It doesn't work as well as it used to. Too many times cutting pieces of cardboard so the blade "skews" instead of cutting a perfect right angle. Most times I just use the scissors now.
Hmm The sad part is if there was an auction for the one of one sheet AND the prototype sheets the complete package would have been worth a lot more than just the stamps alone.
So. I got the UPS email notice, as usual, that they couldn't deliver my package yesterday, since I live in a secured building and they needed a signature (nice touch, guys), but that I could pick it up at the convenience store just around the corner, today.
So. I trudged over the ice and told the...decidedly...Muslim, anti-American, anti-white, young clerk who had prayer time chants on the loudspeaker, who I was and that I was there to pick up a package. I gave him my American passport I.D. card.
He looked at me disdainfully (really!) and then made me wait while he checked out other customers. Then he went to look and said that there was no package for me.
I said that I had been notified that it was there. He made me wait, again, as he checked out other customers, and then he checked again, perfunctorily. Nope.
I stormed out, walked back home, got my cell phone and the UPS slip off the door (which, admittedly, I should have done in the first place) and went back.
I showed him the screen on my phone where it said delivered and gave him the slip (which had the wrong name written on it but the right apartment number) and, after making me wait, again, while he checked out other customers (and I won't even go into the bit where I tried, repeatedly to get the young woman behind me in line to go before me because the clerk would not wait on me before her and she kept saying, "don't talk to me", in a very hostile voice; nope won't go into that).
And...then...after she finally relented and checked out, he looked at my phone screen, looked at the UPS slip that had the wrong name on it (which is a key point here), and he went to look again. All this time (quite a while--a big chunk of my evening), he kept on telling me that there were only four UPS packages there.
He returned without it, again.
I...um...complained stridently, again, and he got on his cell phone to make a call, speaking Arabic (which, unfortunately, I do not speak or understand). I expected the cops to show up momentarily, but I stood my ground.
A minute or two later, another guy came out of the back. They spoke briefly, in Arabic, and then the second guy asked me for the tracking number. I showed it to him on my phone screen and gave him my I.D. He came back in seconds with my Melmoth portfolios. I signed, and Bob's yer uncle.
I looked at the package and, with my gloved fingers, circled the address label in the center of the front side that clearly said, Jeff Seiler. The, presumably, manager looked and then said that, yes, it also was on the UPS shipping label.
Dave? I liked it better when you sent them via the USPS and the guy would leave it outside of my apartment door.
Haven't opened it yet, but I think that there will be more on that, later.
"Making Friends Wherever I Go: The Jeff Seiler Story" ;)
That cutting board is talking, man! I heard "morbid c**t" at least once or twice.
Stop looking at me funny!
So, what about auctioning off those cut up pieces?
I did not have to go through the tribulations that Jeff did, but I did indeed get my portfolio in the mail. It was at my PO box...Monday or Tuesday, but I didn't get to the PO when the service desk was open until Friday. Got it home, opened it up, took a look, managed to not rip anything (YAY!). Looks good. I'll have to take some time upcoming and review the portfolios for the Atomic Junk Shop. Maybe around the time the next Kickstarter (Flight, right?) starts up.
Hey, Travis, I'm a *nice* guy, as Madeline Kahn said in Young Frankenstein, but when an obvious terrorist-in-training decides to mess with me, I'm not gonna put up with it. So what if he blows me up later (now that he knows my address): I'll be a martyr to the cause of The Average White Guy.
I am fearLESS, Damian. They can kill me whenever they want: I've pretty much accomplished everything I could have in life, and if I die sooner rather than later, well, that just means more money goes to...um...the SPCA.
Oh, wait. S#$t. I still have to proofread over half of the Cerebus books.
Okay. Terrorists? I was just kidding around. Okay? Just minding my own bidness here...
Hey Jeff, Sorry you had so much trouble receiving CAN6. Mine was delivered by USPS priority mail from Buffalo,NY. I wonder why yours was UPS and mine was USPS. PS-- I live in PA, USA. Michael Ragiel
Fuck UPS. Seriously. I won't even order something if I know it's going to be shipped UPS--especially from the USA, since they charge an exorbitant and morally reprehensible "brokerage fee" for any such packages sent from the US to Canada. (That said, my Melmoth portfolio arrived fine a few days ago, but I am pretty sure it came from Canada Post.)
Yeah, Mike and Dom, I stand in solidarity with you and ask (ASK!) Sandeep to only use FedEx or CanadaPost or The United States Postal Service from here on out.
UPS SUCKS. (hashtag)
No, to be fair, UPS used to suck royally, but then they got the (bright?) idea to just drop off the packages down the street at what amounts to a holding place. So, really, the people (person) who sucked in this story was the person who gave me the intense look of dislike (even though all I did was to hand him my American passport ID card) and then pretended not to be able to find my package.
He was/is not, for the record, an employee of UPS.
Yeah, Mike and Dom, I stand in solidarity with you and ask (ASK!) Sandeep to only use FedEx or CanadaPost or The United States Postal Service from here on out.
UPS SUCKS. (hashtag)
No, to be fair, UPS used to suck royally, but then they got the (bright?) idea to just drop off the packages down the street at what amounts to a holding place. So, really, the people (person) who sucked in this story was the person who gave me the intense look of dislike (even though all I did was to hand him my American passport ID card) and then pretended not to be able to find my package.
He was/is not, for the record, an employee of UPS.
You're both acting like idiots. Please take it off the blog if you want to bitch to each other about each other. I come here to discuss Cerebus and hopefully get insights into it from Dave and Gerhard when they feel like chiming in. Not to listen to this drivel.
Margaret: I will happily cease objecting to Jeff S.'s racist RNC talking-points if he will cease posting them. Then we can return to arguing about what really matters: whether Dave Sim is a misogynist (he is).
Margaret, I'm sorry for offending you. I, too, sincerely wish to return to civil discourse.
Damian, I am not a racist. I was simply reporting what happened to me. I was reporting on his bad, uncivil behavior. And, for me to call the guy a Muslim is no more racist than to call Dave a Muslim, but slightly more accurate. And, I am not affiliated with the RNC.
And, Damian, from your last comment, I can tell that, as it always has been here, your primary interest, your driving interest in posting is to stir up shit.
The only point in your story where it makes ANY difference of what ethnic/racial/religious background the surly teller was is the part where he and his manager spoke a non-English language in front of you.
Otherwise, you were just dealing with a surly, uncooperative customer service drone, and we've all dealt with those.
By making an issue of the guy's ethnic/racial/religious background in telling your story, you (most likely unintentionally) are introducing the implication that the reason the guy was unhelpful to you was because he was of a certain ethnic/racial/religious background, and not that he is a customer service drone, which seems to be the main reason the guy was unhelpful.
I really don't think you're racist, but step back a second. Do you see how the way you told the story might make the reader infer something about the guy's ethnic/racial/religious background, and infer that you were implying something about that background?
Again, I don't think you were trying to do so, but the way you told it, it could be read that way.
And while I was kidding around in my earlier comment, the detail about the woman behind you repeatedly telling you not to talk to her jumped out at me.
I'm not saying there definitely is something about your bearing that seems to make people uncomfortable, but perhaps that's something you might consider: taking a look at your own behavior and seeing if that might be causing these reactions.
Y'know, maybe it's not you, I haven't met you and I won't say for sure. Those people may have just been having a bad day, and were taking it out on you. Maybe your enthusiasm at getting the latest portfolio, then frustration and irritation at not getting it --ahem-- effin' magnified things around you. But just consider it, huh?
Just a friendly suggestion. And I mean that, Jeff. I like to kid you plenty, because you're easy to tweak sometimes ;), but I genuinely like you and your enthusiasm about Dave's work, and we have fun here discussing it. So just ponder a bit, for me, huh?
I was going to suggest that people follow Jeff's example and post "Weird Events Associated With Getting CEREBUS @#$% Delivered To You". Which, there seems to me to be more than a few of them taking place.
Conversely also posting "Smooth Non-Weird CEREBUS Delivery Stories".
Of course, that was back when there were just 7 posts.
Now? I'm-a say nothing. I'm-a just sit here and type type type.
Travis, my neighborhood is replete with Muslims, including a former school that was closed on suspicion of being a terrorist training center. That was a couple of years ago. I have no problem with meeting, speaking with, co-existing with anyone in my neighborhood, so long as they are civil and polite. But when someone treats me the way I was treated the other day, because I am white, then I have a problem with that person. I was, coincidentally, the only white person in that shop the entire time I was there. Saying that is not me being racist, that's me being observant.
It was not just bad, surly customer service; it was intentionally bad, surly customer service.
Jeff S.: Travis P.'s comment was very kind, but I'm not certain that you've really listened.
If you believe you were treated poorly because you're a cracker, why did you not mention the individual's race, but privileged the nugget that he was Muslim? You went into the encounter hostile, with all kinds of assumptions you had no way of knowing. You could tell at a glance he was anti-white, could you? And you conservatives sure do love to throw around that term "anti-American", when what you mean is "disagrees with me". Why did the other customer take such an immediate dislike to you? Another Muslim racist? Or were you having a bad day and looking to take offense at something? Or could be these people are not anti-white, anti-USAnian, anti-you; maybe they're just jerks. Or maybe you are.
First of all, I didn't go in hostile, I went in expecting to simply pick up a package. Instead, after I waited my turn in line, silently, the clerk continued, repeatedly, to wave people, who came in after me, ahead of me. I don't remember the exact count but it was at least six people who came in after me.
As to the young woman who lined up behind me, she was one of the last ones he waved ahead of me. Problem was, she was looking down at her phone, texting, and didn't see him attempting to wave her ahead of me. So, foolishly, I turned around and politely told her she could go ahead of me.
"Don't talk to me!"
"No, really, he won't wait on me until he checks you out."
"I said, don't talk to me!!!"
But, then, he got her attention and she realized what was going on and she moved around me in her conveyance of choice, a huff, and checked out. And, then, he went to look for my package a third time.
That is decidedly NOT me provoking people.
I am a little, old, white-bearded, disabled person who walks with a cane. I am exceedingly polite to customer service people, as long as they are polite to me. Especially, I am that way in person. (Obviously, I am not above the occasional flame-war online.)
But, if a customer service person treats me disrespectfully, well, I have *earned* the right to stand up for myself.
Jeff S.: If I continue then Margaret, who was wrong above, will be right by now. I admit that nobody has a higher opinion of your reasonableness than you do yourself, and let it go at that. If you want the last word you may have it; I will read it.
28 comments:
Gah! I couldn't look away! Why? Why did I watch the cutting? Next time you could just sent it to me, and I won't tell anyone. Really. Promise.
The sound of that cutting board at work is intense.
It doesn't work as well as it used to. Too many times cutting pieces of cardboard so the blade "skews" instead of cutting a perfect right angle. Most times I just use the scissors now.
Gah! No scissors. No cutting board. Just send it to me. No one will know. ;P
Hmm The sad part is if there was an auction for the one of one sheet AND the prototype sheets the complete package would have been worth a lot more than just the stamps alone.
So. I got the UPS email notice, as usual, that they couldn't deliver my package yesterday, since I live in a secured building and they needed a signature (nice touch, guys), but that I could pick it up at the convenience store just around the corner, today.
So. I trudged over the ice and told the...decidedly...Muslim, anti-American, anti-white, young clerk who had prayer time chants on the loudspeaker, who I was and that I was there to pick up a package. I gave him my American passport I.D. card.
He looked at me disdainfully (really!) and then made me wait while he checked out other customers. Then he went to look and said that there was no package for me.
I said that I had been notified that it was there. He made me wait, again, as he checked out other customers, and then he checked again, perfunctorily. Nope.
I stormed out, walked back home, got my cell phone and the UPS slip off the door (which, admittedly, I should have done in the first place) and went back.
I showed him the screen on my phone where it said delivered and gave him the slip (which had the wrong name written on it but the right apartment number) and, after making me wait, again, while he checked out other customers (and I won't even go into the bit where I tried, repeatedly to get the young woman behind me in line to go before me because the clerk would not wait on me before her and she kept saying, "don't talk to me", in a very hostile voice; nope won't go into that).
And...then...after she finally relented and checked out, he looked at my phone screen, looked at the UPS slip that had the wrong name on it (which is a key point here), and he went to look again. All this time (quite a while--a big chunk of my evening), he kept on telling me that there were only four UPS packages there.
He returned without it, again.
I...um...complained stridently, again, and he got on his cell phone to make a call, speaking Arabic (which, unfortunately, I do not speak or understand). I expected the cops to show up momentarily, but I stood my ground.
A minute or two later, another guy came out of the back. They spoke briefly, in Arabic, and then the second guy asked me for the tracking number. I showed it to him on my phone screen and gave him my I.D. He came back in seconds with my Melmoth portfolios. I signed, and Bob's yer uncle.
I looked at the package and, with my gloved fingers, circled the address label in the center of the front side that clearly said, Jeff Seiler. The, presumably, manager looked and then said that, yes, it also was on the UPS shipping label.
Dave? I liked it better when you sent them via the USPS and the guy would leave it outside of my apartment door.
Haven't opened it yet, but I think that there will be more on that, later.
"Making Friends Wherever I Go: The Jeff Seiler Story" ;)
That cutting board is talking, man! I heard "morbid c**t" at least once or twice.
Stop looking at me funny!
So, what about auctioning off those cut up pieces?
I did not have to go through the tribulations that Jeff did, but I did indeed get my portfolio in the mail. It was at my PO box...Monday or Tuesday, but I didn't get to the PO when the service desk was open until Friday. Got it home, opened it up, took a look, managed to not rip anything (YAY!). Looks good. I'll have to take some time upcoming and review the portfolios for the Atomic Junk Shop. Maybe around the time the next Kickstarter (Flight, right?) starts up.
Hey, Travis, I'm a *nice* guy, as Madeline Kahn said in Young Frankenstein, but when an obvious terrorist-in-training decides to mess with me, I'm not gonna put up with it. So what if he blows me up later (now that he knows my address): I'll be a martyr to the cause of The Average White Guy.
Stay classy as ever, Jeff. It must be really hard to be a conservative like you, and walk around all day in such fear.
-- Damian
I am fearLESS, Damian. They can kill me whenever they want: I've pretty much accomplished everything I could have in life, and if I die sooner rather than later, well, that just means more money goes to...um...the SPCA.
Oh, wait. S#$t. I still have to proofread over half of the Cerebus books.
Okay. Terrorists? I was just kidding around. Okay? Just minding my own bidness here...
Hey Jeff,
Sorry you had so much trouble receiving CAN6. Mine was delivered by USPS priority mail from Buffalo,NY. I wonder why yours was UPS and mine was USPS. PS-- I live in PA, USA.
Michael Ragiel
Fuck UPS. Seriously. I won't even order something if I know it's going to be shipped UPS--especially from the USA, since they charge an exorbitant and morally reprehensible "brokerage fee" for any such packages sent from the US to Canada. (That said, my Melmoth portfolio arrived fine a few days ago, but I am pretty sure it came from Canada Post.)
Yeah, Mike and Dom, I stand in solidarity with you and ask (ASK!) Sandeep to only use FedEx or CanadaPost or The United States Postal Service from here on out.
UPS SUCKS. (hashtag)
No, to be fair, UPS used to suck royally, but then they got the (bright?) idea to just drop off the packages down the street at what amounts to a holding place. So, really, the people (person) who sucked in this story was the person who gave me the intense look of dislike (even though all I did was to hand him my American passport ID card) and then pretended not to be able to find my package.
He was/is not, for the record, an employee of UPS.
Although, the real ones aren't a lot better.
Yeah, Mike and Dom, I stand in solidarity with you and ask (ASK!) Sandeep to only use FedEx or CanadaPost or The United States Postal Service from here on out.
UPS SUCKS. (hashtag)
No, to be fair, UPS used to suck royally, but then they got the (bright?) idea to just drop off the packages down the street at what amounts to a holding place. So, really, the people (person) who sucked in this story was the person who gave me the intense look of dislike (even though all I did was to hand him my American passport ID card) and then pretended not to be able to find my package.
He was/is not, for the record, an employee of UPS.
Although, the real ones aren't a lot better.
Sorry for the double post. It just happens, sometimes.
Yeah yeah, Jeff -- you're very brave issuing baseless and scurrilous attacks against powerless people. Kick down, kiss up, amirite?
-- Damian
Fuck you, Damian. The man treated me horribly.
You're both acting like idiots. Please take it off the blog if you want to bitch to each other about each other. I come here to discuss Cerebus and hopefully get insights into it from Dave and Gerhard when they feel like chiming in. Not to listen to this drivel.
Margaret: I will happily cease objecting to Jeff S.'s racist RNC talking-points if he will cease posting them. Then we can return to arguing about what really matters: whether Dave Sim is a misogynist (he is).
-- Damian
Margaret, I'm sorry for offending you. I, too, sincerely wish to return to civil discourse.
Damian, I am not a racist. I was simply reporting what happened to me. I was reporting on his bad, uncivil behavior. And, for me to call the guy a Muslim is no more racist than to call Dave a Muslim, but slightly more accurate. And, I am not affiliated with the RNC.
And, Damian, from your last comment, I can tell that, as it always has been here, your primary interest, your driving interest in posting is to stir up shit.
Indelicately.
Jeff S.: Please stop imputing your own motives to other people.
-- Damian
Jeff, buddy, pal, friend o'mine. (no, really!)
Let me point out something to you.
The only point in your story where it makes ANY difference of what ethnic/racial/religious background the surly teller was is the part where he and his manager spoke a non-English language in front of you.
Otherwise, you were just dealing with a surly, uncooperative customer service drone, and we've all dealt with those.
By making an issue of the guy's ethnic/racial/religious background in telling your story, you (most likely unintentionally) are introducing the implication that the reason the guy was unhelpful to you was because he was of a certain ethnic/racial/religious background, and not that he is a customer service drone, which seems to be the main reason the guy was unhelpful.
I really don't think you're racist, but step back a second. Do you see how the way you told the story might make the reader infer something about the guy's ethnic/racial/religious background, and infer that you were implying something about that background?
Again, I don't think you were trying to do so, but the way you told it, it could be read that way.
And while I was kidding around in my earlier comment, the detail about the woman behind you repeatedly telling you not to talk to her jumped out at me.
I'm not saying there definitely is something about your bearing that seems to make people uncomfortable, but perhaps that's something you might consider: taking a look at your own behavior and seeing if that might be causing these reactions.
Y'know, maybe it's not you, I haven't met you and I won't say for sure. Those people may have just been having a bad day, and were taking it out on you. Maybe your enthusiasm at getting the latest portfolio, then frustration and irritation at not getting it --ahem-- effin' magnified things around you. But just consider it, huh?
Just a friendly suggestion. And I mean that, Jeff. I like to kid you plenty, because you're easy to tweak sometimes ;), but I genuinely like you and your enthusiasm about Dave's work, and we have fun here discussing it. So just ponder a bit, for me, huh?
I was going to suggest that people follow Jeff's example and post "Weird Events Associated With Getting CEREBUS @#$% Delivered To You". Which, there seems to me to be more than a few of them taking place.
Conversely also posting "Smooth Non-Weird CEREBUS Delivery Stories".
Of course, that was back when there were just 7 posts.
Now? I'm-a say nothing. I'm-a just sit here and type type type.
Travis, my neighborhood is replete with Muslims, including a former school that was closed on suspicion of being a terrorist training center. That was a couple of years ago. I have no problem with meeting, speaking with, co-existing with anyone in my neighborhood, so long as they are civil and polite. But when someone treats me the way I was treated the other day, because I am white, then I have a problem with that person. I was, coincidentally, the only white person in that shop the entire time I was there. Saying that is not me being racist, that's me being observant.
It was not just bad, surly customer service; it was intentionally bad, surly customer service.
Jeff S.: Travis P.'s comment was very kind, but I'm not certain that you've really listened.
If you believe you were treated poorly because you're a cracker, why did you not mention the individual's race, but privileged the nugget that he was Muslim? You went into the encounter hostile, with all kinds of assumptions you had no way of knowing. You could tell at a glance he was anti-white, could you? And you conservatives sure do love to throw around that term "anti-American", when what you mean is "disagrees with me". Why did the other customer take such an immediate dislike to you? Another Muslim racist? Or were you having a bad day and looking to take offense at something? Or could be these people are not anti-white, anti-USAnian, anti-you; maybe they're just jerks. Or maybe you are.
-- Damian
Damian--Hugs and kisses to you, too!
First of all, I didn't go in hostile, I went in expecting to simply pick up a package. Instead, after I waited my turn in line, silently, the clerk continued, repeatedly, to wave people, who came in after me, ahead of me. I don't remember the exact count but it was at least six people who came in after me.
As to the young woman who lined up behind me, she was one of the last ones he waved ahead of me. Problem was, she was looking down at her phone, texting, and didn't see him attempting to wave her ahead of me. So, foolishly, I turned around and politely told her she could go ahead of me.
"Don't talk to me!"
"No, really, he won't wait on me until he checks you out."
"I said, don't talk to me!!!"
But, then, he got her attention and she realized what was going on and she moved around me in her conveyance of choice, a huff, and checked out. And, then, he went to look for my package a third time.
That is decidedly NOT me provoking people.
I am a little, old, white-bearded, disabled person who walks with a cane. I am exceedingly polite to customer service people, as long as they are polite to me. Especially, I am that way in person. (Obviously, I am not above the occasional flame-war online.)
But, if a customer service person treats me disrespectfully, well, I have *earned* the right to stand up for myself.
Jeff S.: If I continue then Margaret, who was wrong above, will be right by now. I admit that nobody has a higher opinion of your reasonableness than you do yourself, and let it go at that. If you want the last word you may have it; I will read it.
-- Damian
Word.
Dude.
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