putting the knit in shizknitz

Some gorgeous flowers to brighten my day

12 year old soup. It’s what’s for dinner. The expiry on the can said 95. Yes, we really ate it. Yes, we are still alive.

What I saw when I came home from class tonight. The right side are my packages from Zappos. The left seems to be - banana delivery for my neighbor? This is the strangest thing I’ve seen yet.

I have to rave about my Zappos.com order. Two nights ago while procrastinating doing homework, I started glancing through my Rick Steeves’ book and became infatuated with ordering my shoes for my summer trip to Europe. I started looking at REI, Adventure 16 but then I thought of going to Zappos, an online shoe store that one of my old running buddies told me about. I wanted three pairs - my main shoe, a pair of flip flops for the shower and other wet events, and a pair of comfy heels for the cruise and dancing. I started shopping and lo and behold! I found my dream team - Keen Malibu (yeah, the irony), Croc Athens and Clark Aria.  Good lord, they shipped yesterday and were here today, FOR FREE.  FREE SHIPPING!  The shoes and boxes (I keep my shoes in their boxes) came in perfect condition (not the crap you get when you go to Macy’s and its half used/worn already), and after following the sizing on the website (they will advise you if they come larger or smaller than size) these are perfect!  They are all so uber comfortable, and if for whatever reason I decide I don’t want them, return shipping is free as well!  I haven’t been this giddy over shoes since I was a kid.  My grandma would send me these slip on shoes with cartoon characters on them from Japan and I would be so attached to them that there are pictures of me sleeping with them in bed (unused of course).  T might have to share some bed space tonight!

I held off on this one, hoping that there would be some positive resolution. Given the hotel’s unresponse, its my turn to tell the world what happened. Remember my road trip to see my sister during the holidays (Dec 22-23 to be exact)? Well we decided to spend it together over at The Fairmont Hotel in downtown San Jose for several reasons:

1) They are a 5 Star Hotel. This means luxury, pampering, and a great time with my sister.

2) The special stuff going on in downtown SJ for Christmas.

What you don’t expect is this: to have all of your Christmas presents stolen from your trunk.

You read that right. The Fairmont requires you to valet park your car. Self park is not an option. To boot, they charge you $24 a night. When they pulled my car up the next morning, all of my stuff from every nook and cranny had been pulled out and spewed all over the interior of the car (from the glove compartment, the middle console, the sides). My first fear was that my integrated ipod player was stolen, checked that and thank god it was there. I next checked the trunk for my spare (I know, some people laugh, but I often hear that spare tires are stolen at valet lots) and check, that was there. What was missing? Out of my trunk - digital camera + case + memory cards + batteries for my parents, my brand new ipod shuffle and earphones (I use special earphones for running, and I hadn’t even had a chance to USE the shuffle yet), DVD’s, garage door opener, and lord knows what else.

After writing a letter to the manager at The Fairmont directly, no response. The least they can do is return my $24 in parking charges. The AMPCO parking company? They want copies of receipts for insurance purposes. Who knows what’s next.

Given that there was no forced entry, the thieves either had access to my car keys OR my car was unlocked, either way was the responsibility of the AMPCO parking company (who claims to have 24 hour security in the lot) and the Hotel who gives me no other choice than to valet park my car.

So much for a Merry Christmas, this was more of a Bah-Humbug! This is just crap you don’t expect from a FIVE STAR HOTEL LIKE THE FAIRMONT.

I think work is making me crazy. I’ve been looking for my kleenex box EVERYWHERE.

Today I found it in the fridge. Yes, tissues, nice and cold.

What the heck is going on with UPS? They used to be known for their ground service which was TERRIFIC. If you’ve got a differentiator that works, stick with it. Not only have I had nothing but problems with ground service, its gotten so horrible lately that I’ve had a problem with every package delivery since… well since last fall. Here’s a run down:

1. Oct 17, 05 - my Matt and Nat Order - what a disaster. I can’t remember all the details but it was a ground package that got lost, accidentally shipped back halfway across the US to Ohio, then sent back where I received it about 2 weeks late, then when I received it the box was so banged up the purse came half folded up.
2. Christmas season - I did most of my shopping through Amazon this last season, and of course most of them shipped via UPS. Not only was I not receiving InfoNotice “we missed you” slips on days they claim to have “attempted delivery” some of my packages got re-routed to my neighbor’s work. What a shock I had when I realized that my package had been “delivered” and upon calling was delivered to an address I had never heard of before to a name I’ve never heard of before. They had a contact number which coincidentally belonged to our neighbor who we happened to know (we do live in LA, most of us don’t know each other even if we are neighbors) because they have a dog as well (with the exception of dog owners who run into each other frequently due to walking the dog).
3. All the other issues I’ve run into such as late deliveries and what not that I can’t remember. A few years ago I had one incident where a package that was being shipped with computer parts had been lost, and a lady called a few months later from their sorting facility and mentioned that she found our box hidden behind the sorter machine.
4. But this time, my Franklin Covey order definitely takes the cake.

I ordered a design your own calendar set from the FC site which gave me an estimated printing time of about 15 business days, so imagine the joy when I got their confirmation within the week that it had shipped. Because of my upcoming travels, I had upgraded the shipping to two-day UPS service. BIG MISTAKE.

Last weekend I look to see that it shipped and would be arriving on Tues April 4th. Perfect. I would be around most of the day to wait for the UPS driver. However, that was the worst storm day we had seen all year. UPS driver never arrived. Miffed, I continued to check the online status, but it looked like it hadn’t left the central LA UPS station all day. The next day I was at school all day and again by the late afternoon the package still hadn’t left the central LA UPS station. I called them, to see what the situation was - and they said the package had been lost (there had been no movement in the last 24 hours) and thus I should have the shipper put a tracer on the package. I called Franklin Covey where I spoke to the NICEST rep who not only took care of the tracer, but said that they would re-print my calendar and have it shipped overnight. Now, THAT’s CUSTOMER SERVICE!

I get home to find an InfoNotice from the original order. Shoot, the driver had decided to deliver - so I immediately put through a location redirect to T’s workplace since I knew I wouldn’t be home for the rest of the week. I went online - voila and done, done. Or so I thought.

The next day, Thursday - T runs into the UPS driver inside the complex who only had a package for our apartment manager. Nothing for us, and no InfoNotices etc. In the meantime I’m at school delighted at the fact Franklin Covey wasn’t messing around - not only did it ship overnight, but they shipped it yesterday, which was supposed to arrive today! Except - I get home to find neither package and the strangest activity on their tracking.

That was from the overnighter package - supposidly they made 3 delivery attempts today - except T ran into him and he didn’t have a package for us. The original order - also had:

Again, apparently a delivery attempt was made to a mystery person since T was at home. There were no packages awaiting him at work, either. I called UPS and spoke to a very kind customer service rep who confirmed that my second package was also redirected to the same address as the first - which for future reference will always happen as long as you have one package on redirection. She also said that she would have someone from that office contact me by 10 AM Friday morning to explain the situation and to confirm that it would be delivered.

Friday - no phone call, and no packages, anywhere. They must have dissapeared. By evening they had traveled from Los Angeles to another place in Los Angeles, the other to Gardena.

*sigh* So I called UPS again - the lady was bewildered at what she was seeing on her screen. She again confirmed that the packaged should arrive on Monday to T’s work - and put in another request for someone to call.

I’m in the midst of Finals, I’m stressed, not sleeping, need to knit booties for a friend’s new baby and intolerant of incapable companies like UPS. Why don’t they concentrate on their delivery rather than trying to compete with Fedex/Kinkos with the whole copy service stuff? You have to keep your current customers happy before you can garner new ones.

Now if there’s some way I can avoid using UPS……

I have a Type A personality. Especially when it comes to certain things, I can get pretty darn anal (my apartment is not one of them, if you could see it now). One of those is my schoolwork, which has replaced my previous work-work. I like to start projects early (sometimes they don’t get done early) and I like team members who contribute. Not only contribute but those that are smarter, better, faster than me - cause then I can actually learn from them, which I think is the point of all of these damn group projects.

I’m on a team now for one of the most difficult projects in one of the most difficult classes of my life. I am rarely impressed with my own work but between myself and my two other braintrust friends, we have completed an economic profit analysis for one of the largest multi-national beverage companies in the world. Not only do we have numbers and analyses to prove our theory on what drives this company’s profits, we were able to get a former executive to confirm our theory. Nice.

For many of my projects including this one, I typically send it on to Kinkos for color printing and binding. It isn’t cheap - a 41 page paper costs me almost $50 which on a student budget is about 3 Happy Hours. I love the fact they are open 24 hours - I’ve made many overnight dashes out to the Marina Del Rey Kinkos in the past. I was ecstatic when they started to offer the “send your print jobs directly” option on their website. But there’s one problem - what the customer wants with this type of technology is instant gratification. Like ordering stuff from Best Buy online, I want to be able to order it, then run over and pick it up. No waiting, no fuss. However this isn’t so - for either scenario. On the software you install from Kinkos, it automatically wants you to give it 4 hours leadtime on your order. This does not take into consideration how large your request is (whether it be 2 pages or 100) nor does it take into consideration how backed up that specific Kinkos is on their work orders. What proceeds to happen is that I place my order, expecting to pick it up 4 hours later (since that is what I put as my “due time”) but its actually not ready for another 8. That can certainly put a dent in someone’s schedule who is on their way out the door for an important meeting, or class. Good thing for us we’re a few days early on the paper - but still, this is an annoyance.

Now this may seem silly, but in this day in age of supply chain management and automation, can’t they at least have some indicator which will give you a more realistic idea when your request can be fulfilled - based on the size of your order and their current work orders? Especially since Kinkos is FedEx, you would think they have the SCM stuff under control — oh sorry, that was UPS who first mastered that area.

If Kinkos marketing had any thoughts of qualitative analysis on their services, reading blogs with rants and raves would be a good place to start. But that’s only if they’re being sensitive to their consumer needs. Which they should be, since I can certainly afford a cheap laser color from Dell for all of the printing I’ve done so far. As Friedman said in The World Is Flat, as the playing field becomes flattened and competition increases, you must be able to find a way to differentiate yourself. Differentiation can come from things such as customer service. To provide great customer service, you have to KNOW your customer. So listen up Kinkos, I’m pissed that my online print jobs are consistently 8 hours late.

This is what I got after typing in my name (which *IS* Japanese) into the Japanese Name Generator.

My jewelry instructor, Ralph Goldstein, can’t seem to say my name. Every week, its something new - chashu, shoshu, shishu, and most recently at a Sushi restaurant, my reservation was made for sciszu. Speaking of chashu, I’m getting hungry.

WTF?!?!?!?! Cold Stones no longer has Sinless Sweet Cream!!!!

This morning I saw a brand new Honda Accord with a license plate frame that said the following:

TOP: My New Car
BOTTOM: Daddy’s Payments

The license plate should have read “IMDUMB”

I never understood why anyone would want to brag that their parents are paying for their car. Whatever happened to being independent?

As a fourth grader spending summers in Japan, I used to go crazy over anything Sanrio. I had a huge collection of Keroppi goods (that I still have now) that started being purchased in the summer of 1988, the year it came out (and yes, this makes me feel quite old). People have gotten quite creative over the years, as we’ve seen Hello Kitty massagers (er, vibrators) but this is my first time seeing a Sanrio bong.

Very, very creative.