Amazon and the USPS
Familiar readers are aware of some of my issues with the postal monopoly; I say this despite the fact that my late dad once worked for them and I have a niece/goddaughter who is a letter carrier. Three incidents immediately come to mind:- I had mailed my mom a nice jewelry box as a gift with some stained glass and a mirror inside. The item appeared with all glass shattered. My dad blamed me for not writing "Fragile; handle with care" on the package and/or upgrading delivery options. OH, PLEASE!
- I was punched from behind in the kidney by an unidentified Latino postal worker (one of a handful who had followed me into a supervisor's office). The context was I had returned a software product for refund while living in El Paso. The vendor denied receiving the item, so I placed the insurance claim with the local post office. The local office claimed it was my responsibility to get the vendor to sign the claim (under threat of prosecution for perjury). The vendor had been uncooperative and wasn't about to do me a favor; they had no incentive to cooperate. I had paid USPS to perform a service and it was their responsibility to validate delivery. I waited in line to get to a clerk, and she was in a state of denial. An older male Latino supervisor motioned for me to follow him to his back office to discuss the matter so we wouldn't disturb the other patrons. I warily noticed half a dozen Latino workers follow me into the office, forming a semicircle behind me. The supervisor and I were at an impasse over who was responsible for getting the vendor's signature on the form, when I felt a sharp punch into my kidney. I circled around to confront the thug, but the lying bastards, including the supervisor, were in a state of denial that the incident had happened. I eventually got a written apology from USPS management when I filed a complaint. I eventually got reimbursed, not by the post office, but the vendor "found" the returned shipment.
- There was an incident the last time I lived in a southwest suburb of Baltimore about 8 years back. Most apartment complex offices in my experience will accept packages for their tenants. My mom has had a habit of requesting recipient signature. I find it much more convenient to get packages from the apartment office (e.g., usually they're open all day Saturday) vs. going to the local branch and waiting in line to collect a package. I routinely let her know if and when I receive something, but she ignored my wishes, expressed frequently during my career years. In the meanwhile, I wasn't happy at all with the local carrier who had a habit of leaving several pieces of my mail, not in my mailbox but the common bin. (Complaints went nowhere.) So my mom had sent me a Christmas or birthday gift, and the carrier left a mocking note in my box, noting my signature was required and the apartment complex couldn't sign for it. So I go to the tiny downtown facility with limited parking and waited long lines, only to find out it didn't hold packages and I would have to phone another facility to arrange redelivery or pickup. Long story short, they were never able to find the package. In the meanwhile, I had complained about the carrier to the complex managers, and they misunderstood, somehow thinking I was accusing them of losing the package and they decided they would no longer sign for my packages, much to the delight of my petty carrier who specifically went to meet with them. It literally took mom weeks to collect on the insurance with TX and MD facilities pointing fingers at each other. (Among other things, Mom had to wait more time for the parcel to show up in MD, even after telling me after 2 weeks, they weren't going to find it.)
I have other bad experiences, including just trying to process address changes. They required a charge card to test a nominal ($1) charge. I have a card from a well-known issuer. For some reason, they reported the transaction failed. (This happened twice over the past 7 years.) I call the issuer, and they reported the transaction was approved at their end. Tracing the issue with USPS was futile; they had no interest in resolving the issue and were generally in a state of denial. I think in at least one case I was able to use another credit card.
So the context of the most recent incident involves shitty OEM USB cables with my Amazon Kindle tablet and Garmin devices. (I eventually discovered that the Kindle and several power banks will use a standard USB-A to micro type USB-B port cable (like for my Android phone) while my Garmin device requires a mini USB plug. Basically a micro connector has an elliptical shape and a mini connector (for my Garmin) has more of a trapezoidal shape.) Sometimes trying to power a device reminds me of the hassle of trying to manipulate rabbit ear antenna for older televisions to get a decent picture. The connectors are also frequently loose-fitting and can disconnect during a charge.
Amazon has become my go-to Radio Shack of sorts for gadgets with 2-day delivery. For example, I discovered my printer's scanning function wouldn't work through a wireless connection but required a wired connection. The printer's OEM cable (with a rounded-square Type B connector) is inconveniently short for my setup (including multiple PCs). So there are multiple options: extending an existing cable or buying a longer replacement cable.
So at the start of December I placed an order for a number of cables (including smaller cables so I could connect my Kindle or phone to a power bank during travel and I was down to a single cable for my two Garmin devices (I had misplaced and eventually found my original)). I soon got everything in my order--except for the Garmin cables. For some reason, those items were separately delivered by--the USPS.
And the USPS falsely reported they had put my cables---in my mailbox. I don't know why they lied. Now to be honest, they aren't the only delivery service to screw up; my last Nutrisystem order was delivered to the wrong apartment building/street address by FedEx. (The other tenant came to my apartment with the missing shipment in his car.) But I wasn't looking forward to trying to explain to Amazon customer service why or how USPS didn't deliver something that it claimed it had. And one usability criticism here--there wasn't a convenient way to report the issue at Amazon. They really want you to go through their Knowledge Base; I think I had to tell a bot that I wanted to chat to a service agent. I do think I was able to initiate a refund request through the bot.
To Amazon's credit, they quickly refunded my charge card. I really wanted them to resend the product--except not through USPS. And I really wanted USPS to address why it lied about fulfilling the shipment. I manually duplicated the order, no issue this time; I don't think delivery was by USPS.
So all this took place the second week of December. I went on a week-long trip at the end of December and returned to--an Amazon Prime envelope inside it, the missing shipment, at minimum over 2 weeks after they reported delivering it. I went back and chatted with Amazon support. Technically the cables sold for just under $9. Amazon waived charging for/returning the package as a customer goodwill measure. The USPS could learn something from the private sector on how to work with customers; with government monopoly privileges comes arrogance.
Incidentally I often publish on practical computing issues in my SoftDoc blog, which readers may find of interest. (SoftDoc is a company name I toyed with, combining my research interests in software and documentation in the early 90's when a recession forced me out of academia.)
Yup, Mom Is 100% Franco
Familiar readers of my blog may know we of French-Canadian descent refer to ourselves as "Franco-Americans". Both sides of my family tree are Franco; I never met my immigrant great-grandparents from Quebec province. I do know there are at least two Indians/Native Americans on Dad's branches of the family tree, making me more Native American than Cherokee Lizzie.I normally don't specify brand names or promote products in my blog; I've never received a penny over the life of the blog. I personally have never used a DNA/genealogy product, but I think my Mom was given an analysis gift, and multiple nephews and nieces have had it done. Mom's gift was through the vendor Ancestry; the results quite frankly were ludicrous (I was emailed a copy of her results). It showed a plurality percentage (like around 43%) was British, no mention of Quebec and little of France--even though there had been a genealogy done of my maternal grandfather's heritage, tracing it back to Normandy. There was some family discussion of Viking or English settlers in Normandy; we are fair-skinned, almost all blue-eyed and nearly half of us blond (I have light brown hair, but if you saw my third grade picture, I could pass as a blond). I mean, it's possible of some cross-cultural relations in my Mom's Quebec heritage, but you have to understand we have had a very rich, cohesive culture and connection to the Catholic Church, so mixed relations were at most incidental in nature, like my Native American heritage.
So over the holiday break my middle goddaughter/niece published a humorous Facebook post where she made light of certain Neanderthal stats in her Ancestry analysis, where she boasted of having the highest count in the extended family. I commented about my criticism of Mom's analysis, when my older niece countered with an Ancestry image of Mom (shared DNA), showing her as coming from southeastern Quebec and "100% French" (vs my niece's 19%, surprising since my brother-in-law's family traces to the Martin clan in France which yielded St. Thérèse of Lisieux). I'm not sure how or why my Mom's analysis seemed to change, but it's now much more believable.
Travel Observations
I had a 5 AM flight out of BWI close to Christmas. Luckily I had a parking reservation for 3 months, because I needed my reservation receipt to get in and apparently one spot in (that was almost impossible to navigate to because they had overflow cars in one lane). So I had to drive in the 2 AM hour to make the recommended 2-hour band to go through security. But it turns out TSA doesn't even open until around 4 AM or so. There was already a security line several dozen passengers long; I briefly hesitated when I got to the line trying to verify it was the right line when an older black guy decided to jump ahead of me in line. Dude, seriously? You're that eager to save a few seconds in getting through security?Apparently the test introduction to expedited security on my return home last year was a taste; I haven't flown regularly since my road warrior days seemed to end in 2008. I think since then I've only taken one trip, for training, while I lived in Arizona in 2016. The rest has been mostly personal, including a trip home to see my dying father in 2014. (I have also attended 2 funerals in New England since then, but I drove to those.) Anyway, I had the usual nonsense of having to take off my shoes and belts, unpacking my laptop, etc. (and forgot about taking out my wallet, so I got read the riot act). I STILL got wanded and a patdown and in the meanwhile my pants dropped down without the belt. I loathe this kabuki dance with a passion. It usually takes me 5-10 minutes after all that before I'm ready to walk to the gate.
I lost several pounds over the past year, my lowest weight since 2004 (I'm up about 10 pounds in water gain since hitting my low, in part due to eating out with my mom during the trip home). (I sometimes publish in a separate nutrition blog.) In part, probably the biggest manifestation of my dietary success was not needing an extended belt on any of the four segments through Charlotte to and from Texas. I bought a couple of pairs of pants at least 4 inches in the waist smaller and shirts one to 2 size smaller, plus I now use some of my Dad's longer belts. Make no mistake; I still have a lot of weight to lose at over 200 lbs, but as I tweeted out, my two biggest New Years Resolution is to continue my diet/exercise regimen and to be more patient on social media, particularly Twitter.
I rarely do fast food except when I travel. For some reason, I didn't get a chance to do Bill Miller (BBQ) or get breakfast tacos. Mom doesn't share my affection for Whataburger. I had an early afternoon flight back from Texas, so I tried a Steak N Shake for the first time ever. (No shake, of course.) I got shell-shocked from an $11 tab for a simple combo. Not that impressed; the burger was overdone, but mostly I was irritated by the long wait time (literally over 15 minutes), and it seems like they ran out of (cooked) fries during the wait: how does that happen during the noon hour? I had over an hour before the flight, so it didn't cause a problem, but it didn't make for a good first impression.
For some reason I've run into (card-reading, not account) issues using my credit card (with a chip), particularly in swipe machines, including a gas station where I've used the card at least a dozen times without issue and at the American Airlines check-in kiosks (for suitcases). I usually build redundancy into things; e.g., I brought printed driving instructions to a recent drive into Pennsylvania along with my Garmin device and Google Maps on my Android phone. It's a good thing, because Google Maps said it lost its signal near a critical change point. So at the AA kiosk, my workaround was using the trip locator. I never memorize those things, but I had printouts of my boarding passes and a hardcopy of my reservations.
