Re: [ihc] portable garage caution

[furtek@xxxxxxx]

>--- Richard Welty <rwelty@domain.elided> wrote:
>>by comparison, the customer service person at
>> overnite had zero
>> interest in the notion of "getting it done", no real
>> concern over
>> whether or not i ever got my shipment, and nothing
>> at all in the
>> way of ideas that might help with the situation. at
>> times it seemed
>> like she was taking some care to make sure that
>> everytime i made
>> a step forward, there would be a corresponding step
>> back.

Richard and all,

A bit off topic from your garage, but I think we all have occasion to ship items too big or heavy for UPS, so I thought I'd share some experiences.

I work for a company that ships medical comuter systems around the world.  Imagine a PC valued at $150,000, used to manipulate a linear accelerator worth mulitple millions, and you get the idea.

We use Roadway here for all of our time-critical shipments -- the kind where we specify the precise day on which the freight is to arrive.  It's expensive to do it that way, but then we know exactly when it arrives.  We can specify time and pickup if we have to, but the price does go through the roof.  These folks are setup for freight movement between businesses, not consumers, and the company selling you the garage might better be the source of the anger if they choose to use Overnite for customer delivery.  (I used to work with a vendor who used Overnite exclusively, and they weren't the best to work with!)

I have no interest in sending business to Roadway, except to say that everyone I've met from the company has impressed me, and that they deliver (pardon the pun) on everything we expect from them.  If you ever need to ship something, you can get a quote at www.roadway.com.  You'll need to know the 'freight class' of your shipment, which is simply based on the density -- pounds per cubic foot.  There's a pdf on their site to help out.  Basically, less-dense goods cost more per pound.  Makes sense if you consider that they're limited by the weight _and_ volume of a trailer or truck.

You can also specify things like "inside delivery"; the driver will actually take boxes off a pallet and bring them inside if, say, the facility has no loading dock and a narrow door!  A far cry from most shippers who might leave it at the curb.

Again, I have no financial interest in ROadway's business, it's just a pleasure to work with folks who understand that _we're_ not the ultimate customer, our customer is, and that customer sees more of Roadway than they do of us.

I've rambled long enough.  Best to all,

Joel

Joel Furtek
202 Douglas Ave Unit 2B
Charlottesville, VA  22902
1-434-228-0993 (local cell)
<http://homepage.mac.com/heelsroll>
Selling my c.1900 Waltons country home -- see my web site!