FedEx not what it's cracked up to be

[kmcclary]

We too almost had a disaster.

We followed the instructions in the manual, which stated:

Originally Posted by FIRST Manual, Sec 4 PG 13

"If you are using the donated FedEx shipments, FedEx Express Frieght Service, the drayage facility will call FedEx for pickup. Put the proper paperwork/airbill on your crate."

As expected, we went to the FedEx Express site three days in advance, and scheduled an "it'll be ready by 3:30PM" pickup. The website gave us a set of printed airbills. We put them on the packed crate, and set it out on Tuesday.

Well, at close to 6PM, no pickup! One of our mentors called FedEx. They said, "There's nothing scheduled" WE said "we did the website thing, specified a 3:30PM pickup, and the website CONFIRMED it..." They said the problem was "you didn't receive a pickup number, so it wasn't really scheduled, regardless of what the website said". (What???)

LESSON: Apparently, scheduling a pickup time, and printing the airbill is --insufficient--. This does NOT generate a "pickup request". That's a SEPARATE ACTION.

Post Motem: We determined that "STEP 9" on the USFIRST FedEx donation document was the problem. If you don't EXPLICITLY specify "schedule a pickup" in a specific field, it DEFALUTS to "Will contact FedEx to Request a Pickup [separately]. (There's an additional location on the last page to also request a pickup", but it did NOT say anywhere that "You have a time, but by your choices you still need to make another call to schedule the physical pickup".)

What confused us is that we DID receive a confirmation that the paperwork was filled out correctly! It stated "It is scheduled to ship on 2/20" (and gave us a tracking number). HOWEVER, apparently its assumption that "you will call" is a perfectly legitimate exit (as well as "it is scheduled for you"). This statement CAN IMPLY that the separate scheduling action was done!

Bottom line: (1) The above manual statement is confusing. It does NOT imply THEY will schedule the pickup. YOU still have to do it. (2) Printing Airbills and Schedule Pickup are SEPARATE actions. (3) Don't only trust the website's output. In the future, after performing a web action it's always a good idea to VERIFY with a --call-- to FedEx that the pickup itself is IN their system correctly. (4) If you wait until ship day to verify pickup scheduling, you may be in trouble, and have to perform "extreme actions" to make the deadline.

A huge Thank You goes to Mike Kizer, our mentor with the trailer. He happened to notice the crate was still at the school at 6PM that night. He quickly fetched his flatbed trailer, assembled a student crew to move it to his trailer, and personally drove the crate out to the Metro Airport to make the deadline.

BTW... We were VERY lucky. Detroit Metro Airport's FedEx Depot (50 miles away from Chelsea!) was the only office in this part of the state that was still open. Mike arrived there with the crate at about 8:45PM, less than 20 minutes before they closed!

It did ship on time, but it could have been a disaster without some quick action by our team! <whew>

- Keith McClary
Chief Engineer, Team 1502 "Technical Difficulties"