All posts by George
What Can Brown Do For You?
An interesting series of events took place recently with United Parcel Service (UPS). I arrived home from work the other day to discover a package sitting in a flower bed near my back door. It had a UPS-generated address label, made out to our address, but using my wife’s maiden name (which she has not used since the 90′s). We then got to looking closer at the mailing label. We peeled it back and discovered an original mailing label that was addressed to the same person who’s name was on the prescription bottles. Her address was different than ours, and was located in a city some 60 miles from where we lived. We couldn’t imagine why UPS would take it upon themselves to cover up the original mailing label and generate a new one, for a person with a different first name and address, and in a different city. I called the prescription company who shipped the package, and they too were at a loss as to why this might happen. The prescription company thanked me, and said they would send their patient out a new package immediatey, and I assured them I would send the package back. A few days later guess who shows up at our door? You guessed it. UPS…with yet another package for the same poor lady, again with the original mailing label – showing a different person at a different address – covered up with a new UPS label changing the recepient to my wife’s maiden name at our address. I explained the whole story to the driver and he indicated he would return the package to the shipper. The next day I took the 1st package to my local UPS Store to have it returned (I hadn’t been in a hurry to drop it off, since the pharmacy was sending out a new package to the patient). I handed the package to the clerk behind the counter and explained the problem, and that it needed to be returned to the sender. He looked at the label and said, “I can’t take this, if I scan the label into the system it will just come back to you.” By this point I was frustrated and quipped, “At this point I don’t care if you throw it in the trash. It’s not my problem, and it wasn’t my screw-up. Do what you want with it” and I walked out. So yeah Brown, I got something you can do for me… Well, I guess we had this coming… Several weeks ago my wife placed an online order for some new shoes, to be shipped to the elementary school where she works. Imagine her surprise today when my wife received an email from a man named Mark Craig who lives in Canada. Seems he received my wife’s shoes, in a package with a UPS-generated shipping label, showing his name and address. He had opened the package and found my wife’s name and address on the enclosed paperwork, Google’d the school name, found my wife’s email address, and sent her the note. Out of curiosity, when she emailed Mark back, she asked him if there was an original mailing label under the one directing the package to him. She asked if there was a label that showed her name and address. He responded yes, there was such a label in place. So this time UPS didn’t just redirect a package to a different woman’s name, at a different address, in a different city 60 miles away. This time they changed the address label from a woman’s name to a man’s name – and shipped it to a different country.
And the followup posting……………….
My fellow BS’er Bill gave me some good-natured (and deserved) teasing the other day as a result of my recent What Can Brown Do For You? post.
TheBSBlog
A Thing of the Past if Republicans have Their Way
My Mama Was a Corporation?
The End of the American Dream?
Cartoons or Reality?
Cartoons?
Reality Speaks
Thanks Union
I will shortly leave for work as a classroom teacher. I have protection from arbitrary firing – because I am in a union I am not forced into downward competition for compensation – because I am in a union I have paid holidays and paid leave – because I am in a union I still have a defined benefit pension – because I am in a union If you have any of those things, or any of these – 8 hours or less work per day – workplace safety rules – 5 day work week – paid overtime or compensatory time off or any of many other things, States with higher standards of living have higher average wages – these are not “right to work” states Let’s translate “right to work” – the power of the employers to be arbitrary and even abusive to their employees. I grew up in the 1950s. That is when the American middle class was built. We had our highest marginal tax rates. We were paying off the immense debt from World War II and the smaller debt from Korea. People’s educational attainment was increasing, in part due to the GI Bill. And we had the highest percentage of our workforce unionized. Correlation is not causation. I know that. But the ordinary people do better when unions thrive. Thank the unions. You can do that by refusing to support politicians who do not support the unions, even if you are not in a union. And if you are not in a union, maybe it is time you were? Maybe you should help organize one where you work? Have a nice day. I will, because I am a member of a union. How about you?
thank the unions
Originally posted to teacherken on Wed May 16, 2012 at 03:08 AM PDT.
Broken Urn Sends Relative’s Ashes Flying
Shedding a tear, Rita Torres struggled as she recalled watching her brother Jimmy’s ashes fly out from an urn into a cloud of dust.
She pulled up a mat in the living room, showing his remains on the floor. Unable to clean them up with her bad knees, she covered the ashes because she was afraid her cat would confuse them for kitty litter.
“It just breaks my heart every time I think of what’s happened to him,” Torres said.
“It hurts.”
Jimmy died of a stroke last month in Washington state. At the request of his guardian, Spokane Cremation and Burial of Spokane shipped his ashes to Torres in an eagle urn.
“When I opened it up and everything started flying out, I said ‘No way!’ That’s his ashes right there.”
Torres says the eagle statue was broken off from the base, leaving a gaping hole. His ashes poured out. Torres initially blamed UPS because she remembered hearing the driver drop her package “hard” in her front yard.
Our investigation uncovered the funeral home never should have shipped the urn through UPS. Shipping “human remains” is against UPS policy, something those in the funeral industry tell us is well known.
“We do adhere to some very strict code of ethics,” said Lisa West with East Lawn Memorial Park of Sacramento.
When we told West about what happened, she and a colleague stopped by Torres’ home, helping her clean up the remains. West says basic industry practice calls for ashes to be bagged, not just placed raw inside an urn.
“With use of something as simple as a plastic bag inside an urn, you avoid any problem no matter what the compromise is to the urn,” she said.
Spokane Cremation and Burial Service owner Bill Rossey told CBS13 by phone that he packed the urn in the box well. He declined an on-camera interview and pointed the finger at UPS and the urn’s manufacturer, suggesting a possible workmanship issue with the urn or rough handling by the shipper.
“I’ve been in the business 15 years,” he said. “I’ve handled thousands of cases with remains and never have I heard anyone say anything about an urn breaking before.”
Rossey had no explanation for breaking UPS rules and claimed he didn’t put the ashes in plastic before placing them in the urn because a bag wouldn’t fit.
But West demonstrated for CBS13 how she’s fit ashes in urns with smaller openings.
The urn’s manufacturer Ziegler and Ames told us, “It was completely irresponsible of Spokane Cremation to have shipped cremated remains in this fashion. … It saddens us greatly that anyone should be subjected to what this woman has gone through.”
The company supplied her with a new urn at no cost. Seeing her brother’s ashes go up in a dust cloud is something Torres can’t get out of her mind.
“I just hope they don’t do this to somebody else,” she said.
UPS Statement
I was able to follow up on this one and I’ve learned that our customer relations group made contact with this customer to apologize for the way the package was delivered. In addition, UPS has issued a goodwill payment in the amount of $300, to cover the replacement of the owl statue that the urn was contained in. (editor note: Torres initially reported it to be an owl urn, but later determined it was an eagle)
However, it is incumbent on the shipper to properly package the item to withhold the shipping environment, as well as adhere to the UPS tariff which states: Items Not Accepted for Transportation includes “Human Remains, fetal remains, human body parts, or components thereof” as not accepted for shipment.
We will follow up with the shipper in this case. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
— Laurie Mallis
NWCN.com