Every show (yes, I'm still talking about this, shut up), there is a certain item that everyone wants. An item that people go crazy over, that women swoon at the sight of and men sigh resignedly and hand over their wallets without even arguing because it's THAT good. We like to call this item the hot ticket. Well, this year, the hot ticket was this little kimono style dress I bought in two color combinations. I would post a picture but because I have now sold this dress out two days in a row (30 dresses each time) I have no image available. Luckily, the company I got this dress from is the awesome sort who will overnight ship things to you and are therefore making me lots of money. Yea for the kimono dress company! I have another shipment of the dresses overnighting to me this evening as well, and will try my best to take a picture of my hot ticket before they sell out again tomorrow (knock on wood).
The other hot ticket for me this show has been headbands. I had a huge basketfull of headbands on Thursday morning, and by about 4pm that afternoon I think I had 5 headbands left. Obviously a hot ticket, right? So obviously I should reorder. And that's exactly what I set forth to do, reorder the headbands, and go on with my selling. I placed my order with the headband company, who assured me that they would be awesome and overnight ship 200 headbands to me and that they would be at my store by 10am Friday (this) morning. I was at my store at exactly 10am this morning. The UPS man was also at my store at exactly 10am this morning. The headbands, however, were not.
This is the message Cody got when he was finally able to maneuver through about 5 different language barriers and find out where the package was, exactly, since where it WASN'T, EXACTLY, was in my booth, being sold.
Package Progress Location Date Local Time Description LONG BEACH,
CA, US11/10/2006 6:42 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN LOS ANGELES,
CA, US11/10/2006 6:10 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN 11/10/2006 12:09 A.M. THE PACKAGE WAS LEFT IN A UPS FACILITY CAUSING THIS DELAY;FORWARDED TO THE FACILITY IN THE DESTINATION CITY 11/10/2006 12:09 A.M. ORIGIN SCAN LOS ANGELES,
CA, US11/09/2006 4:07 P.M. PICKUP SCAN US 11/09/2006 9:34 P.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED Tracking results provided by UPS: 11/10/2006 10:48 P.M. EST (USA)
My favorite part, really, is where it says THE PACKAGE WAS LEFT IN A UPS FACILITY CAUSING THIS DELAY; FORWARDED TO THE FACILITY IN THE DESTINATION CITY and then shows that it went to Long Beach. My store, for the uninformed, or for the UPS EMPLOYEES, is in TEXAS.
You know, Texas. That big state at the bottom of the map, the one that isn't actually very near LONG BEACH CALIFORNIA.
UPS is the worst compnay in the world. i ordered fairly regularly from a company that always shipped UPS and i never got a package on time. they also hid their shipping facility address and phone number from the public and i lied to a nice old lady at a UPS store (told her it was medicine? bad, heather. bad.) to get the number/address, drove there, and told a guy off. ... and got my package two days later. but i felt better.
also, a few months ago jeff's then-roommates left on tour and the drummer forgot his kick pedal. jeff "overnighted" it for a small $71 fee so that it would be at their show in new orleans. it came back to his old house a month after we moved to colorado. awesome.
Posted by: heather | November 11, 2006 at 01:14 AM
no, but I'M near Long Beach, CA! wonder if they'd let me have it....muh-hahahahaha!
Posted by: Valerie | November 11, 2006 at 05:26 PM
UPS is evil. Not just to the customers, but also to their management. They can't even get their drivers to move up to management anymore, just because they know that the company will make their lives miserable right before they hit retirement age, in hopes that they will quit (so that the company doesn't have to pay their retirement or give them the stock options they used to entice them up to management in the first place). I've got a relative who's worked there his whole career, and he's only seen two guys retire (he's currently trying to beat the system, but it looks like it's going to cost him his marriage).
Posted by: Teacher A | November 11, 2006 at 10:23 PM
I grew up in New Mexico, and went to college in Ohio. The first week of classes, a guy said to me, "New Mexico is the state next to Florida, right?"
I would make a crack about how he works for UPS now, but he doesn't; he works for CNN. Which isn't much better.
Posted by: Susan | November 11, 2006 at 11:10 PM
Ha! Susan, that was totally unexpected, and totally a wicked burn.
Nice one!
Posted by: elise | November 12, 2006 at 12:28 PM