Shippers and customer service

Who wins the Salt Lake to Shoreline shipping challenge? 

My good friend’s birthday is the second week of November. In late October, I purchased a glass coffee press, put some organic tea pouches and a birthday card into the box with it, placed the box into a padded envelope, dropped it off at my Salt Lake City neighborhood mail counter, and sent it on its merry way to Shoreline, WA. I was disappointed to learn, by checking the tracking system, that it would not make her birthday. It was scheduled for delivery November 12; it wasn’t. I asked her to watch for it as the USPS tracking site showed it was delivered November 12. 

This is my coffee press but it is a reasonable facsimile of the intended gift.

I was shopping at Fashion Place before Thanksgiving when I read she still hadn’t received it. She lamented that the USPS hadn’t delivered my earlier gifts to her either. Feeling guilty and angry for not remembering, I purchased a necklace and shipped it via UPS. I checked UPS’s tracking site, since I’d paid for two day service, to see if the new gift made it. The UPS tracking site was down. I alerted my friend and she responded saying it had made it, but not in the two day window, and she thanked me. 

Two days later, the coffee press was sitting on my doorstep, the label said “undeliverable, address not found.” I removed the tattered padded envelope and birthday wrap from around the coffee press and replaced the birthday card with a Christmas card. The press and the original packing material were intact, and I re-wrapped it in Christmas paper, and inserted it into a new padded envelope. I took the now Christmas gift to the FedEx counter in my local Office Max store and re-shipped it.

A couple of days later, the opened, trashed package appeared on my doorstep.  Again. I heard the broken glass rattle as I picked it up. It was beyond shattered. The box and shipping envelope, that had been reopened and re-taped, were full of varied size glass shards. I contacted my friend and asked her what she wanted for Christmas that I could do online since shipping to Shoreline was in neither of us’ best interest. She offered suggestions and she was sent a Nordstrom online gift card. I called the FedEx customer service number on the label that stated “broken contents” and was sent claim forms. Insurance is included with the shipping fee, up to a certain amount. Unfortunately, I can’t find the original receipt so I chalked up the episode as a lesson learned. 

Much to my surprise, January 9, I received a phone call from an Office Max customer service agent to apologize and tell me that the package I had shipped from Office Max had been damaged. She also told me that FedEx denied the claim because the packaging wasn’t appropriate. She left the message in a voice mail and I returned the call just to relate the story so we could both laugh. The USPS managed to get it to Shoreline and back in one piece but FedEx destroyed it. UPS doesn’t come away clean either since its tracking system wasn’t functioning or reliable. 

The winner of the shipping challenge is: Office Max for reaching out to this consumer who won’t ship anything ever again to Shoreline but will definitely be shopping at Office Max. Kudos to its customer service! 

 Joe Writes is ad and sponsorship free.

December

December

I wrote this in December 2009.  December is always a tough month but I'm eternally optimistic and have high hopes for the rest of my Decembers.  Cheers!

 

I want a December to remember fondly. With joy. Maybe next year?

December is all about loss. Grief. Mourning.

The loss of another year you can't get back.

The loss of a marriage. The family once part of. A life lived. Weekly birthdays now just dates on a calendar.

Loss of a friend two weeks after a birthday celebrated, not knowing it was the last.

Remembering all those who passed before brought to the forefront now.

Saying goodbye to a dear one who was always part of your life but it was her time to go, the passing bittersweet.

Discovering the sudden death of someone too young with whom you had hoped to re-connect.

One year anniversary of a five-year, stormy, passionate relationship's abrupt ending. Spending nine months wondering why before accepting the inevitable. Still feeling the emptiness.

Today the loss of a new beginning. Not meant to be.

Pulling into the garage, I close the door then pause before turning off the ignition. Remembering a previous owner who chose to leave this way, in this spot. I know why.

I will put up the tree, decorate it with tangible memories - ornaments procured far and near. Reminders of happy times, times of shared love, friendship and fun. Adventures.

I want a December to remember. Fondly. Maybe next year?

Copyright © 2009 Joe Stewart 

 All Rights Reserved.

Living Skinny

The first foray into Living Skinny begins now!

On the first Monday of my final retirement, I contemplated whether to hit my regular 24Hr Sugar House gym, walk across the street to the new Brickyard yoga place, or the new Brickyard Gold’s.  Choices.  No Monday morning yoga classes; Gold’s won.  This Gold’s location is an “express” meaning it features weights and machines only. Note to Gold’s: Brickyard is south of Sugar House. It kept the name.  I surrendered my free visit door hanger coupon and my driver license. I had already taken the tour and off I went.  Cardio is where I start so the Cardio Cinema it was.  The huge, empty, dark cavern with a BIG screen was devoid of humans.  No bikes were seen, and as I turned to exit, a formerly unseen woman hit the door when I did.  One.  What a waste of space and money, one or two classrooms would fit or as the bike rider next to me suggested, lots more weight room. For reference, I was there during the noon hour.

Did my 15 minutes on the stationery bike, and attempted to watch TV. However, the screen was hung above directly above my head and I mentioned the odd angle to the guy on the next bike.  Little did I know he was the guy-in-the-know, a former Gold’s manager (name already forgotten).  We chatted about Gold’s.  I asked if the gyms were changing names/owners as there had been some scuttlebutt about that. He’d not heard.  He bid me adieu and I remembered the machines were upstairs and the weight room on the main floor. I found the unfinished-looking stairs behind the cinema.  As I was having fun figuring how to use the new machines, the guy-in-the-know caught up with me again.  He said he’d asked his insider and no, the gyms were still Gold’s, and they are just being updated.  We’ll see, I’m always skeptical until I see signs and branding.   

Lying prone on the ab machine, I could see blue sky out the window, and the roof and HVAC units when I was upright.  Unfortunately, when I reached the opposite side where the TV screens were mounted, the glare from the windows made them unwatchable.

During my circuit, I spied a woman with a provided mat and watched her abandon it.  As I had no idea where she procured it, I claimed it as my own.  As I was stretching, I saw my first Gold’s not front desk employee recon around the floor.  He nodded at me and picked up a roll of paper towels off the floor.  The mat woman re-appeared and gave me the evil eye.  I hurriedly finished up with her mat and beat my retreat downstairs.

My driver license had been handed off to a sales rep.  The woman I’d given it to, along with an info form, walked across the aisle to introduce me to the designated sales rep.  She waited while one was on an iPhone and the others were chatting among themselves.  She finally caught the lucky guy’s attention and he launched into his sales pitch.  I cut him short, told him I’d taken the tour, knew the deal of the day, retrieved my license, and exited.

The bottom line - the gym has location, location, location (for me) but it has no pool, no classes, and is still figuring out where to put everything.  Will I abandon my 24Hr membership? No. But if I’m too lazy to drive, a walk across the street and $10 buys me a workout, any day.

About Living Skinny  I can’t tell you how to lose weight, I can tell you how to maintain it. It’s no surprise but the answer is eat less and exercise more.  I’ve been the same weight since 1992 – I’m 5’8” and weighed in at 133 today.  Through this series, I hope to share how making a conscious lifestyle choice is not difficult, sticking to it is the difficulty. I’m ad and sponsorship free.

©Joelyn Stewart 2014

12 Best Sensory Experiences

1. Lover's very intimate touch
2. Gentle summer rain on the high Kaibab plateau
3. The feel and taste of very dark, rich chocolate accompanied by a fine red wine
4. Very cool, high thread count sheets against your naked body
5. The blue sky against the bright white freshly snow-covered mountains after a big snow storm
6. First whiff of ocean breeze on the first day of vacation
7. Bare toes in clean white sand, gently lapped by the sea
8. The smell and taste of your lover
9. Aquamarine Caribbean water
10.Laughter
11.Spring in the desert
12.Star gazing

Blogging for a Living

Who knew just a few years ago when I started blogging for fun that it would come to this. I'm actually going to get paid to blog. Not under my name, thank you, but paid to ghost write a corporate blog. The first edition is live, now. No, I'm not advertising it here as I will not advertise my opinions there.

Yea. To write, to espouse corporate ideals, for money I can do it. This will remain my forum, totally unconnected and totally uncensored. The world according to Joe - only seen here.

I'm smiling.

Blister Packaging

What disturbed, convoluted individual invented this? Yes, it's economical and yes it hangs nicely, packs easily but just try to free whatever is trapped in that clear plastic!

When I was in the packaging trade (a fact I'm not proud of, but that's yet another rant), I used to walk past the blister packaging company exhibits while attending Pack Expo, seething, swearing at them under my breath and glaring. If not for the official exhibitor badge I wore I would have given them a piece of my mind.

The only revenge is to take the inventors and those that today mandate the use of this horrifically non-customer friendly idea and blister pack them. Give them vents to breathe and challenge them to escape from within!

Things to Do When Your Power Goes Out

1. The obvious. Just use birth control to avoid becoming a statistic. If alone, then you need to get creative.
2. Enjoy the silence. With luck, your neighbors will all leave for warmer places and leave you in total solitude.
3. Go for a walk. It's exercise and it warms you up a bit.
4. Talk to neighbors, have a warm-up party. Misery loves company.
5. Cyber - talk/text on your cell till battery dies then go to Facebook and do the same until your laptop battery dies.
6. Eat or drink something or everything then do number 3. Alone it won't warm you up but it will fill you up.
7. Close the drapes and close doors to conserve what heat you have.
8. Kick yourself for not buying that battery powered lantern for your 72 hour kit. The kit that contains necessities like boxed wine, smoked oysters, bottled water and batteries for your handheld appliances.
9. Change the batteries in your smoke detector and carbon monoxide detectors - this may be the only time they're in use so they're probably dead and that beeping sound is highly annoying. Just be careful on the stool or chair while trying to juggle the flashlight and insert the batteries.
10. Leave - also pretty obvious.
11. Rediscover radio. Our parents and grandparents did and it is still entertaining.
12. Go to bed and just hope you wake up when you need to.