Dorothy Can Keep Her Twister – We’ve Got Packages to Deliver

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Dorothy Can Keep Her Twister – We’ve Got Packages to Deliver

There’s surviving the job, and then there’s literally surviving the job.

Up until this point in my career, I thought I had seen it all—drivers launching packages like Olympic discus throwers, vans stuck in places AAA wouldn’t dare tow from, one guy who somehow managed to get locked in his own vehicle (don’t ask). But nothing—and I mean nothing—could’ve prepared me for what hit us. No, really. A tornado hit us.

It started like any other weird weather day in the Midwest. You know, that strange shade of green in the sky that screams "I’m not just rain, I’m a plot twist.” The winds started, the sky darkened like it had been hacked by a 2003 emo blog, and the rain was falling sideways. I was mid-dispatch when my phone basically turned into a live horror podcast—drivers screaming, crying, reporting trees smashing into vans, getting swept off roads, blocked in by power lines and barricades that seemed to appear out of nowhere like Mario Kart traps.

And me? I was standing inside our soon-to-be wind tunnel of a warehouse, phone glued to my ear, completely and utterly helpless.

“Shelter in place,” they said.
“SHELTER IN PLACE?!” Are you out of your bureaucratic mind? That's what we’re doing?! That’s it?! No one had a better plan than “hope the tornado swipes left”?

I’ve been through some stuff in life. But this? This was different. I had 30 drivers out on the road. Over half of them completely unreachable. And all I could do was sit there, in a safety cage that was starting to sound less like "safety" and more like "soon-to-be airborne shopping cart." Doors blew off their hinges. Debris howled past like a freight train made of trash and regret. And for 3 and a half minutes—the longest 3 and a half minutes of my entire existence—we all just… watched.

There were dispatchers, Amazon folks, Flex drivers—all huddled together in this one strange little slice of chaos. It was like a weird, corporate-themed final destination meet-up where nobody had RSVP’d.

And then—just as quickly as it came—it was gone.

Like a pissed-off magician, the tornado vanished into blue sky, like it hadn’t just slapped our entire lives across the face with a Home Depot aisle worth of destruction.

I sprinted out the moment I could. Blew up every phone I had numbers for. Started locating my team. I didn’t know if I’d be calling for help or calling family. My heart was pounding so hard, I swear I almost had a six-pack from chest contractions alone. I found one of my drivers with a windshield that had just been intimately acquainted with a tree. But thank the Lord, he was OK. They were all OK.

Still, during the storm? I thought it was over. For them. For me. For everything. I pictured the headlines, the calls I might have to make to a driver’s family. I pictured my son, and the thought of never seeing him again, and suddenly, “Fantastic Plus” seemed like a joke written in crayon by a drunk gremlin.

Yes, I kind of fell apart afterward. And no, I don’t care who knows it. Because for all the logistics expertise, planning, and metric-chasing madness of this job… nothing, nothing, prepares you for the moment when it all falls away and all that’s left is raw, human fear.

But like every chapter in this saga of insanity we call delivery life, we made it through. Somehow. And I got one more story for the Driver Diaries. One more notch on the “What Fresh Hell Is This?” belt.

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming—where the scariest thing is still probably Customer Delivery Feedback.

In the days that followed the storm, the cleanup felt like a live-action reenactment of Jumanji: Tornado Edition. Fallen trees. Power lines doing limbo. Debris in places that defied physics. And gates—oh, the poor gates—bent, broken, or completely missing, like they'd taken the opportunity to escape their homeowner responsibilities and start new lives elsewhere.

But you know what didn’t give up?
What stood tall, proud, and fully operational like it had just come back from a Rocky training montage?

The Eagle II 1/2 HP Residential Swing Gate Operator.

A saving grace. A reliable friend in a world gone full chaos.

While everything else around us was failing, this beautiful beast of machinery kept swinging (literally).

• 14 feet long and holds up to 400 lbs—which is more than I can say for most of my post-tornado emotions.

• Comes with 2 FREE remotes, a receiver, and a photo eye included—because the only thing worse than replacing a gate is paying extra for basic features.   

  
  
  

Whether you're rebuilding after a storm or just trying to keep your kingdom secure from porch pirates and stray raccoons, this thing is the gatekeeper you deserve.

Get yours now at Gate Operators Direct—because stability, reliability, and two free remotes shouldn’t be luxuries.
👉 Visit Gate Operators Direct to order
Your gate’s new personal trainer is waiting.

Smile! You're on Camera! (....and probably about to get fired)

The Driver Diaries 

My Kingdom for a Functioning Rabbit (and Fewer Group Stops)

So, you’re picturing it, right? The open road, the wind in your hair (if you’re lucky enough to still have it after a few months of this), the hero delivering smiles in a shiny blue van. Yeah, that’s the brochure version. The reality? It’s more like playing a high-stakes game of Jenga in a moving vehicle, followed by an Olympic-level sprint to a door, all while a tiny, demanding electronic overlord dictates your every move. But hey, at least the uniform is… breathable. Sometimes.

Before I ascended to the dizzying heights of Dispatch Overlord (a title I just gave myself, thank you very much), I was out there, pounding the pavement, a true Van Gogh – because some days, you feel like you’re losing an ear just trying to hear the GPS over the sound of your own sanity unravelling. For three glorious, back-breaking, character-building years, I was an Amazon DSP driver. And let me tell you, it’s a special kind of crazy.

My Kingdom for a Functioning Rabbit

First, let’s talk about our trusty sidekick: the "Rabbit." Sounds cute, doesn't it? Like a fluffy little helper that hops along, making your day easier. WRONG. This thing is less Bugs Bunny and more like that one relative who means well but constantly gives you bad directions, freezes at the most inconvenient moment (usually when you’re blocking traffic on a one-way street), and whose battery life is as predictable as a toddler’s mood swings.

"Turn left," it'll chirp, directly into a brick wall. "You have arrived," it'll announce, while you’re still a quarter-mile from anything resembling a habitable structure. And the scanning? Oh, the joyous symphony of beeps that sometimes don't beep, or beep for the wrong package, or just decide that today, barcode is a foreign language it refuses to learn. You learn to develop a sixth sense, a kind of package-whispering ability, because relying solely on the Rabbit is like asking a Magic 8-Ball for financial advice. "Outlook not so good," indeed.

The Agony and Ecstasy of "Group Stops"

And then there are the group stops. Ah, group stops. Amazon's ingenious way of saying, "We see you have three, maybe four, deliveries on this street, or even in this sprawling apartment complex that looks like an M.C. Escher drawing. Why not make it one stop and triple your walking distance, your confusion, and the likelihood of looking like a lunatic juggling packages while trying to decipher cryptic delivery notes? Efficiency!"

It’s like they want you to get your steps in. My FitBit doesn't think I'm delivering packages; it thinks I'm training for a marathon through a labyrinth. "15 stops, 180 packages" sounds manageable. "15 stops, 45 of which are 'grouped,' 180 packages, and 7 flights of stairs per group stop because the elevator is 'for residents only, peasant!'" – that’s a different story. That’s when you start eyeing that emergency water bottle like it's the Holy Grail.

Big Brother is Watching-

Let’s not forget our ever-present companions: Netradyne, Mentor, and the all-powerful CDF (Customer Delivery Feedback).

• Netradyne: The unblinking eye in the sky (or, well, on your dashboard). It sees all. It knows if you blinked too slowly, if you dared to adjust your hat, or if a particularly aggressive squirrel darted out, triggering a "distraction" event. Following distance? You could be tailgating a glacier and it’d still think you’re too close.

• Mentor: This app is less a "mentor" and more like that backseat driver who also happens to be grading your every move, your every turn, your every micro-hesitation. "Hard acceleration!" it screams, as you try to merge onto a highway where the speed limit is apparently just a suggestion for everyone else.

• CDF: The voice of the people. Sometimes it’s lovely: "Driver was so friendly and hid my package perfectly from the porch pirates!" Sometimes it’s… less lovely: "Driver left package AT THE DOOR. I wanted it ON THE MAT. One star." You learn to develop a thick skin, or at least a really good sarcastic internal monologue.

• Check out MORE HERE on Amazon's crazy expectations and how we fight the good the fight each and every day with a smile on our face!

It's like we can't ever do good enough. You can nail 99% of it, save a kitten from a tree, personally hand-deliver a package to a grateful old lady, and still get dinged because you braked "too harshly" avoiding a rogue tumbleweed.

Customers: The Good, The Bad, and The "Is That a Robe or…?"

And the customers! Bless their hearts. Most are lovely. The wave from the window, the "thank you!" shouted from the porch, the occasional offered water bottle on a scorching day – those are the little things that keep you going.

Then there are the others. The ones with delivery notes like "Leave by the third gnome on the left, under the slightly wilted petunia, but only if it's not raining. If raining, learn to control weather." Or the ones who swing open the door in various states of undress that make you wish for temporary blindness. You haven’t lived until you’ve handed a package to someone who clearly wasn’t expecting company, or clothes, for that matter.

And the dogs! Oh, the dogs. Every bark sounds like, "IS THAT MY CHEWY BOX?!" Some are friendly, tail-wagging ambassadors of goodwill. Others view your blue van as an invading enemy combatant and your ankles as prime targets. You learn to read dog body language faster than any training manual could teach you.

It’s a physical job, no doubt. Lifting, carrying, climbing, sometimes in rain, sleet, snow, or the kind of heat that makes you wonder if you accidentally took a wrong turn into the sun. My knees now make noises I’m pretty sure are Morse code for "send help and an ice pack."

But you know what? There’s a weird satisfaction to it. That moment when you close up an empty van at the end of the day (or, more likely, a van with just a few rogue packages that belong to another dimension). You survived. You conquered the route. You faced down angry Chihuahuas and confusing apartment layouts.

And you probably even have a story or two that’ll make your dispatcher (hi, that’s me now!) chuckle. Or cry. Sometimes both.So, w do we do it? Well, that’s a question for another chapter.