UPS Update

It's been a while but I was recently self-diagnosed with the plague, so now that I'm back in business I'll have some solid "what it's like to get used to Los Angeles" news.

As far as UPS. I feel like I have to voice my mounting rage.

My DEAR friend Melissa, my only contact in Champaign, IL, went to the UPS Store to check out the damages to my shipment. Good news and bad news.

Good news: Not everything was damaged - my canvas paintings are in fine shape. And the large gold frame was completely in tact, no glass shattered.

The Bad News: As Melissa put it, "if you remember in the beginning of Ace Ventura where he was kicking around the box, down the hall, smashing it, glass coming out, etc....yeah that's what your box looked like." AWESOME! Such care! Such graceful handling. Such regard for the "FRAGILE" warning written all over the place. Really sad that I can't count on a shipping company to handle a package with any kind of grace.

My Problem: It's not like I can't replace what's gone. I can, and I will. It's just that as it stands, I have officially paid UPS to break a bunch of stuff without delivering it to me. Imagine. I PAID a company to break my shit. That. Is. Unreal.

How this Problem could be solved: UPS could do one of two things. (1) COMP ME for my original shipment as they technically never delivered it to me. (2) just let me re-ship my damaged package for free. After all, the outrageous thing is that THEY DIDN'T DELIVER THE DAMAGED PACKAGE TO MY DOOR! What is WRONG with them? I could have at LEAST salvaged one of the frames (now I have to leave it behind because I can't afford to ship it) and I wouldn't have had to get my poor friend Melissa to do all my dirty work for me - I mean what if I had no one in Champaign to retrieve the damaged box?! I'd be royally screwed over. The whole "we're shipping it back to the sender/UPS Store because we broke it" is the most ABSURD notion I have ever heard. Put my box on the front lines of Iraq if you want to but DO YOUR JOB AND GET IT TO MY DOORSTEP. Unbelievable.

I am forever turned off to this company, though I'd be willing to reconsider if I was able to speak to someone at UPS with the decency to understand its own absurdity. I doubt there's anyone as heroic in this day and age. It's sad - how far will this kind of consumer abuse go, and is this kind of behavior leading us into an even thicker fog of distrust in our society today? It certainly doesn't help.