How UPS Sent Me Into A Minor Panic While Waiting For My Apple Watch

Nothing can wake you up faster than pure panic. No, I didn't oversleep or miss a flight. I just groggily read an email that said the Apple Watch I'd been waiting to wear for months was delayed. Yes, it's that important.

See, the thing is, before I drifted off to sleep Thursday night, UPS had sent me a notification on my iPhone telling me that the Apple Watch was out for delivery. So I was a bit excited. But just hours later, I awoke to an entirely different email saying the package had been rescheduled for delivery at a later date.

Understandably I was a bit worried. I took a deep breath to calm down a bit and then checked the tracking information to see where my package was, just like other Apple Watch customers have been doing since Thursday. It couldn't have gone far, since I definitely saw it land at Newark. Seriously, I must have refreshed that page at least a thousand times before Friday. And there it was, sitting at the UPS warehouse just in the next town over.

So I checked to see if I could pick it up at the warehouse instead. In a brief phone call, I found out that if I did that, it wouldn’t be available until Monday the earliest. The thought of sneaking into the warehouse actually crossed my mind, but getting arrested for trespassing isn’t exactly one of my life goals.

Of course it didn't end there. Whether it was a cruel joke or just the worst timing ever, Apple sent an email a couple hours earlier reminding me that the Apple Watch would be in my hands “shortly.” Just a little more salt in the wound.

Things weren't looking much better than when I'd started, but I took one more shot at it by sending an email to UPS customer support expressing my displeasure. At that point I didn't expect a fix; I just wanted an explanation. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, it’s not like my package was the only one they had to deliver on Friday. On the bright side, it still meant I would get my Apple Watch within the week, unlike other customers who have to wait until June to get theirs.

I was prepared to throw in the towel. But moments later, I got a call -- not from a UPS representative in some random call center, but someone at the warehouse nearby. It turns out the Watch had already been on the truck and sent out for delivery, but somehow the website was sending out the wrong information to some of its customers. I thanked the representative profusely. Crisis averted.

But now I’m just stuck here... waiting … and waiting. It’s the biggest drawback to online package tracking: It can be extremely useful -- if it doesn’t drive you nuts first.