Brendan Gates

This past Saturday I purchased a laptop from Woot. I took a shipping upgrade to ensure I would receive my new toy on Wednesday afternoon. The sale mentioned the model number but not which variant, so I decided to contact them and ask for it.

So as to not harm the (sort of) innocent, I’ve switched out the Woot employee names for names of Nickelback band members.

From: Me
Sent: Sun Dec 30 15:41 CST 2012
To: Woot

Hi Woot, I purchased a Lenovo ThinkPad L512 laptop last night, order #43090182. Can you tell me what the specific model number is that I’ll be receiving? There are several variants of the L512 and I’d like to go get the documentation for my specific model.
Thanks for your help!

Brendan

They replied.

From: Woot
Sent: Mon Dec 31 14:33 CST 2012
To: Me

Hello Brendan,

Thank you for taking the time to email us. We appreciate your concerns as well as your business.

Unfortunately, our records do not elaborate beyond ‘L512’. You can track your order via the following link: http://www.fedex.com/Tracking?tracknumbers=XXXXXXXXXXX1

Chad
Woot Member Services

Not what I had asked for, but still helpful nonetheless. Being that this was a laptop, I assumed it had been shipped with a signature required on delivery. Better to confirm, though.

From: Me
Sent: Tue Jan 1 11:39 CST 2013
To: Woot

Hi Chad –

I appreciate you checking on that for me. Thank you for the tracking info as well. Can you tell me if the FedEx shipment is signature required? If it is not, can we hold the shipment at FedEx? I will be at work on the day it gets delivered, and I’d rather not have it sitting on my front porch.

If a hold is possible, this is a FedEx location that is not too far from where I work:

FedEx Office Print Ship Center
1901 S Brentwood Blvd
St Louis, MO 63144
(314) 963-2700

Thanks again for all of your help,
Brendan

They replied again.

From: Woot
Sent: Wed Jan 2 11:57 CST 2012
To: Me

Hi Brendan,

A signature will not be required for this item. You should be able to contact fedex and request a hold for the item.

Please let us know if you have any further questions.

Best regards,

Ryan
Woot Member Services

Bummer. I suppose it’s time to call FedEx and have the shipment held. That’s when I’m told that the package hasn’t even been picked up yet from Woot.

From: Me
Sent: Wed Jan 2 12:09 CST 2013
To: Woot

Thank you Ryan. I contacted FedEx to place a hold and they told me that the package hasn’t shipped yet. When I look at the tracking information that Chad sent me on Monday that seems to confirm the same:

http://www.fedex.com/Tracking?tracknumbers=XXXXXXXXXXX1

It should be Out for Delivery by now, but the tracking still shows that it’s in the initiated state. Can you confirm the shipping status? If it really hasn’t shipped yet, then I would like to be sure that it goes out today as next day air.

Thanks again for your help,

Brendan

Woot replies again, 27 minutes before the original scheduled delivery.

From: Woot
Sent: Wed Jan 2 14:33 CST 2012
To: Me

Hi Brendan,

It’s not uncommon for one day shipments not to update as they are being shipped.

That coupled with the holiday, could have something to do with it.

If the item isnt delivered, or tracking doesnt update by tomorrow, please let us know and we will proceed as needed.

Best regards,

Ryan
Woot Member Services

Tomorrow? Ugh. I’m getting blown off. I don’t want to be a total jerk but I do need to make it clear this isn’t acceptable.

From: Me
Sent: Wed Jan 2 20:16 CST 2013
To: Woot

Hi Ryan –

As I too work in customer service, please don’t take this as anything personal against you. But considering that I called FedEx and they confirmed that this package still hasn’t been picked up yet to begin its journey to me, we both know this doesn’t have anything to do with the holiday or tracking updates not keeping up with 1-day shipping. This package just never went out. And now we’ve waited yet another day to do anything about it, so the very earliest this ships out is Thursday.

The fact that you all have my money and the laptop, and that I’ve been so far unable to convince anybody that there is a problem, isn’t even my biggest issue. My biggest issue is that I paid extra for 1-day shipping so this would arrive today by 3pm, while my girlfriend is out of town. It could even arrive tomorrow by 3pm and I’d stil be fine. I can dispose of the packaging and tell her it’s a friend’s laptop, or that it’s an old one of mine that she just doesn’t remember. But tomorrow night, she comes home. A package arriving after that means that she sees it arrive, and yells at me for buying more computers. Of course it’s woot so I can’t return it, so then I have to go sell it on Craigslist. I’ll get an email from a seemingly trustworthy guy calling himself Arthur who is interested, but he needs to check it out first to be sure I’m not scamming him. So I meet Arthur in a mall parking lot where he stabs me and takes the laptop. Then I have no laptop, no money, and my girlfriend is yelling at me again because I went and got stabbed by a grifter.

Please help me. I don’t want to get stabbed.

Brendan

I thought that was a good mix of stern and “did he just say he was going to get stabbed?” to warrant some attention.

From: Woot
Sent: Thu Jan 3 11:14 CST 2012
To: Me

Hi Brendan,

We actually have a new tracking number for you, and it looks like your order should arrive today: http://www.fedex.com/Tracking?tracknumbers=XXXXXXXXXXX2

Best,
Mike

Wow. They didn’t even blink in the face of my creative little tale.

From: Me
Sent: Thu Jan 3 15:30 CST 2013
To: Woot

Tough crowd! I mean, c’mon – I wrote a really nice little tale about getting stabbed, and I even used the word grifter and I don’t even get so much as an LOL out of y’all. Whomever is doing your professional email skills training is doing a really good job.

And I can confirm that all is well now re: the shipment… I received the laptop this afternoon before the girlfriend returned, so no stabby craigslist adventure had to be undertaken.

I assume that I’ll be receiving a $3 credit since I paid for one-day shipping and got two-day?

Thanks again,

Brendan

$3 was the difference in shipping cost between one-day and two-day shipping.

From: Woot
Sent: Thu Jan 3 17:04 CST 2012
To: Me

Hello Brendan,

Thanks for noticing our professionalism 🙂 . I issued a $16 refund for shipping. You should see it within a few days.

Happy Wooting,

Daniel
Woot Member Services

Well, at least I got an emoticon from Daniel.

From: Me
Sent: Thu Jan 4 8:13 CST 2012
To: Woot

Thanks Daniel! You didn’t have to refund my full shipping amount, but it was kind of you to do so. I appreciate your help (and Chad’s, Ryan’s, and Mike’s help) getting this whole situation resolve. Have a great weekend.

Brendan

For the record, the new laptop is working out great so far.

There was a massacre in Newtown, CT yesterday. 27 people were shot and killed, including many young children. As in the wake of previous massacres, which happen all too frequently in this country, we’re quick to place blame on others. Would this have been prevented if the killer didn’t have such ready access to guns? Maybe if the victims had guns themselves, then they could have defended themselves? Or is this really a mental health issue? Or something we can blame on the media?

The answer is yes. To all of the above. This is a communal, society-based issue that isn’t solved by taking a side and blaming somebody else. We all deserve blame.

Gun Control
The second amendment says this:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The Supreme Court has ruled that this right does not have to be connected to military service, and does protect home gun ownership. So yes, we civilians can have guns. But should we have guns?

Let’s step back for a second and affirm who should not have guns. Criminals and the mentally ill should not have guns. That’s an easy one that nobody disagrees with. Great, there is some common ground to start with. So who should get guns?

Sportsmen want guns with which to go hunting. They jump through legal hoops and background checks to qualify, and most of them are well trained and very responsible with their guns. So that’s okay.

Then you have the self-defense folks. She just wants a handgun because she lives alone in the city and there have been some home invasions in the area. And he just wants a handgun to keep in a small safe next to the bed in case somebody threatens his children. And they’re also willing to jump through a few hoops… maybe attend a training class or two. That certainly sounds reasonable. And responsible too, right?

Therein lies the problem. Our constitution protects the right to own guns, and it’s pretty easy to rationalize responsible use cases for gun ownership. Sure, let’s ban full auto rifles, flamethrowers, and mortars. So what does that leave? A legally protected supply of single action rifles, shotguns, and semi-automatic handguns. Good thing nobody could ever do anything bad with those, right?

The shooter in CT used legally purchased weapons that he stole from his mother, before killing her. More restrictive gun control wouldn’t have prevented this massacre, since his mother wasn’t a criminal and still would have qualified to purchase the weapons. A flat out ban on guns would have prevented the massacre, but that ban will never happen. In our society, there are just too many use cases that most people consider reasonable. I’m to blame for this, and maybe you are too. It’s not that I think anybody should have a gun, it’s that I have a hard time arguing they shouldn’t.

Mental Health
The mentally ill need to be taken care of. If they could take care of themselves, they wouldn’t be mentally ill. That often requires doctors, medicine, and institutional stays that the ill themselves aren’t capable of paying for. If they’re lucky they have family that takes care of them. If they’re not, then they bounce back and forth between no care and underfunded state care required by law because of some crime they committed.

Do you do your part to take care of the mentally ill in our society? Do you donate money to private charities that care for the mentally ill? Or write your representatives to let them know that they need to make public mental health care a priority? I don’t, as most people don’t, so we’ll continue to have this problem of ill people floating around the fringe. Ill people with guns.

The Media
Media outlets fall over themselves to cover these tragedies, since most of us drop everything to follow along. It’s a ratings boom. We want every detail… from who might have known the shooter at one time to people who can speculate on what the parents are going through, no detail is too small to cover. It becomes the only story that matters anymore. We tweet about it, blog about it, argue about it on Facebook. If that troubled kid wanted to get everybody’s attention and go out with a bang, we certainly helped him achieve that objective.

Psychiatrists like Dr. Park Dietz argue that such sensationalized coverage only makes things worse. Other troubled would-be shooters see how we all pay attention, and know that they too could similarly grab the country’s attention. So what’s the solution? Not cover these events? That will never happen. It’s just like seeing a car accident on the highway. We all hate that rubberneck slow-down effect. We curse the other drivers for having no class, and for slowing us down. Then we get up to the accident scene and can’t help but take just a little peek.

Again, I’m to blame. Sure, I managed to not watch a single second of news coverage on this tragedy. And I’m proud to not have been a part of whatever craven and hypocritical garbage the TV networks were peddling. But here I am blogging about it. A blog post that was inspired initially by a Facebook conversation.

So I place blame on myself for the Newtown massacre. Do you?

For the last several years, I’ve hosted my blog with Dreamhost. The experience hasn’t been perfect, but it’s been pretty good. Certainly better than my experiences with GoDaddy and Yahoo, for sure.

Anyway, Dreamhost allows you to create referral codes for your friends. The way it works is that you get a referral bonus when you sign up one of your friends… however, if you want, you can choose to put that bonus into the referral code – making it an even better deal for the person signing up. The max I can choose to put into the code is $97 off hosting, or $15 towards a free domain name and $82 off hosting, or some other similar combination.

So if you’re looking for a new web host, consider using Dreamhost and one of these codes:
MORESPACE4KATHY
HAHAFUNNY

Both codes have the discount maxed out, and can be used by an unlimited number of people. Dreamhost also offers unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth on their shared hosting plans (what I use). Not too shabby…