• Offended (unregistered)

    HP are the worst for this. FIRST

  • Offended (unregistered)

    Here we go http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/18/hp_packaging/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/23/enormouse/

  • (cs)

    They did what you asked. I'm thinking TRWTF is thinking a huge company like Dell will take the time to unbox their products and repack them just to make you happy.

  • (cs)

    Now that's Entropy for you!!

  • (cs)

    http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/corp/environment/en/index?c=us&l=en&s=corp

  • t3h (unregistered)

    TRWTF is that the batteries are shipped in such a heavily padded box...

  • Mee (unregistered) in reply to t3h
    t3h:
    TRWTF is that the batteries are shipped in such a heavily padded box...

    You don't say.

  • DrSolar (unregistered)

    Surely TRWTF is (barring some kind of service deal) is getting bog-standard CR2032 from Dell and not just getting them from a normal stationery/consumables supplier

  • Martin (unregistered)

    How do you tell, you get a patch (DDS) tape from a HW engineer ?

    I once had one coming in a electro static discharge save bag :-)

  • (cs)

    If they weren't in individual padded boxes, they get packed too close together, exceed critical mass, and ka-boom!

    You can't trust those neutrons.

    --Rank

  • ingenium (unregistered)

    There is a reason for the size of the box, UPS and FedEx have min package size. Well you can ship something smaller than that size but they charge you extra because it can get lost easily.

    Now combine the small package limit and add large companies that sell (or send out for repair) these tiny items in very small quantities. To save them time they prepackage them. Next thing you know someone orders 20 of them then they get 20 of the single boxes.

    Why? because it is easier have some hourly worker to send those than to find one with the ability to count to 20, pack, and then ship one box.

    This is what affirmative action brings us. Aren't we all glad we have that?

  • (cs)

    Exercise for the student: Compare the amount of energy needed to package and transport the package to the amount contained in the battery.

    Extra credit: Compare to the amount of energy needed to move one proton just 27 kilometers around the accelerator at CERN.

  • Martin (unregistered) in reply to ingenium
    ingenium:
    This is what affirmative action brings us. Aren't we all glad we have that?

    Hmm.... please explain yourself using detailed facts and figures before I prejudge you as a prejudiced ignorant.

  • T (unregistered) in reply to ingenium
    ingenium:
    This is what affirmative action brings us. Aren't we all glad we have that?
    And you take the prize for most irrelevant political jab.
  • (cs) in reply to Rank Amateur

    I thought protons were the real bad boys of the particle world.

  • (cs) in reply to ingenium
    ingenium:
    This is what affirmative action brings us. Aren't we all glad we have that?

    Wow and I thought it was because all [insert race here] were lazy and stupid.

    Prejudice is fun!

  • (cs) in reply to ingenium
    ingenium:
    Why? because it is easier have some hourly worker to send those than to find one with the ability to count to 20, pack, and then ship one box.
    Erm.. But someone had to count to 20 to pick the right number of small boxes and put them into a big box. They didn't ship 20 small boxes (which would still have needed someone to be able to count).

    So, obviously someone thought it through enough to realise they could send them all in one big box!

    Maybe they ONLY have small prepacked boxes? (If so, how many warehouses must they have to have sufficient quantity of every battery, nut, bolt, screw, lead etc that anyone might possibly want?) That's the only slightly valid explanation I can think of.

  • RandomWTF (unregistered)

    A few years back I worked as an intern for the team that handles the physical hardware in the companies data center. I was tasked with helping catalogue the stuff we'd received when we got our first shiny new SAN unit from HP.

    I had to open several hundred boxes that contained the individual dongles that connected the fiber lines into the machine. The stack of empty boxes was stacked several feet high when I was done, and the actual equipment ended up fitting in a few of the original boxes.

  • (cs)

    My kid would love to play with those empty cardboard "bricks", building anything and go anywhere his imagination will take him.

  • Mee (unregistered) in reply to pscs
    pscs:
    ingenium:
    Why? because it is easier have some hourly worker to send those than to find one with the ability to count to 20, pack, and then ship one box.
    Erm.. But someone had to count to 20 to pick the right number of small boxes and put them into a big box. They didn't ship 20 small boxes (which would still have needed someone to be able to count).

    So, obviously someone thought it through enough to realise they could send them all in one big box!

    Maybe they ONLY have small prepacked boxes? (If so, how many warehouses must they have to have sufficient quantity of every battery, nut, bolt, screw, lead etc that anyone might possibly want?) That's the only slightly valid explanation I can think of.

    Or MAYBE the big box was the size of 20 small boxes and packing them without the little boxes would cause the batteries to rattle around inside and packing them in little boxes was exactly big enough to stop them moving.

    Maybe the whole thing is because they have no packing peanuts.

  • philip (unregistered) in reply to Martin

    Yes, I was following ingenium's argument/post until this line.

    Kind of ruined credibility.

  • (cs) in reply to ingenium
    ingenium:
    [...] UPS and FedEx have min package size. [...] Now combine the small package limit and add large companies that sell [...] these tiny items in very small quantities. To save them time they prepackage them. Next thing you know someone orders 20 of them then they get 20 of the single boxes.

    Why? because it is easier have some hourly worker to send those than to find one with the ability to count to 20, pack, and then ship one box.

    Pre-pack boxes of 10 or 20 or 50 of them for larger orders? Have the computer change an order for 30 into a 20-pack and 10-pack to make it easier on the poor numerically challenged guy.

  • Zeal_ (unregistered)

    so

  • Zeal_ (unregistered)

    this

  • Zeal_ (unregistered)

    is

  • Zeal_ (unregistered)

    fun

  • Zeal_ (unregistered)

    right?

  • Morry (unregistered)

    thank god all that packaging is carbon neutral. it's like it barely even exists.

    http://www.pcworld.com/article/149630/dell_says_its_carbon_neutral.html

  • Morry (unregistered)

    thank god all that packaging is carbon neutral. it's like it barely even exists.

    http://www.pcworld.com/article/149630/dell_says_its_carbon_neutral.html

  • Mikkel Høgh (unregistered)

    Dell – hatin' the rainforest since '84…

  • Mee (unregistered) in reply to Morry
    Morry:
    thank god all that packaging is carbon neutral. it's like it barely even exists.

    http://www.pcworld.com/article/149630/dell_says_its_carbon_neutral.html

    Carbon Neutral*

    *May contain equal amounts of positively and negatively charged components.

  • (cs)
    DrSolar:
    You don't say... oh, wait! You didn't!
  • Mikkel Høgh (unregistered) in reply to Mee

    So they have a giant warehouse somewhere full of antimatter cardboard boxes?

  • (cs) in reply to Offended

    Kinda reminds me of the last time I ordered a techie book online. It arrived in a huge box, safely packaged inside both shrink-wrap and about a dozen air pillows. Good job! Books are fragile.

    Offended:
    FIRST
    Sorry, doesn't count. You misspelled it.
  • The Observer (unregistered) in reply to Martin
    Martin:
    ingenium:
    This is what affirmative action brings us. Aren't we all glad we have that?

    Hmm.... please explain yourself using detailed facts and figures before I prejudge you as a prejudiced ignorant.

    If you're looking for footnotes, try reading a book, not that truth is of any concern to communist name-callers.

  • D. T. North (unregistered)

    Reminds me of my grandmother. She's an old Ukranian woman and believes in freshness (and polluting the world). She packages Pyrohy (perogies) in two-dozen groupings. First, she sticks six in a bag, then another six in another bag (continue until you have four bags, six in each). Then package two bags in each of two bags (each bag containing a dozen). Then one bag for both dozen. For those that lost count - that's seven bags.

    Dell must have consulted with her.

  • Mee (unregistered) in reply to The Observer
    The Observer:
    Martin:
    ingenium:
    This is what affirmative action brings us. Aren't we all glad we have that?

    Hmm.... please explain yourself using detailed facts and figures before I prejudge you as a prejudiced ignorant.

    If you're looking for footnotes, try reading a book, not that truth is of any concern to communist name-callers.

    THE REDS ARE COMING?

    EVERYONE! THE REDS ARE COMING! THE REDS ARE COMING!

  • Adam (unregistered)

    Here's my example from IBM

  • TopCat (unregistered)

    Back in the day (actually about 1988), I once took delivery of an entire pallet which was taken off the truck with a fork lift. After much unpacking, I found this:

    The pallet consisted of 18 boxes each 0.3m cube. Inside each box, packed diagonally to take up the maximum amount of space was an envelope just larger than A4 size. The rest of the box was polystyrene chips.

    Inside each envelope was a shrink-wrapped parcel sandwiched in two layers of stiff card.

    Inside the card was a one-sheet software licence agreement for our DEC VAX workstations.

    So in summary - the entire useful contents of a full pallet of packaging was 18 single sheets of A4 paper.

  • Olaf (unregistered)

    This has happened to me, alas from the "supplier" side.

    When you're using HP OpenView (or whatever it's called today) you need to obtain a license per client. When you order licenses from HP you get exactly that: A sheet of paper granting you the right to use HP OpenView on one client. This sheet of paper is size A4 (probably Letter in the US) and comes UNFOLDED in a BOX with foam lining.

    Now, there was this client of ours, who ordered 1000 client licenses for HP OpenView.

    You would have thought, that HP would give you ONE sheet of paper with the right for 1000 clients. IMHO it would already be a WTF if they gave you ONE box with 1000 sheets of paper.

    Instead, HP sent a truck. With three euro-palettes (is that actually a word in English?) on it.

    Boy, was that customer pissed...

  • Mr. Cool Ice (unregistered) in reply to Olaf
    Olaf:
    Instead, HP sent a truck. With three euro-palettes (is that actually a word in English?) on it.

    we just call them palettes, but a quick GIS seems to indicate that euro-palette is a particular size.

  • Reader (unregistered) in reply to Code Dependent
    Code Dependent:
    Kinda reminds me of the last time I ordered a techie book online. It arrived in a huge box, safely packaged inside both shrink-wrap and about a dozen air pillows. Good job! Books are fragile.

    That does sound like overkill, but the flip side seems to be the norm for many used-book sellers on Amazon. Shipping a hardcover wrapped in paper or even in a bubble-wrap envelope just doesn't cut it, especially for heavy ones. I email the seller and request that they ship in a box.

  • Mee (unregistered)
    IrshGrlFan2008:
    CMOS CMOS CMOS CMOS

    http://cmos.ytmnd.com

    CMOS CMOS CMOS CMOS

    Strange Spam:

    CMOS CMOS

    Other keywords for this site:

    mas kinky condelissa rice orgy colin powell anal donald rumsfield foot fetish

  • sheepdan (unregistered)

    I ordered a iPaq battery (approx 50x50x5 mm) from Dabs, and received it in a box about 70x50x20 cm.

  • Lafcadio (unregistered) in reply to TopCat

    Wow...and I was going to tell a story about the time I worked in the shipping department in a music store, and we packed an order for five guitar picks into the box for a Marshall 4x12 cabinet.

    But this and the three-pallet HP story leave me ashamed at my lack of vision.

  • Mee (unregistered) in reply to sheepdan
    sheepdan:
    I ordered a iPaq battery (approx 50x50x5 mm) from Dabs, and received it in a box about 70x50x20 cm.

    That is quite close to what you asked for compared to what we have here - they probably didn't have a box that fit perfectly. I think you may just be a little whiny.

  • The Observer (unregistered) in reply to Mee
    Mee:
    The Observer:
    Martin:
    ingenium:
    This is what affirmative action brings us. Aren't we all glad we have that?

    Hmm.... please explain yourself using detailed facts and figures before I prejudge you as a prejudiced ignorant.

    If you're looking for footnotes, try reading a book, not that truth is of any concern to communist name-callers.

    THE REDS ARE COMING?

    EVERYONE! THE REDS ARE COMING! THE REDS ARE COMING!

    Look beyond the end of your nose (but please turn caps-lock off first). A primary basis of communist flavored action is using the group to personally attack any individual who dares to oppose it. They even have a word for such people: reactionary. Political correctness is a model of communist SOP.

  • surt (unregistered)

    It seems likely to me those things are pre-boxed for individual shipping, and that cumulative shipping is a cheaper process for dell than unboxing, cataloging, repacking and shipping.

  • pedant (unregistered) in reply to Code Dependent
    Code Dependent:
    Kinda reminds me of the last time I ordered a techie book online. It arrived in a huge box, safely packaged inside both shrink-wrap and about a dozen air pillows. Good job! Books are fragile.
    Offended:
    FIRST
    Sorry, doesn't count. You misspelled it.

    ITYM "mispeled"

  • (cs)

    I agree with the poster who asked why you couldn't have bought those CMOS batteries from a local Radio Shack, or any other local store that has them in stock.

    It's not like their CMOS batteries are any different than anyone else's CMOS batteries...

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