Not all deliveries are created equal.

Some are seamless. Some are difficult (daunting, even). Others can be downright head scratching.

We reached out to several of our warehouse teams to share a few tall tales from the road, and they delivered magnificently. Below, we’ve compiled six delivery stories that took a sharp turn, went a bit wheels off, but ultimately ended happily for the customer … and our delivery team.

1. Monkey off his back.

DISCLAIMER: Mike Hinton is petrified of monkeys.

"So, I go into a customers office early one morning to pick up a machine. I walk into the office and nobody is in the front. So I proceeded to walk in announcing “Datamax I’m here to pick up the copy machine."

All of a sudden, I hear a screeching noise behind me. I turned around and saw nothing. So I turned back around and heard the noise again. When I turned back around I noticed something in the window, it was a pet monkey.

I was frozen in my tracks, I couldn't believe it was a real live monkey behind me. By that time the customer came from the back. So here I am standing between the monkey & the customers. I said to them “there's a monkey behind me” they laughed & said “that's our guard monkey.” Then the lady called the monkey. I had my back to it. So when it jumped to go to the lady who called it I was standing in front of her. The monkey jumped and landed on my shoulder, I froze and then it jumped onto the lady's shoulder. I was stuck in my tracks cause a monkey had just jumped on my back. I got the machine & got out of there feeling relieved that I finally got that monkey off my back.

– Mike Hinton, Little Rock

2. Going down?

“We were installing a piece of equipment at a local university that was supposed to go upstairs. We put it on an elevator and (Connectivity Tech) Chris Hoefer said, ‘I’m not getting on that elevator with that machine. We’re liable to get stuck!”

We sent the machine up with me on the elevator. Then we went to pull out the old machine and bring it back down. Chris looked at me, and I looked at him, and I told him, “Maybe I’ll take the stairs this time.” Low and behold, that elevator got stuck.

There was a company out of Ohio they had to call to repair the elevator. So that machine stayed there on that elevator about a week.”

– Michael Snow, Tyler

3. Let it rip.

We were doing a large after-hours delivery that required several warehouse and service staff to complete. One of the service technicians was helping unload machines from the truck and ripped his pants.

Not a minor, “I just won’t bend over” type rip. More like a complete rip from inseam to the rear waistband. And due to the contrasting colors of certain layers of fabric there was no hiding what happened. The technician had to immediately retreat to the nearest Wal-Mart to purchase new britches.

Like a trooper, he returned to finish the delivery.

- Jim Snell, Dallas/Fort Worth

4. House call.

One time we received a call from a person who saw a copier outside of a house with a Datamax tag on it. This machine was off of its cabinet, just sitting on the ground on the side of a house. As the guys were loading the machine the person that called the pickup request in stated that the house was vacant and used for dog fighting.

- Robert Minnerup, Dallas/Fort Worth

5. Dog-gone deliveries.

We went to deliver a machine to a customer and upon arrival noticed that they had about 6-7 small dogs running around. One of the dogs bit our driver on the rear end..

- Juan Tapia, Dallas/Fort Worth

6. Put a fork (lift) in it. It’s done.

We were delivering a wide format to one of our customers inside their warehouse areas. The office it was going in was up stairs. The new machine was small, so we dismantled it and brought it upstairs.

As soon as we got upstairs, we looked and the one we’re to be taking out was twice the size. The customer said “I just need ya'll to get it out of there." I knew there was no way we were going to be able to carry this downstairs. So we talked about it.

“Let me go get a forklift,” the customer said.

He just swung the gate open, we tied the machine up, loaded it and brought it down. He had no worries about it whatsoever. But I was petrified.”

- Kody Molloy, Tyler