A couple months ago I posted a ? about what I should do with a collection of over 200 rhino figurines. I sent lots of mails offering it and finally a preserve in South Africa wanted them. Yay. I bought 3 super-sized Home Depot tubs, lined them with blankets and bubble wrap, double and triple wrapped all my loveys and artwork, more blankets, towels and bubble wrap, and off we go to a local UPS. Tied cable ties at the 6 places on the top to keep them shut, checked to make sure nothing shook, rattled or bounced. UPS outlet agreed the packaging was perfect.
It took 2 months, hundreds of emails, (IT’S A DONATION PEOPLE, MINIMUM CUSTOMS PER YOUR RULES), customs fees and finally, the preserve gets them.
Cable ties are gone. Stuff inside has been removed from bubble wrap and tossed around. One of the heavy duty bins is busted to shit on the bottom, the bottom is practically gone.
I get pics and start writing emails. The UPS International person is useless. So last week I found on the UPS site, the “executive team.” And wrote a mail copying every one of them sumbitches.
Hah!! Action. First thing out of the woman’s mouth who called me was that a cardboard box would have been their preferred method of shipping. Yeah, that makes sense (not). But I have photos, copies of email internally in South Africa, and I must say, the world’s BEST local UPS store - the woman is incredible fighting for some kind of recompense to the point of offering her camera footage of the packing. I only insured to $1000 since the donation had no real value, and I will, if I get anything, donate it back to the preserve, but I HATE UPS!!
I finally got through to our phone and internet provider and they’re going to send out a repair tech NEXT FRIDAY. I told them my mother has just been released from the hospital and needs to communicate with the hospital staff and her doctors, but that’s the best they would do.
Gah, that is awful. I only got through 40 seconds before I put my fist through the screen. I’m going back to the cover versions of songs thread to chase it out.
A number of years ago now, but once the cable company came out to fix my neighbor’s connection, and disconnected mine in the process. It took a couple minutes to figure out (including asking the neighbor if their cable was OK). The truck was leaving the cul-de-sac when I was talking to customer support. I asked them to just turn the truck around, no can do. It was a Saturday, I escalated the crap out of things and it still took until Wednesday or Thursday for them to come out and fix their error (which took basically zero time, as the tech literally just had to plug my feeder line back in).
They are now Spectrum, and keep trying to get me to leave Google Fiber and come back to them, and it ain’t never happening - Google customer support has been stellar every time I’ve needed to talk to them (which is almost never).
You say you insured them for $1000. Do you have proof of the value?
I once mailed an insured package that was lost or stolen en route. Somewhat ironically, I believe it was stolen and I believe that if it hadn’t been insured it wouldn’t have been stolen. It was a small box containing digital camera back in the day when digital cameras were expensive. I was returning it -new in box- to Amazon for credit. I insured for $500 and I think the insured value is what tempted someone to pocket it.
Two documents that I had to provide with the claim were proof of non-delivery and proof of the value of the item. Even though the package showed as not delivered in their system, I still had to get a letter from the recepient. This was easily accomplished by inquiring as to the status of my return and printing the response.
It was also easy to prove value because it was a brand new item, I never even opened the outside packaging. I had ordered it before a vacation but realized a few days before I left I wasn’t going to get it in time, so I bought another one knowing I could return the first one.
But I wasn’t prepared for having to prove the value, and that left me wondering what I would’ve done if this had been an unusual item or an heirloom with sentimental value.
You’d almost think that the premium you paid to insure the item should stand in for proof of declared value. Sure, I recognize that fraudulently gaming the system is possible, but it seems hard to swallow that the actuaries who set the insurance rates wouldn’t have worked that into their tables.
I love the Malcolm in the Middle theme song. Ordinarily I’m not a big fan of They Might Be Giants, but the theme song really fits the show. I can see why other people might not care for it, though.
“You’d almost think that the premium you paid to insure the item should stand in for proof of declared value. Sure, I recognize that fraudulently gaming the system is possible, but it seems hard to swallow that the actuaries who set the insurance rates wouldn’t have worked that into their tables”
You would think so, wouldn’t you? It really surprised me when they asked for proof and I was glad it happened the one time value was ridiculously easy to prove.
I’ve used insured mail dozens of times and usually for items that would be hard to prove up. Certain parts, like processor cards, for obsolete automation systems can be incredibly valuable if they are the only thing that can keep a 100K system running but they usually aren’t sold publicly, it’s an industry work of mouth thing. And that’s the kind of stuff I usually insured.
I checked their website, they do still require it.
At about 2 a.m. Saturday morning, someone shot up a house diagonally across the street from us. There were about 20 shots into the house and car, but I don’t think anyone was hit (no ambulance). There were about a dozen cop cars blocking the street for about 8 hours, finding shell casings, etc.
And just now, there was a police presence near the same area.
This used to be a really nice, quiet suburb, but some of the homes like the one that was shot up are now rentals, and there have been problems. Like the guy directly across the street, who we are sure is a drug dealer (cars in and out of his driveway at all hours). It’s starting to get scary to live here.
This is one reason I prefer text communication with my friends. We text back and forth for a bit, then if things die, they die. Sometimes the conversation picks back up in five minutes, other times it’s five days.
I’m more and more glad that my friends text. As my memory gets worse, it’s really handy having a written record of what was said:
Wait, didn’t Pietro say something about breakfast? [scroll back] Aha, here it is: “We should do breakfast some time. I’m free early Tuesday or noonish Thursday.”
Hahahaha, more phone calls from UPS asking me nicely not to mail the executive team anymore, but rather the two (TWO) specialists assigned to my case. Maybe someday, at least they’re hearing me. Maybe.
You know what I resent most about all those people refusing to wear a mask because “my freedom” or “I’m going to live my life without living in fear”? They inevitably follow this up by telling me that if I’m afraid of catching the virus, I can just stay home.
I have been staying home. For almost 6 months now, I have not left my house except for going to the grocery store once a week.
Their selfishness and assholishness has effectively imprisoned me. They’re forcing me to trade my freedom for theirs, because theirs means an endless continuation of infection and death. My home is far nicer than a jail cell, obviously, but it is still a jail cell because I can’t go out.
We got a call this morning from the phone/internet company, a tech saying he was going to arrive in about five minutes. Uh, okay, we weren’t expecting you till Friday. but great, come on. He came in and grumpily worked without any kind of interaction with me nor answering any of my questions with a grumpy hmph. But at least it works now.
You have my sympathies. My 89 year old dad had a small heart attack on Aug 5 and was taken to the ER, they admitted him, did a bunch of tests and set him up to get a stent put in and will repair the faulty valve later on. sucks but moving on. My 85 yo Mother had a kidney stone and was scheduled to have lithotripsy on it on Aug 19, it went bad on Aug 13 so off to the hosp with her. Meanwhile the same Hosp is releasing my dad that day. I am an hour away at work so my mom in the middle of her pain and nausea from the kidney stone moving calls a friend who agrees to come and pick up my Dad, she manages to get the keys for the house and car to my Dad (the Hosp didn’t want to let him have the keys but she said if you want to discharge him. he needs the keys). I tell my bosses I will need to work remotely for a bit, rush home after work, pack up some stuff. Get to their place so the friend can go home. Get my dad to eat a little bit of supper. The Dr.s are trying to move my Mom’s procedure up from 8-19 and finally get it set for 8-17. My dad is miserable without my mom and doesn’t really want to eat, I am working from their house using my cell phone as a hot spot. My brother calls and HE is sick, fever and run down but it getting better. My mom gets her procedure and comes home the next day. I go back to work on 8-20. So far they are all doing ok but crap! it was a stressful time.
I hope your dad recovers quickly and easily. It sucks to not be able to see them in the hospital.
Not a rant, not even a gripe, more of a puzzled heavy sigh -
Similar to a contractor, I only get paid when I work. My last project ended at the end of March, which just happened to coincide with the start of COVID activities. Consequently, there has been no new work for me since then. I haven’t been paid since March.
Like a good little boy scout, over the prior many years I have amassed designated emergency fund savings for just such occurrences. So since April, I have been draining savings to live. Not a fun thing, but, so far, not dire (so far).
Now here is the heavy sigh part - The stock market has been going great guns! My 401k has been growing by leaps and bounds! I’ve long since blasted through my target balance for the next 5 years. Woo to the hoo!
So, on the one hand I’m feeling poor, but on the other hand I’m doing great.
No big crises or problems, just lots of little annoyances that add up to rating today at at least two middle fingers. Traffic, noisy neighbors woke me over an hour early, headache all day (I blame the “air quality” here lately), idiot co-irkers, finances are not great…