This little gem came not from me, but from an older guy I worked with over last winter break. We’ll call him Jeff for simplicity’s sake. Jeff was a delivery guy for a certain XYZ delivery company, and my job was as a holiday helper. (Basically I assisted in delivering the influx of holiday packages.)

A couple days into my temporary job, we stop at a house with a pretty long, steep driveway. I do my thing and step out of the truck, arms out for the package, but Jeff tells me not to worry about taking it to the door. Instead we leave it at the foot of the driveway, near the mailbox.

Not one to question it, I comply and leave it there. All the while Jeff has this huge shit-eating grin on his face as he blasts the truck’s horn and waits a couple moments. Then there’s movement from the house’s front door (hard to see, but I can make out this tubby, balding, 40-somethings guy with a sour look on his face step out.)

We watch the guy, who we’ll call Gabe, begin the long, arduous descent down his driveway, shuffling along at a slow pace. Jeff stays the entire time, grinning like an idiot while Gabe picks up his package, barely acknowledges us, and begins climbing back up his driveway.

Jeff calls out to him, “Thank you again for choosing XYZ deliveries, sir! We’re proud to ensure your packages arrive safely.”

I can tell it bothers the fuck out of the guy, but he only flicks us off as he leaves. Jeff laughs, cranks up the truck, and we shove off.

Completely bewildered, I turn to him and say, “What the fuck was that about.”

Jeff only laughs again at this, in incredibly high spirits and launches into his explanation.

Apparently, the guy we just delivered to has had a history of fucking over the people he hires to do work for his home. (He’d scammed a landscaping company with claims that the grass they’d replaced half of his yard with didn’t perfectly match the shade of the other half.)

At the time Jeff got fucked over, he’d already been delivering to Gabe for years, and the guy had never been home (or had been home, but never answered the door.) Additionally, the guy’s garage was always closed, which is important because when it rains it’s company policy to leave a package just inside the garage door for safe keeping.

So one day, it’s drizzling outside and Jeff delivers a package to Gabe’s house. For whatever reason, the garage door is open this time around, so Jeff leans in and plops the package a couple feet from the cruddy weather. Then he goes about his day as normal.

About an hour later, Jeff gets a call from his supervisor who’s in a massive frenzy. “JEFF! WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?! DID YOU SERIOUSLY MESS UP SOME GUY’S GARAGE! HOW IN THE HELL DO YOU EVEN DO THAT!”

Jeff, taken aback, does his best to get to the bottom of things with his supervisor. Apparently, Gabe had seen Jeff deliver the package to his home, seen him lean in to place the package inside, and then claimed that he’d broken the garage door. (In reality, Jeff told me Gabe’s door had most likely broken and the “cheap fuck was looking for some poor bastard to pin it on.”)

Fortunately, Jeff was able to escape any personal liabilities for lack of proof. However XYZ Deliveries itself couldn’t completely throw out the claim without engaging in a costly little court battle as they had indeed had a deliveryman on the premises and no proof of when the thing broke. They weighed the costs and decided on a $600 payout instead of the potential thousands it would cost in legal fees.

Gabe, the smug asshole, got his garage repaired for free. Luckily for Jeff, however, a small loophole in the delivery company’s policy allowed him to exact revenge.

The loophole was basically this: “In the case of delivering to locations where the delivery person feels he is at risk or in danger, he does not have to risk his personal well-being by setting foot on said location’s property. Instead said individual is allowed to drop the package off at the safest and most convenient location nearest to the individual’s property (i.e. the mailbox or foot of the driveway.)

Learning this, Jeff takes full advantage. The next package Gabe orders happens to be an expensive piece of electronics and it was marked “Urgent.” Even better, it’s raining the day of delivery. Absolute downpours.

Jeff pulls up to your friendly, neighborhood asshole’s place and does the same thing he did with me: Blasts the horn several times and waits. Then he places the package just in front of the mailbox, under a plastic tarp (another policy in the case of rain.)

Apparently Gabe really needed the package, as Jeff’s horn draws him from his home and on a slow, slogging descent down his driveway. He’s fuming by the time he reaches the bottom, with Jeff smiling like a professional.

“WHY THE FUCK DIDN’T YOU BRING IT UP TO MY MOTHERFUCKING HOUSE?” Gabe inquired politely as he grabbed the soggy-bottomed package.

“Company policy, sir!” Jeff replied. “Can’t set foot on a customer’s property and risk further damages!”

Gabe’s mouth opened and closed like a fish as he tried to sort this out. He’s completely soaked now and shivering, so he just said, “Go to hell.”

“Certainly, sir! What kind of shipment would you like for that?”

At a loss for words Gabe just begins slogging back up his driveway, with Jeff giving him a couple friendly honks to send him on his way. Then he continues on with his deliveries.

The entire incident took place a couple years or so before I began helping Jeff out, but to this day, he loves exacting company policy on the jackass. I felt a newfound respect for the man after that, and the rest of my time working as a delivery aid was filled with more awesome stories from Jeff, the good-humored delivery man.

Edit: A couple of you wanted to hear the other stories Jeff had to tell. Well here\’s one of them: Enjoy!

And here\’s another