My portable CD player has been misbehaving for a long time, and I’ve been wanting to get an iPod to replace it. Last week I finally got around to ordering the iPod, direct from Apple. Naturally I chose the free ground shipping option, which is supposed to take two to five business days. The very next day–last Saturday–I got an e-mail informing me that my order had been shipped. Hey, speedy service! Of course I take it with a grain of salt that the unit has actually been shipped on a Saturday. I figure that what they really mean is that it’s all packed and logged in and ready to be picked up by the delivery service on Monday.
So today, it being the fifth day since I got the shipping notice, I thought, “Hey, maybe I’ll get my iPod today. I’ll just log into my account and check the tracking.” The tracking shows that the package was picked up by Airborne Express on 8/21/03…
…i.e., today.
Okay, fine, it’s not going to kill me to have to wait until next week for my iPod. But why the fuck do you bother to tell me that you’ve shipped it five days before it actually goes out the door? News flash: “shipped” does not mean “placed in a cardboard box and set carefully on the mailroom floor.” Grrrr…