{"id":15,"date":"2001-05-13T16:09:03","date_gmt":"2001-05-14T00:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=15"},"modified":"2006-12-26T18:17:58","modified_gmt":"2006-12-27T02:17:58","slug":"ten-bucks-for-thirty-four-cents-worth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/?p=15","title":{"rendered":"Ten Bucks for Thirty-Four Cents Worth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Delivery services are a pain in the butt.<\/p>\n

I get my snail mail at a post office box, and when I checked it yesterday, I had a nice stack of mail. Two pieces were notices of some kind, one of which I immediately recognized as a request to pick up certified mail at the window. Curious, I stood in line for the window, not knowing what to expect.<\/p>\n

To pass the time, I looked over the other notice. It was a cheap white postcard with rough perforated edges and dot-matrix print; it was apparently from UPS, telling me that they attempted to deliver a package from Bookstar but couldn’t complete the delivery because I had a PO box as an address — no duh. In the meantime, if I so desired, I could go out of my way over a package I wasn’t expecting and contact them between such and such a time Monday through Friday about it. Or<\/i>, if they didn’t hear from me by such and such a date, they will return the package to the sender.<\/p>\n

That “such and such a date” — I noticed to my chagrin — happened to be three days prior.<\/p>\n

Great,<\/i> I thought. I guess I’ll just have to call Bookstar about whatever the heck it is they sent.<\/i> I wondered briefly why no one bothered to stop and think, after seeing my PO box address, “Hmmm. Maybe I shouldn’t send this via UPS.”<\/p>\n

But who was I to judge?<\/p>\n

It was right about that time that I arrived at the post office window and presented my notice for the certified mail. The clerk went in the back to get it, and I blithely signed the forms and went my way.<\/p>\n

The piece of certified mail was actually a legal-sized, manilla-colored envelope padded with bubble wrap. The return address included the name Bookstar, so I guessed right away that it was the package that UPS tried to deliver. Wondering what could merit such costs in shipping and handling, I opened the envelope to find yet another envelope — one that was smaller and thinner, and looked like all the other mail I typically get, the kind that costs only 34 cents to send.<\/p>\n

34 cents.<\/p>\n

Inside the smaller envelope was my bookstore membership card, and nothing else. No check for a million. No credit card. Nothing of any real value. Just a membership card.<\/p>\n

For this, they paid UPS to send me a “Sorry we couldn’t deliver” note and the USPS a fee for certified mail — an estimated five dollars for each service, a total of ten dollars.<\/p>\n

Ten dollars — for something they could easily have sent by regular mail for a mere 34 cents.<\/p>\n

Who in Hades is running Bookstar, anyway? Barnes & Noble, sure — but don’t they know any better?<\/p>\nShare this post:

\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"tumblr\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"tumblr\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Delivery services are a pain in the butt. I get my snail mail at a post office box, and when I checked it yesterday, I had a nice stack of mail. Two pieces were notices of some kind, one of which I immediately recognized as a request to pick up certified mail at the window. Curious, I stood in line for the window, not knowing what to expect. To pass the time, I looked over the other notice. It was…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}