The airline off-loaded packages.

So I came away after my post last night feeling really good about myself. I'd given credit to some of the finest shipping companies on the planet, and my current item had just arrived in Singapore, giving it plenty of time to make it here to Perth ahead of its scheduled delivery date on Friday.

Then I went to bed, woke up, and refreshed the UPS tracking page, only to be greeted with the following message: "The airline off-loaded packages". That and, the big bar at the top of the page, which was previously green and said "in transit", was now yellow, and said "exception".

Uh oh. Going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing my package was one of those that was off-loaded, and that your package being off-loaded is not good.

They couldn't really be any more vague if they tried, so I googled the phrase, and ended up reading forum comments from other folks who had it and didn't really know what it meant either. The best guess seemed to be that the plane was full, and that some packages had to be left behind.

I'd like to know who chooses what stays and what goes, you know what I mean? I was picturing some Singaporean guy laughing at my name as he places my package aside into the "doesn't matter when we ship this" tray.

As it turns out, it was a temporary inconvenience, because another update a couple of hours later said something about it having been released by the clearing agency and was now in-transit for delivery. I'll admit that I considered this update quite peculiar also, on account of my not actually living in Singapore.

Up until a moment ago I was still reasonably happy though, because throughout all of this, the scheduled delivery date remained Friday. Friday is the best day to get packages, of course, because if gives you the whole weekend with it.

A recent refresh, however, and my heart sank. Sure, it has finally left Singapore, but the scheduled delivery date has now been pushed back to Monday.

Thursday afternoon, and at the last minute, UPS delay delivery from Friday to Monday? Are you trying to piss me off?

Ordinarily I wouldn't care, because it will still have been delivered a lot sooner than I was originally led to believe when I placed the order. The purchase website originally said something like 8-16 business days, and I'll actually be getting it in 5.

The problem is that, for the past few days now, it's been saying the delivery date would be Friday, so I've been prepping myself for that. Isn't the idea to set the customer's expectation and then meet that expectation? If it'd said Monday all along I wouldn't be fussed, but to make me feel like it's going to be Friday until right up at the last minute, and then delay it?

Not happy, Jan.