On Fri, 14 Oct 2005 16:49:54 -0500, "John N9JG"
wrote:

Back in the minicomputer days, we had a disk drive for a DEC PDP11-70 on
order. In those days drives were large and heavy, and a single drive might
take up one-third of a rack. Well, the freight truck driver pulled up near
the loading dock, opened the rear doors and backed the semi up to the
loading dock. The driver got out again and looked around for unloading help.
Not finding any help, he climbed inside the trailer and rolled the 120 pound
crate out the back of the truck and down onto the loading dock. The height
difference between the floor of the trailer and the loading dock was about
four feet. The driver pulled forward, closed the trailer doors and drove
off. Needless to say the drive didn't work, and the shock detector inside
the packing crate indicated the drive had suffered at least one large
impulse during shipment from the factory to the customer.


Not as serious, but I once had a drive about 2x3x4 feet in
size merely dropped off by UPS on an unattended, open loading dock --
no signature taken. That was on the shipper for not requiring a sig.
But it stood on the dock, only occasionally attended, for another
three days, with no notice to me -- my company's bad. When I fnally
called the vendor, they chased it down (pre-tracking-website) and
found it had been delivered three days earlier.

Dumb vendor -- when we later replacd a line printer with a
faster one, they were supposed to come and pick up the old one. They
screwed around for four months and finally came around for the
printer, on the third floor of a three-story building. Ha-ha -- by
that time, the freight elevator was out of service for a couple of
weeks for re-building. The vendor had to hire another outfit to come
out with expensive equipment capable of walking a heavy printer down
two wrapped flights of stairs.


"Chuck Harris" wrote in message
...
Phil Kane wrote:
[stuff]
Sounds like bovine excrement to me. I have dealt with companies in the
past...
[stuff]