Solid Hardwood, Engineered and Laminate Flooring - Question on Bruce Natural Reflections flooring

I appreciate the good advice I've received here on a couple of questions regarding my hardwood flooring project. I have one more question I would like to ask, out of curiousity as much as anything:

I ordered 280 square feet of the flooring from Bruce and it came in 7 cartons (40 square feet each). It comes in "random lengths" so as one would expect, six of the cartons have a mix of planks in various lengths. I feel a little gypped, however, by the seventh carton, which has nothing but "short" lengths - 20 inches and less. Could someone who is used to ordering flooring tell me: Is this typical, to be overloaded with short pieces like this? Also, how are the short pieces used in a typical installation? I was planning to put them mainly at the ends of the rows, but probably will have to make more generous use of them since Bruce sent me so many shorties.
Thanks.

The short pieces are very necessary in laying out the floor (this might not be the official reason). They are used to help break up the floor and keep your stagger according to the manufacture. If you get all boxes of long strips, it makes it more difficult to work the floor. we usually open a few boxes to get to the short ones to make sure we have some to work with. Otherwise you have to pay close attention to the starter in the first row to keep your stagger.

Without the shorts, you get the stair step effect going, if your not careful.

You have the idea. Use some for start and end boards, but you will find it much easier to use the cut off left off the end cut, as the starter board in a row farther up, to keep the random look going.