It may warm their hearts, but UPS's left-hand turns do nothing to chill the planet. The left-hand turn prohibition at UPS is not news; the shipper has been doing it for years, as part of its regimented efficiency scheme. New York Times writer Bob Tedeschi even wrote about it almost exactly one year ago.

What does that mean? First, that the Times fell for UPS's PR spin, not bothering even to consult the morgue. Second, that Digg users fell for the Times story — and they also didn't bother to consult the site's archive. UPS should be commended for running its operations efficiently. And heck, let's pat UPS PR on the back for confabulating about an existing practice as green business.

But does this really mean that we're not polluting the planet when we order books on Amazon.com and get them shipped to us on a UPS truck? Of course not. Only in the dreamlike fantasy world of Digg is that true.

I don't have a preteen child, but instead, a husband who views "Harry Potter" with much the same excitement. So, last Saturday, I checked Amazon.com's site for the tracking information. Delivered, UPS claimed, to the front door. Curious, since I was sitting about 20 feet from my front door. I called UPS's automated information line and discovered it had been delivered to my former work address. So downtown I went, and by luck, a former colleague was at the office to let me in. No "Harry Potter" to be found, even though a UPS deliveryman had called on the building that morning. I called Amazon.com, which was good enough to refund my money and send a new copy, which wouldn't arrive until Wednesday.

The book did show up eventually — but by U.S. Postal Service on Monday, not by UPS. How a book can simultaneously be delivered to an office's front door and entrusted to the USPS for delivery is a feat of magic beyond my understanding.

Amazon.com, of course, did the right thing in issuing a refund. Occasionally, the company fulfills Jeff Bezos's tired promise of being "customer-centric" — in this case, recognizing that the book didn't have much value to me delivered late. (I had to rush over to a physical bookstore and — oh, the indignity! — purchase the book by handing it over the counter to a human being to have it rung up.) It will incur some expense, but leave the incident with its reputation intact.

But UPS? UPS is just screwed. Its vaunted electronic-tracking system has been revealed as full of lies. The data, after all, is only as good as the people who enter it. Kottke speculates that his deliveryman entered in false information to avoid trouble from supervisors who wanted delivery to go off without a hitch. And, perhaps, to avoid having to make Amazon good on the cost of its refunds.

Instead, though, it's been caught out. And now, I'm not inclined to trust anything UPS tells me about any delivery. How do I know that its personnel aren't fudging the data to make their jobs easier, or save their bosses a buck? If we can't trust UPS with the simple delivery of a book that's precious to kids — and more than a few adults — why would we ever put our businesses in its hands?

Here's what I think happened. I think UPS's network was overwhelmed by Amazon's Potter-volume in some parts of the country and they had no way to deliver all those packages. (The forums for the book at Amazon and Google Blog Search are full of similar complaints from others...warning, spoilers! UPS even offloaded some of the volume to the USPS for "last-mile" delivery.) So, UPS just marked all of those packages they had no intention of delivering as "oops, we missed you, you must have been out".

Let's go back to Amazon's guarantee, which states that the refund "does not apply if delivery is attempted, but no one is available to accept the package". Amazon would be pretty angry with UPS if they cost them a bunch of money due to refunds and, more importantly, the loss of a bunch of customer goodwill...maybe Amazon would switch a larger portion of their formidable package output to another carrier, for instance. So UPS intentionally misclassifying those deliveries covers their ass with Amazon and covers Amazon's ass with regard to the refund.

Harry Potter and the Phantom Delivery [Kottke.org]
(AP Photo/Tina Fineberg)