A Letter to My Neighborhood UPS Delivery Person
Dear UPS Delivery Person:
I am writing this letter to commend you sir/madam. This recent delivery has shown the depth, the breadth, and the incredible skill you possess. Your insouciance, sir/madam, is, in a word, breathtaking. No delivery person takes so much care to accurately portray their indifference as you. Had Chaucer, rest his zombie bones, crossed paths with you he would have made an addendum to his famous Tales. Allow me to prove this via detailed enumerations of your many "deliveries" to my address.
Your wondrous ineptitude began in the year 2007. I believe that to be the year in which you, sir/madam, replaced the gentle soul heretofore responsible for this neighborhood. To put it in facile terms, you nearly ruined Christmas. I had placed an order for three volumes relating to medieval life and warfare in Europe. These items were to be my only Christmas gifts to my loved one, who fancies such things. These three books are quite rare, sir/madam. Two of them are completely out of print and one had a limited printing run. Relatively inexpensive, but nonetheless difficult to obtain. All that remained was delivery. You, sir/madam, did just that. You disregarded the need for a signature. You paid no heed to my instructions regarding the location of the correct doorbell. You, sir/madam, laughed in the very face of nature, decency and common sense. You left three rare books - in a cardboard box - in six inches of snow.
The new year did nothing, sir/madam, to improve upon your temperament. The year 2008 was fraught, sir/madam, fraught I say with delinquencies, damages and general malaise with regards to packages of all sizes. I took a day off from work to wait for you, and you did not come. I rescheduled deliveries only to be ignored. On several occasions, you claimed to have stopped by but in truth did not. I think 2008 was the year of studied incompetence. You started off with a declarative display of loathing and followed it with patiently applied frustrations.
And then came 2009. I do believe, sir/madam, you reached an experimental phase here, perhaps in response to my attempts to thwart you by having packages delivered to my place of employment. It appeared that you had discovered, or perhaps rediscovered, a medium that was not exploited to its fullest extent. To borrow a colloquialism: you went back to nature. You left perishable goods in the hot sun. You left fragile items precariously wedged between the screen door and the door frame on a very windy day. You left a number of items in the rain. The winter was mild, so you had little opportunity to practice with snow. Sir/Madam was surely honing his/her skills in preparation for 2010.
You are a cunning creature. Your employer began charging to reschedule and redirect deliveries, leaving me once again at your whimsy. I entertain no doubts, sir/madam, regarding your involvement in this new chicanery. I spent the majority of 2010 avoiding your services, but reasonable prices and large service areas are no match for my will alone. My favored vendors prefer the services of your company, leaving those of mine household no choice in the matter. And you, sir/madam, have returned triumphantly from my forced hiatus. One box of awkward measurement were you compelled to deliver! A single item to be gifted this yuletide! And did you deliver it? Yes. Did you deliver it promptly? Yes. Did you leave a notice regarding the package's location? Yes. Did you leave the notice somewhere safe, like inside the mailbox, so as to avoid it being blown away by the incessant winds? No. Was that notice, available on the internet, at all correct or informative? OF COURSE NOT.
You left the oblong box near the basement entrance of the house, an unlit and rarely used door, on top of the barbecue grill, in the late fall. You left it there on Monday. And then, as if you had control of the forces of nature themselves, it rained. The notice on the internet indicated that the package had been left at the rear door, the same aforementioned door that is unlit and has no doorbell, door knocker, or method of indicating the presence of a delivery person. To borrow another colloquial phrase: you, sir/madam, have stepped up your game.
Looking forward to combating you in 2011.
Yours, etc.
TheLineOfEld
I am writing this letter to commend you sir/madam. This recent delivery has shown the depth, the breadth, and the incredible skill you possess. Your insouciance, sir/madam, is, in a word, breathtaking. No delivery person takes so much care to accurately portray their indifference as you. Had Chaucer, rest his zombie bones, crossed paths with you he would have made an addendum to his famous Tales. Allow me to prove this via detailed enumerations of your many "deliveries" to my address.
Your wondrous ineptitude began in the year 2007. I believe that to be the year in which you, sir/madam, replaced the gentle soul heretofore responsible for this neighborhood. To put it in facile terms, you nearly ruined Christmas. I had placed an order for three volumes relating to medieval life and warfare in Europe. These items were to be my only Christmas gifts to my loved one, who fancies such things. These three books are quite rare, sir/madam. Two of them are completely out of print and one had a limited printing run. Relatively inexpensive, but nonetheless difficult to obtain. All that remained was delivery. You, sir/madam, did just that. You disregarded the need for a signature. You paid no heed to my instructions regarding the location of the correct doorbell. You, sir/madam, laughed in the very face of nature, decency and common sense. You left three rare books - in a cardboard box - in six inches of snow.
The new year did nothing, sir/madam, to improve upon your temperament. The year 2008 was fraught, sir/madam, fraught I say with delinquencies, damages and general malaise with regards to packages of all sizes. I took a day off from work to wait for you, and you did not come. I rescheduled deliveries only to be ignored. On several occasions, you claimed to have stopped by but in truth did not. I think 2008 was the year of studied incompetence. You started off with a declarative display of loathing and followed it with patiently applied frustrations.
And then came 2009. I do believe, sir/madam, you reached an experimental phase here, perhaps in response to my attempts to thwart you by having packages delivered to my place of employment. It appeared that you had discovered, or perhaps rediscovered, a medium that was not exploited to its fullest extent. To borrow a colloquialism: you went back to nature. You left perishable goods in the hot sun. You left fragile items precariously wedged between the screen door and the door frame on a very windy day. You left a number of items in the rain. The winter was mild, so you had little opportunity to practice with snow. Sir/Madam was surely honing his/her skills in preparation for 2010.
You are a cunning creature. Your employer began charging to reschedule and redirect deliveries, leaving me once again at your whimsy. I entertain no doubts, sir/madam, regarding your involvement in this new chicanery. I spent the majority of 2010 avoiding your services, but reasonable prices and large service areas are no match for my will alone. My favored vendors prefer the services of your company, leaving those of mine household no choice in the matter. And you, sir/madam, have returned triumphantly from my forced hiatus. One box of awkward measurement were you compelled to deliver! A single item to be gifted this yuletide! And did you deliver it? Yes. Did you deliver it promptly? Yes. Did you leave a notice regarding the package's location? Yes. Did you leave the notice somewhere safe, like inside the mailbox, so as to avoid it being blown away by the incessant winds? No. Was that notice, available on the internet, at all correct or informative? OF COURSE NOT.
You left the oblong box near the basement entrance of the house, an unlit and rarely used door, on top of the barbecue grill, in the late fall. You left it there on Monday. And then, as if you had control of the forces of nature themselves, it rained. The notice on the internet indicated that the package had been left at the rear door, the same aforementioned door that is unlit and has no doorbell, door knocker, or method of indicating the presence of a delivery person. To borrow another colloquial phrase: you, sir/madam, have stepped up your game.
Looking forward to combating you in 2011.
Yours, etc.
TheLineOfEld