Amazon delivery driver tries to toss package, fails, tries again
Commentary: Surveillance video shows an Amazon delivery that seems to have been inspired by the NBA playoffs.
Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.
I wonder what was in the package.
If so-called smart home devices have a use, perhaps it's for moments like this.
Here's footage from a Nest IQ outdoor camera belonging to Artem Russakovskii, posted to YouTube and Twitter on Thursday.
It shows a driver trying to deliver a package from Amazon at Russakovkii's home in Oakland, California.
I say "trying," because this seems to have been the very definition of "if at first you don't succeed."
The driver tries to toss the package toward an upper floor from the sidewalk. The package comes straight back down.
Undeterred, he tries again. And swish.
If one camera angle isn't enough for you, Russakovkii posted a second.
Russakovskii said on YouTube that his wife witnessed this seeming homage to the NBA playoffs and tried to talk to the driver.
He says the conversation went like this:
"Wife: 'Excuse me.'
Amazon guy: 'Yeah.'
Wife: 'Really?' (or 'Are you serious?' -- I can't tell)
Amazon guy: 'Yeah.'"
I contacted Amazon to ask what it thought of this delivery.
"This does not reflect the high standards we have for delivery service providers. We've addressed this with the delivery service provider, and have contacted the customer to make things right," an Amazon spokeswoman told me.
Russakovkii told me he'd been offered promotional credit and was told this type of delivery would never happen again.
Some might say that Amazon is in an awkward position here. As far as the customer is concerned, an Amazon delivery comes from the company -- even if the company doesn't hire drivers directly but instead contracts with various carriers.
It isn't, of course, the first time a delivery driver has taken liberties. Who can forget the FedEx driver who tossed a Samsung monitor over a fence?
Then there was the USPS driver who seemed not to want to walk too far, so she drove her truck over a man's lawn.
Some, though, might look at this footage and be reluctant to entertain the idea of Amazon Key. This is the company's new idea to have drivers actually drop packages inside people's houses.
Perhaps, in the future, many people will insist on delivery by drone. We know those things will behave themselves, right?
Updated: 1.42 p.m.: adds comment from Russakowskii.
Cambridge Analytica: Everything you need to know about Facebook's data mining scandal.
iHate: CNET looks at how intolerance is taking over the internet.