Jay Goldman

Purolator Courier Ltd.
5995 Avebury Road Suite 100
Mississauga, Ontario
Canada L5R 3T8

September 9th, 2008

My Dear Pur-o-lator,

I’ve been hunting for a nice way to say this but all my niceness-brainwaves were consumed in the deep vacuum of your silent void of a hold system. I long ago stopped shipping things with you, what with the losing them in transit and the not delivering, and although I appreciate the concern, the bills you send me a few times a year when someone puts the wrong account number on a bill of lading that I’ve never seen are not particularly welcome in my life.

We don’t really have much to do with each other, do we Purl? Until, that is, you leave me a delivery slip stuck to my front door unhelpfully telling me that you tried to leave me something while I was somewhere else. The chain of experience that cascaded forth from that sticky moment is still painfully unfolding, and as I languished in the outer ring of your infernal phone system for the second time I thought what all bloggers think: I’m going blog this damn you! And here we are.

For future reference, here’s a textbook case of how not to deliver a package:

1. The thing you stick to the door is useless. The driver’s handwriting required two of us to decipher, and he or she checked the “envelope” line instead of the “package” line when the object turns out to be a “package” instead of an “envelope”. It includes the address of my ‘local’ depot where I can go and pick up the package, which is only local by a stretch of the imagination, and informs me that I have five very short days to pack up the caravan and make the expedition, but fails to point out that I can just call you and you’ll make another attempt. Of course, I won’t find out that out until step six of this sordid tale, so at this point me and the sticky thing are about on par.
2. The thing you claim is a package tracking system is only minorly useful. After I had my crack team of code breakers decipher the tracking code your driver lovingly scrawled across the sticky thing, your website helpfully informed me that it had been shipped from TORONTO, through a bunch of handling points, and delivered to TORONTO. Before I fire up the hot air balloon and pack a picnic lunch to jet on over to the place to pickup the thing, I’d kinda like to know what the thing is. I mean, maybe it’s something I don’t want? Maybe it’s a ticking bomb or a pile of anthraxy goodness? In either of those cases, I’d rather you returned it to the sender like you promised to do five days hence.
3. The people who answer your phone line are in the wrong department. So, head in hands, I called you. I really dislike calling you, Ms. Olator, but you had left me now choice and so I dialled 1-888-SHIP-123 and someone answered almost right away and I fell clean off my chair I was in such shock. Except, of course, she wasn’t in the right department to help me track my package. Why is the first person who answers your phone number — the phone number printed right on the blasted sticky thing — not the person who can tell me who sent my package? She transferred me into a hold cue that hung up on me five minutes later.
4. Yes, yes, I know, wrong department, could you transfer me? Swell. You have no hold music. Or, rather, you have hold music that plays for a short time after the regular announcement that my call, despite all outward appearances, is important to you. And then a deep and very profound silence in which I can almost (but not quite) hear the seconds of my life ticking away. Have we been disconnected, sweet Purl? Do you even know I’m still here, trying to find out who sent me the thing? Twenty minutes later, lost among the “higher than expected call volume”, I hung up to go eat dinner. Purolator 2, Jay 0.
5. Your call volume is still higher than expected? Really? Given that I called the first time at about 7:30pm and the next time at about 4:30 pm, either you’re really popular or your estimates are waaaay off. Anyhoot, yes I know you’re in the wrong department. Could you? Why thank you. Dum, dee dum, deep eternal sunshine of the spotless void. Oh! Hello. Two screens later, your deeply Quebecois operator was able to tell me that thing is, in fact, highly desirable! The thing is the Bulova watch I won in the Sick Kids Lottery (Warning: your ears will bleed bloody mercy until you find the little mute button. I warned you.). I would like the thing please!
6. You dirty rotten liar. Turns out, I don’t have to trek out to hell and high water to pick up my watch. Turns out, despite the dire warnings of imminent return on the sticky piece of crap, you’ll happily make another delivery attempt. And you’ll helpfully re-route to my office. But only if I think to ask you for these things rather than, say, offering them to me. Which is actually the opposite of helpful.

Apparently, “O”, you’re sending me my watch tomorrow. Only time (and this blog) will tell! In the meantime, I’ll keep my fingers crossed that I don’t have to speak to you again until you erroneously send me another bill for services I don’t want.

Until then!

Jay Goldman