UPS leaves Android tablet gift in trash can (on trash day)

A woman buys an Android tablet for her daughter. The UPS driver leaves a note reading: "In black trash can." Oh.

Wise move?

(Credit: KTVI-TV screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)
It's role playing time again.
You're a UPS driver. You're delivering an Android tablet to someone's house. There is nobody home.
Where do you leave it? a) on the doorstep? b) somewhere that looks safe? or c) in the trash can?
Because you're alert and will have probably been drawn here by the headline, you'll know that one UPS driver in Barnhart, Mo., plumped for c).

Here is what he might not have foreseen: It was trash day.
As KTVI-TV reports, Tracey Sole was taken aback when she came home to find a note from UPS in her mailbox.
It said that the Archos 7 Android tablet she bought as a Christmas gift for her daughter was "In Black Trash Can."

Sole has a steep driveway, so she knew a truck wouldn't get up it. One might imagine, though, that a human being might. Presumably, she manages. And Android tablets aren't that heavy.
Instead, the tablet was gone. The trash can was empty. Sole's logical deduction was that it was now crushed in some garbage truck.
Perhaps I forgot to mention, this all happened on trash day.

Sole says she'd saved for months to buy her daughter the gift and was distraught at the idea that the driver would have put it in the trash can.

For its part, UPS is launching an investigation. Moreover, the company from whom Sole bought the tablet said it would send her another, but could not be sure it will arrive before Christmas.
After she publicized her story, a happier ending was reached. Sole took to the comments section of KTVI to explain further what happened.

She said: "UPS has apologized to me. The package was placed in the trash can. The trash can was empty when the package was put in there, because I could not get my trash up my driveway on the ice. I guess he thought the empty trash can meant that they had already picked up. UPS is going to be getting a new tablet for my daughter...before Christmas!"

When UPS, FedEx, or USPS drivers make mistakes that become public, they are often summarily terminated, with profuse apologies pouring from the company involved.
Sole, though, doesn't want the driver ("though he made a huge mistake") fired.