville, because of severe flooding. There may also be service delays in Millington and Dyersburg in West Tennessee. We are committed to providing service to the best of our ability in areas that can be safely accessed, and we will continue to monitor the situation. Depending on local conditions, pickups and deliveries may be affected. Shipping to affected areas? To help avoid delays, we encourage you to contact your recipients to verify if their location is accepting shipments. Delivery will be attempted when it is safe to do so. Continue to check the status of your shipments on fedex.com before going to any staffed FedEx location in affected areas. You can also contact FedEx Customer Service at 1.800.GoFedEx 1.800.463.3339. I phoned them yesterday afternoon and was told it would arrive this morning. But because the online tracking is still not showing my estimated delivery date, I just phoned again. The representative confirmed it was due to the flooding in Memphis and that my package was currently waiting for a flight out. I guess the delay is at the airport waiting to leave Memphis. He told me that it’s possible my package might not come this morning either. They can’t be sure until they can get their flight out but he said to keep watching the online tracking as it will be updated their when it’s on it’s way. My package was international also. I hope they can get their flights out soon.