WWWWAAAAYYYY to dependent

[Racket_Man]

I am putting this here but it could really go into COC BUT the people in question are not really my co-workers per se.


Tonight I took a delivery to our only gated community. AND the customer even gave the gate code when ordering.

Now this nice community only has 12 residences -- 2 groups of 4 townhouses and 2 groups of 2 townhouses. One of the 2's and both 4's have the same address BUT have an individual unit number say 123-1 XYZ Circle and the addresses are all odd. The above are also on one side of the loop. The other set of 2 is just on the other side of the loop and those 2 units have even addresses. The loop is maybe 2 short blocks long total from beginning to end and there is NOT anything blocking the view. In fact I watched this little community being built 9 years ago as I delivered large orders to the construction crews when I still worked lunch shifts

As I arrive at the address given on the ticket I notice that a unit number is NOT present. The address is 123 XYZ Circle. Needing a proper unit number I give the customer a call. I tried to verify the address BUT he says NO I am at 122 XYZ Circle and to come into the open garage.

OK no problem there. I go around the short end of the loop and pull up into the driveway where the customer meets me. He then explains WHY he gave the wrong address.

<Pausing a moment> I have been doing delivery now for 10 years and it takes a LOT to surprise or amaze me and make my brain kick into BSOD/reboot mode. His explanation did just that.

He told me that since his particular unit was built about a year or 2 after the others (7 years ago) MOST GPS's/GPS systems/programs will NOT correctly indicate where his unit is located and drivers that use GPS seem to get LOST and can not find his house.

NOW think about that for a moment... 12 residences 4 different address blocks with addresses/unit numbers ALL CLEARLY MARKED ON THE HOUSES (well lit and VERY visible) and a delivery driver can not seem to find an address.

Folks this is some of todays delivery drivers (not all by a long shot).......

Now I am not a Luddite by any stretch of the imagination BUT this is WHY when I train new drivers I always tell them:

GPS is fine and a great learning tool BUT do NOT become dependent on it for EVERYTHING. There will be times when a GPS is useless like road construction, football games, area events, etc. Learn to USE YOUR BRAIN and learn our deliver area.

Apparently this customer has had this type of situation happen numerous times in the past. I know for a fact that I have delivered to this person more than once and NEVER had a problem finding his house.

[Gilhelmi]

I was going to ask the silly questions, but then I remembered where I was.

In the Army, we one time had to go someplace and used the GPS. It told us to turn Right and go "1 mi." Left ".1 mi." Left "1 mi." Right (on the same road we just turned off of). Sadly, we did not realize what the thing was doing until we got to the end of the first "1 mi.". We figured there was construction sometime recently and stopped to ask, it was 2 years before.

[BPFH]

GPS is fine and a great learning tool BUT do NOT become dependent on it for EVERYTHING. There will be times when a GPS is useless like road construction, football games, area events, etc. Learn to USE YOUR BRAIN and learn our deliver area.

This does explain why, on the approach to the Blue Water Bridge at Port Huron, there are lots of signs that say, essentially, "Ignore GPS, follow the signs."

[drunkenwildmage]

Wow, those drivers must think that us pizza guys who lived in pre-GPS days are heathens. In the time that I served in the 'Marco's Marines' we got a map of the area, and a pocket calculator. First thing I did was hand the calculator back to the boss. I got so good at reading a map,at that job, I now can find almost any place fairly quickly. All I need is the address, and an semi-accurate map.

[Racket_Man]

Wow, those drivers must think that us pizza guys who lived in pre-GPS days are heathens. In the time that I served in the 'Marco's Marines' we got a map of the area, and a pocket calculator. First thing I did was hand the calculator back to the boss. I got so good at reading a map,at that job, I now can find almost any place fairly quickly. All I need is the address, and an semi-accurate map.

Same here. Give me a paper map AND a semi-decent set of direction and I am good. YUP I am a full blown heretic. I started back when GPS was a luxury not an everyday common thing contained in 50 different devices including built in to a vehicle.

What gets me is this is a SMALL loop. HOW can one not see there are more houses just a short distance away.

[Catwoman2965]

I actually prefer maps and whatnot over GPS. I have it on my phone, and i swear its dyslexic. Last summer I went to visit a friend who I hadn't seen in a number of years. She gave me step by step directions, but i also had my GPS going, just in case.

She told me her car is red, in the driveway, and the garage would be open. So I turn onto her street, and my GPS announces "your destination is on your right" when in fact, it was on the left.

[Kittish]

Back when I was in training for driving a truck, the first thing my driver trainer did when I was assigned to his truck was hand me info on what city and state his next load was going to and tell me to plan the route. So, in those days of the dark ages of technology, I opened my big book of maps and did just that. For a bit over five years, I used maps and directions given me by (usually) someone actually AT the location I was going to. I only got lost a couple of times, and even then I was within a few miles of the place I was looking for (and almost always due to poorly given directions).

My last driver trainer told me a funny story about how he went to sleep with one trainee driving and when he woke up, not only did she not have the first clue about where she was (couldn't even make a reasonable guess what STATE they were in), she's somehow gotten the truck TURNED AROUND and somehow gotten away from the interstate. She was happily bopping right along on some dinky little state road going back the direction they'd come from in the first place. The part that made his brain blue screen was that there had been no reason at all, no construction or anything, for her to have exited the interstate.

[prjkt]

GPS can be handy. occasionally .

Most of the time I'll use google maps to see where something is, then take myself there on my own. I'm also known to just drive in the general direction of a place and somehow end up where I need to be.

[notalwaysright]

For years GPS said you had to take a ferry to get to my house. Don't do it! Ignore the machine, I beg you...

[carryonnow]

For a while, I lived in a state where many of the locals would say "You cant get they-ah from he-yah" and they mean it. Many roads along the Androscoggin River run close to the edge....and then on the other side of the river...one sees another road also close to the river's edge--with NO bridge crossing the river. Yet, at least once a year the local TV station covered a story of some nit wit tourist almost driving into the river because "the GPS said to follow this route."

Fuggin Lemmings....

[Tama]

And people wonder why I don't use a GPS...

[wolfie]

My last driver trainer told me a funny story about how he went to sleep with one trainee driving and when he woke up, not only did she not have the first clue about where she was (couldn't even make a reasonable guess what STATE they were in), she's somehow gotten the truck TURNED AROUND and somehow gotten away from the interstate.

This is a bit of a sore spot. Too many companies see a trainer/trainee as a cheap team. Instead, they should start out doing not much more mileage than a single (trainer riding shotgun), with the mileage gradually increasing as the trainee shows increasing competence. After all, the trainer can't be a resource to the trainee if he/she is asleep in the bunk.

[Terza]

DH and I once borrowed his stepdad's GPS to get to a town some way away (a weekend away), and it was mostly fine, until we got close enough on the motorway to start seeing the signs for the town in question. At this point the GPS insisted we had to do a u-turn and head the other way*.
Luckily, we always print out directions from google maps, so we switched off the GPS and used paper.

* Looking back, we says now that we should have taken the GPS's advice and not bothered with the town, the whole weekend was dreadful!

[ComputerNecromancer]

I once went to pickk up a small photo printer (lunchbox sized) that some had posted on freecycle.

Got there fine. Decided to go check out a few nearby geocaches on the way back.

GPS tried to route me down this one sidestreet (I had it set for pedestrian, and "shortest distance).

Trouble was, the street in question only went halfway thru the block. Where it ended was a few trees (at least 10 years old, maybe 20). And a hedge, and a retaining wall that the hedge was on top of. About a 5 foot drop if you went thru the hedge.

And if you did, you'd be in the backyard of a house, and have to drive thru the house.

No idea how *that* got into the map database as a thru street.
Then again, set to bicycle, I had it try routing me via a freeway that was posted "no non-motorized vehicles". Turns out that the park I was trying for (Rooster Rock State Park) is only accessible by car or the river. Or hiking thru a lot of brush.

Likewise, trying to route by bike to a friends house, I got routed *miles* out of my way. Because there are only 3 bridges over the Clackamas river, and the one on the most direct route is for IU-205.

Only thing is, there's a *fourth* bridge a few hundred yards downstream of the I-205 bridge. That one is for pedestrians and bikes *only* but isn't in Garmin's database.

They *really* need to not have "bike" and "pedestrian" navigation options if they aren't willing to take the extra effort to include bike paths, etc that are not legal for cars to use.

[Jay 2K Winger]

I had a GPS foul-up last year. When I went up to Easton, PA for King of Trios, while I know the general route, the specifics were vague. Plus, my destination wasn't the venue, but the hotel where I was staying. So I put it in my phone's GPS and had "Navi" (as I call the female voice calling out directions) tell me were to go.

Instead of taking me the way I'd gone the last time, two years previous, it ended up taking me on back-roads. I only made the turns because I knew it was likely I'd have to get off at a different exit to get to the hotel. It wasn't until five minutes later when I realized I wasn't anywhere near town and was in rural eastern Pennsylvania that the GPS had messed up.

At that point, I had really no choice but to let the GPS to guide me closer to a major road, at which point I got back to town, because I had no maps in my car for PA.