(With apologies to Eudora Welty.)
Since I began unloading some CDs on Amazon Marketplace, I’ve been spending more time than usual at my local post office. In an effort to maximize my profit margin, like a good little capitalist, I’ve been using my tax dollar-funded government mail service to ship the Marketplace-sold items.
The majority of these items have been CDs, which I pop in to a CD mailer–purchased in bulk at our local OfficeMax–then slap a postage label on to before depositing it in the outgoing mail slot within the post office. I haven’t stood in line to interact with a postal worker to mail any of these items, instead using my good friend, the Automated Postal Center. (If you’ve never used an APC, think of it as an ATM that instead of dispensing cash takes it, and in return weighs your letter or light package and spits out the proper postage.)
So, as I was saying, I’ve always used the APC, and never had to wait in line to get postage.
Until today.
On Saturday, while out with my sweet, I stopped by the post office with the full intent of using the APC and leaving the outgoing CD in the appropriate mail slot, and getting on with the rest of our evening.
Only the APC was unable to dispense the postage for this particular parcel.
Because it’s going to an APO.
I got a message on the APC’s screen stating it was unable to provide postage for APO addresses, and I would have to stand in the always-long line and wait to interact with a postal worker. Sigh…
Today, after dropping the little phisch off at school, I steeled myself and entered the doors of the post office. Looking forlornly at the Automated Postal Center, standing by itself, waiting to be used, which no one was, I shuffled to the back of the already-long line.
Then I noticed that of the four stations at the counter from which a postal worker should be interacting with the citizens that fund their always-in-the-red dysfunctional “business”, there was one worker.
Twenty-five minutes later–I was so glad I had the foresight to bring a magazine–I began my interaction with the aforementioned solo postal worker. She did not know why the APC was unable to handle postage for an APO address. No, there was nothing really special about the APO address which would negate the APC being able to to process postage for it. It was likely just a matter of someone somewhere not having gotten around to programming the APC to handle APO postage. (Or better yet, some management bureaucrat not having made the decision to provide postage for APO addresses through the APC.) No, the APO postage for first-class mail was not any more expensive than first-class mail to any where else in the country. (Every CD I’ve shipped individually has been US $1.35. Every one. Including this one.)
So a half hour out of my morning to get the same little sticky piece of postage from a human that I could have gotten in two minutes from the Automated Postal Center. I’m thinking of running the calculations to see if the half hour of my time was worth the profit-margin savings. Then again, that just might frustrate me more.
Tag: rant
We have a Sony DirecTV/Tivo unit my mother-in-law gave as a Christmas gift to us several years ago. In techno-age, it’s ready to retire and move to Florida, but it still does the job, and the TiVo interface is still light-years ahead of DirecTV’s own DVR receivers, of which we have two.
Some of the buttons on the Sony remote have stopped working, however, and it’s finally gotten to the point where we need a new remote. A trip to Sony’s web site reveals they no longer sell the remote (shocker, I know), but there is an online form with which you can inquire as to parts. So I fill it out, noting we have the DirecTV receiver/TiVo DVR combo unit, as well as putting in the only part numbers I’m able to find any where on the remote itself.
This was a month ago.
Today, I receive a reply from Sony. Therein, I’m told:
I think you might have model SVR2000. If this is it, the remote is rmtv303 (147603612) which is nla. Please go on www.yahoo.com and type in either the part number of the model number of the remote and do a search. There still should be internet distribuors that carry it.
Fine and dandy, this was along the lines of what I was expecting. Except the genius got the model number wrong, and the part number for the remote wrong. I only discovered this after doing exactly what is suggested above, running a Yahoo search. On one page which listed several remotes, I discovered another part number for a Sony TiVo remote, and it turned out to be the correct one.
For the record, the SVR2000 is the Sony TiVo DVR; it is not the DirecTV receiver/TiVo combo. That is model SAT-T60. The remote part number for the SAT-T60 is RM-Y809. I found a new one for $55, with a 30-day, money-back guarantee (yay, Yahoo!). This is future reference for myself, as well as help for anyone else who may find themselves in a similar situation.
I just think it shows very bad form for a Sony employee to, (a) take a month to respond, and (b) when finally responding, providing the wrong information. I was very explicit in noting that we had the DirecTV receiver/TiVo combo, and not the TiVo-only SVR2000.
Sony has rested on its laurels, and formerly well-deserved reputation, for too long, and it continues to result in products no one are buying, and poor customer service after the fact.
Having a quarter bottle of picante sauce in the fridge, plus an unopened bottle in the pantry, and not a single tortilla chip any where in the house.
Jeff Jacoby has a great piece on he disparity in reporting regarding Mel Gibson’s drunken racial slurs, and Naveed Haq’s murderous rampage at a Jewish center in Seattle. The latter is yet another example, as Jacoby points out, noting other such type attacks which have taken place over the past few years, of members of the “Religion of Peace” suddenly developing “Sudden Jihad Syndrome“.
A Christian, who is such a rabid anti-abortionist that he begins killing doctors who perform the operation, is news fodder for weeks. But if a Muslim walks up to the counter of the Israeli-owned airline El Al, killing two people as he sprays the ticket area with bullets, it’s quickly swept under the proverbial rug. What is the media’s reluctance to point out what we know to be true: that the so-called “Religion of Peace” shows, day in and day out by the behavior of its adherents, that it is anything but.
If only I had room in any of my bathrooms for one of these.
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Just when you think there might be some hope in this world that the tide of sexual immorality would take a turn for the better, something like the Shame On You Kit pops up. How about never putting yourself in the situation to have to have a “Shame On You Kit”?
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As a satisfied customer, I highly recommend KnowledgeNews, which today had a bit on the differences between viruses and bacteria. I loved this analogy:
Imagine it this way. If just one of the 10 to 100 trillion cells in your body were the size of a baseball park, the average bacterium would be the size of the pitcher’s mound. The average virus would be the size of the baseball.
As is so often the case with video or film, the music totally makes the FedEx pilots drive around thunderstorm short film.
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I sincerely hope JPMorgan Chase & Co. realize they just flushed $150 million.
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This may have been posited elsewhere, but I think when the Power Mac G5 replacement ships, it will simply be called “Mac Pro”. You have the Pro designation separating the portable models, and they’re not going to call a tower/desktop without a built-in monitor “iMac Pro”. Apple will still want to differentiate the line from the consumer series, so it will just be Mac Pro.
Look, I’m just as much of a word nerd as Jim, Erik, or John, but gentlemen, with all due respect, this has to be the dumbest idea for a boycott I’ve heard in a while.
Besides, I get better customer service from Walgreens than I do from CVS, so I’ll pass on this particular boycott.
Given my personal experience working for Verizon, and continuously hearing stories from my friends who are still employed there, this rings so true.
Look, the world is not your personal playground. Do not share with us your musical tastes; do not share with us your latest wheelings and dealings. In public places, you have an obligation to hold up your end of the implied social contract by not imposing yourself on those around you. This is crucial to a civilized society and just because technology allows you to act like a braying ass in public doesn’t mean you should do it. Quite the contrary, in fact. You need to be more aware of your surroundings than ever.
I particularly liked one suggestion:
Ditch the ring tone and put the phone on vibrate. The only person who cares about an incoming call on your phone is you. Don’t worry, you’ll feel it. (It feels go-o-o-od.) Most ring tones are not only intrusive, they’re inane.
One feature I like on my phone, and I’m sure it’s on most new phones, is the option to have it simultaneously vibrate and ring. My phone vibrates first, then starts the ring tone, so I can usually nab it when only the first couple of notes are playing. It’s also dead simple to change from “Vibe & Ring” to “Vibrate” when the situation demands (church, movies, restaurants).
The fact that most ring tones are inane is why I roll my own. My “standard” ring tone is the opening twenty-two seconds of The Who’s “Baba O’Riley”. When strangers hear it, I always get a knowing smile, or a quizzical look that says, I know that melody, but I can’t quite place it… It’s certainly unique, and I won’t confuse it with anyone else’s ring.
Which brings me to my own mobile phone usage tip: change your ring tone from whatever the default is. (If you can; I realize older phones still in use may not have that option.) I don’t know why, but I find it irritating when the default Moto or Nokia ring tone goes off. Find something else. Please.
If Tiff is feeling old, then I must be positively ancient.
Speaking of depressing age news, I have noted that I am now in another, less desirable demographic, what with the birthday last month.
Previously, when filling out surveys and such, I could confidently click on the age demographic buttons for 25-34, or 26-34, or however they broke it down. Now, it seems every single age demographic mapping I would fall in to is listed as 35-50. Fifty?
Granted, we do grow to be more like our parents the older we get, but from a pop culture standpoint, I can tell you I have little in common with my fifty-something parents. (No, I do not use the term “fifty-something” because I have no idea how old my parents are. I know exactly how old they are, but because they are not the same age, I thought the more generic “fifty-something” was more appropriate.)
For the record, Tiff, I’ve seen the same commercial, and come to the same realization. It’s nice to know another closet metal-head is out there.