Santa may be struggling around here this year. I present to you the saga of the local FedEx meltdown, in which there is apparently a mountain of undelivered packages, with more arriving every day, so they can’t keep up with it. This crisis has taken over the town Facebook group, as people are bonding over sharing stories of failed deliveries. I’ve met so many people through this. We should organize a potluck.

It all started the Friday before last, when we got snow that made the roads difficult (school was cancelled), but it cleared up quickly. But then there was another round of snow on Monday, and roads didn’t get cleared until mid-day Tuesday. This apparently threw FedEx off because packages didn’t get delivered Friday and Monday, but more packages kept coming in, faster than they could deliver, until it got out of control.

I was supposed to have a package delivered last Tuesday. They gave me a delivery window. I went out to shovel my porch and front walk so they could deliver. Then the delivery window passed and the status changed to delivery by end of day. When it started getting dark, I turned on my porch light. At about 6:30, the status changed to delivery by end of the next day. The same thing happened again on Wednesday, with a delivery window that passed, delivery by end of day, then delivery by end of next day.

Thursday, with the delivery window I got the name of the driver who was on his way, and the scan record showed that it had been put on a truck (which suggests that those previous days it never even made it onto a truck and was never actually out for delivery). After the delivery window passed, the name of the driver changed and it said by end of day. Then I got a bright orange flag on the delivery, saying it would have to be rescheduled because of dangerous weather and they would notify me when they were able to schedule the delivery. Mind you, this was a day when even I, the weather weenie who won’t drive if it’s raining, was out driving. The package was scanned back into the FedEx facility.

The next update came Sunday morning, when it was scanned on a truck and out for delivery. They gave me the name of a driver. And it was stuck there until this morning, with the only update being that it went from delivery by end of day Sunday to “we’re actively trying to find a delivery time for you.” It wasn’t scanned back in, and it still said that my driver was on his way. We had a really bad cold snap, and I worried that this poor guy had frozen by the side of the road, since he was still on his way days later.

Now the package was supposedly scanned onto a truck this morning, for delivery this afternoon. I’m not holding my breath since it doesn’t say anything about a driver being on the way. This is just something for my office so it isn’t crucial. I just get frustrated with the constant changes. If they’d simply said that they were backed up and they would deliver next week, I’d have been fine with that. I get annoyed when it’s day after day of being told it will come and then they don’t show up. But there are other people in town who have perishable items like food or medication that was shipped in dry ice or in cold packs, and it’s now been out too long to be safe. There are people waiting on Christmas gifts that they ordered in plenty of time and that got to town more than two weeks before Christmas but that may not be delivered in time. Businesses haven’t been able to receive items they need for their businesses, and they apparently aren’t making scheduled pickups for businesses trying to send things. One of the pharmacies in town isn’t getting shipments of medicines. There are people expecting packages that require a signature who have taken off work to wait for the delivery, only to have it not show up.

People who work for FedEx say they’re completely buried after getting backed up. When people offered to go to the facility to pick up their packages so they wouldn’t have to deliver them, they said that wouldn’t work because they couldn’t find the packages in the pile of backlog. The only way they’re able to chip away at it is to just load packages on trucks as they can go. I’m picturing something like that episode of I Love Lucy where she’s working on the chocolate conveyor belt and it all starts piling up, but with packages piled everywhere and still coming in.

There are other things I want to order to finish setting up my office and kitchen, but I may wait until after Christmas to see if they get settled down rather than adding to the pile-up.

This might make a fun Christmas movie plot, with the delivery service overwhelmed with packages and a bunch of people from the community dress up as Santa to come help them deliver so that Little Timmy in the cancer ward can get his present on time. I doubt FedEx would allow that, but in Christmas Movie World you could make it work.