The Amazing Journey of My Orchid!
 

I bought a plant from an eBay vendor out of Bonita Springs, Florida. Said vendor packed up my plant and sent it on its way to me, here in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Here is this plant's itinerary:

03/29/17 departed Bonita Springs, Florida
03/30/17 departed Tampa, Florida
03/31/17 departed Brockton, Massahusetts
03/31/17 departed Nashua, New Hampshire
04/01/17 (it was supposed to be in Fort Wayne, Indiana on this day) departed Springfield, Massachusetts
04/02/17 departed Indianapolis, Indiana to be delivered at its final destination, which I assume will be Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Unless, USPS decides it needs to visit South Bend, Indiana? The USPS tracking system is a fantastic way USA postal customers can keep track of their packages. But it also reveals how poor a job it does when such a package is routed the wrong way.

That's wonderful isn't it? I'm currently waiting on a plant that is being held at my local FedEx office. According to tracking it arrived at a local facility early yesterday morning. A facility less than 10 miles away from the office it's to be held at. It was loaded on a truck at 5:29 am yesterday and sent out for delivery, presumably to that office. Then nothing........now I'm told they'll get it Monday. Nothing about where the plant spent last night or today. It's still on the truck as far as anyone can tell.

Mis-routed packages are inevitable. No system can be perfect, and at least some are due to problems with addressing. Once it goes to the wrong place, if it still gets to you in 5 or 6 days the system is working pretty well. Still, it is certainly frustrating.

With a recent FedEx package I had 5 different notifications in 24 hours - the address was incorrect and they didn't know where to deliver - delivery was attempted but with no one there to sign delivery would be attempted again the next day - the package was being held at facility X - the package was returned to the sender - the package was being held at facility Y for one more day before returning. It was at facility X.

When we order our plants we want them NOW. Two days is an eternity, and more than two is simply and utterly unacceptable. I understand, agree, and react in just this way.

Some years ago, as a test against me, a shipper in New England messed up my package zip code. This, three Psychopsis plants spent the entire month of Fenruary "lost", sitting somewhere on a shelf in a USPS storage facility. Yeah, a whole month.

The package did eventually arrive, and, despite my concerns, the plants were fine.

This happens sometimes. I'm a letter carrier for the USPS and I have gotten mail that was supposed to go to South Africa, Germany and England. The South African one was the biggest conundrum because it didn't even originate in the US.

That said, if you haven't already, call your local Postmaster or stop in if it does not get an arrival scan tomorrow morning at your local Office. Mondays are very busy day for the PO, so I would wait until at least 10am for the scan. Make sure to bring the tracking info with you if you go in or have it handy when you call.

Most items are not sorted by hand, at least not by anybody that looks closely at it, until they reach your local PO and the machines do screw up on a fairly regular basis and sometimes the barcode is off or the machine insists on sending it to the wrong locations no matter what we do. By calling your PM, he or she may be able to get it so that a human being finds your package, puts his or her hands on it and "manually" gets it to where it is going.

On the bright side, at least you are getting scans. Nothing is more ominous and nerve wracking than a package that goes "dark" for days with no new scans.

Glad to have company on this amazing journey! Ironically, a week prior, I bought another plant from the same vendor. It went from Bonita Springs, Florida to Tampa, to Indiaapolis, Indiana to Fort Wayne in two days. This is opposite of the law of karma where too much of a good thing is pay back with disappointment! LOL!

It happens with all shippers. The online tracking of some label printer tape showed it left the Tempe, Arizona warehouse for delivery to a Phoenix address early one morning. (Phoenix and Tempe are adjacent.) It showed up at the store for pickup 5 days later. The store is 7 miles from the warehouse. I could have walked to the warehouse and back from my house in one morning.

My plant left Indianapolis last night. It arrived in the parcel processing center in Fort Wayne @ 3:15am this morning. It went to my USPost Office where it is now with my postal carrier 'out for delivery'. I never doubted this plant will get to me. The point here is that it went all over New England before it ended up in the Mid-West. New Hampshire and Massachusetts are in all its Spring glory. I would've enjoyed riding with my plant and visited all of these cities.

Fingers crossed that your plant arrives safely today and that your mail carrier doesn't have vehicle trouble or anything like that! I hope the plant is everything you're hoping for. :goodluck:

It is good to know I'm not the only impatient member here when it comes to shipping. I've been lucky and not had any problems with plants suffering.

I thought orchids were supposed to teach us patience. I have a problem with sellers that wait days to ship without any notification or indication of shipping days in their listings. I live in a rural neighborhood with a mailbox a half a mile from my home and I prefer not to have a plant sitting in the box all afternoon regardless of the weather.

Matt I hope your plant arrives soon, in excellent condition.