yesterday, being friday, was a day where I expected to get a little work done, get some food eating done, get some gift exchanging done and get a meeting done. and all of those things were done.

however, all of those things were done the midst of a giant fuck bucket of fail. that’s right, a fuck bucket. not a ‘fucking bucket’ or a ‘fucking bucket load’. a fuck bucket. take out of that what you will.

if you are unfamiliar with my deep (oh so very deep) hatred of UPS, well, it boils down to I hate UPS because they are terrible, terrible people. I’m obviously making a generalization encompassing every one of their employees, which is probably not true in all cases, but I stand by it because I can.

Observe part of the first Fail of the Day:

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This happens every fucking time I order something online and it ships UPS. I really wish when you ordered stuff online, you had an option to pick how to ship it, because UPS would be so far off that list. so far. yes, that far.

first they decided I moved. yes. in august. not last week. so then I phoned their customer service and during the conversation subsequently had the CSR admit that the driver hadn’t actually made a delivery attempt. this really came as no surprise to me, as this has happened countless times in the past. so I had her change the delivery address to Aimée’s work. why? because it’s a store and there are a dozen people there who can confirm if they showed up or not. also because the last time I tried to have something sent to my work, they decided the big fucking building that takes up half a city block didn’t actually exist. three times. for one package. so it’s changed and confirmed and she says that it’ll be delivered there on Friday. fine. ok. good.

Friday. 8:10am. My phone rings. it’s so and so (not the same lady as the night before) with UPS, we’re calling back regarding our giant fuck up that we always do. maybe not her exact words, but this was the spirit of the conversation. I confirm that yes I asked it to be changed. New CSR then goes on to inform me “so you’ve had it change to THIRD ADDRESS and that’s where we’re delivering it.”

now, I don’t know if you’ve ever had the pleasure or feeling your entire body just go HULK FUCKING SMASH YOU STUPID FUCKING INGRATE, but I managed to quash most of that and not yell at this woman. I told her no, that’s not where I had the address changed to.

then she said I was WRONG and THIRD ADDRESS is where it’s going.

Dear CSR lady at UPS, when I, the receiver, relay to you, the shipper, that I have confirmed a proper address change the night before, which will be on your little fucking screen if you bothered to check, you will see that informing me that I am in the wrong is quite possibly fucking retarded. perhaps this is why you work in a call center and get yelled at by irate people all the goddamn time.

So CSR Lady keeps going on about Third Address and I interrupt and tell her no, that is NOT where I want it to go. and then she fucking LAUGHED at me.

yes. she did. hand to whatever deity you choose insert here.

I still managed to not yell. I’m impressed.though apparently I sounded super pissed cause everyone in the office who was listening told me that after.

after she laughed at me she told me I was her first call of the day. I don’t really give a rats fuckbutt if I’m your first call of the day. I won’t be your last. and I bet I won’t be the only one who’s pissed off at your incompetence.

so I told her “you know, I don’t know how you people operate like this. This is completely unacceptable. I haven’t had a package delivered by you people on time or easily in the last six years.”

This is an indisputable fact. apparently I live in a lot of places that don’t exist or don’t have numbers on the front of the building. except for, you know, ALL THOSE FUCKING NUMBERS ON THE FRONT OF THE FUCKING BUILDINGS.

so she just goes silent. and I come back with “I’m quite serious.”

then she gets all bitchface and said she’d call the distribution and hung up.

and then I was UPS rage all morning. and then it was delivered at SECOND ADDRESS around noon. not THIRD ADDRESS.

I wanted to call that woman back and have a conversation that would be full of flags and Ooh La La edits like on Craig Ferguson.

so that’s the First Fail of the Day.

then we went for our office christmas lunch. I had some jello. jello is underrated. it’s delicious and fun to squish between your teeth. also you can pretend to be Bill Cosby when you eat it.

so we finish lunch. we drive back to work. I go to park the office truck in the parkade. there are two cop cars with lights on on the other side of the street. social services is on the first floor, so this isn’t something new. however, as I turn into the parkade entrance, I see two cops just to the left taking pictures on their phones of a couple of stacked cookie tins made up to be a snowman.

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This was, apparently, a suspicious package. Cookie C4. ok, to be fair, it was there all morning and nobody knew where it came from.

here’s the rundown of how this situation was treated:

let’s allow people to walk or drive right by the suspicious package for a while!

hey! let’s stop doing that and block off the entire street.

hey! let’s poorly inform the tenants of the building what’s going on!

hey! let’s send an email out hours after the thing was first found that there was a package found!

hey! let’s not send the email to everyone!

hey! let’s call the bomb squad about this but let everyone stay in the building looking through the windows right above it!

hey! let’s tell people to get back from the windows, but not really enforce that!

hey! let’s let the rumours start up and leave everyone in the building to wonder what’s going on!

hey! let’s just put tape up around it and let traffic through again! right beside what could be a bomb!

hey! let’s let people find out third hand that the K-9 unit came, the dog sniffed it and knocked it over and there was food in it! but then a police officer decided to put it back together for the bomb squad!

hey! let’s have the bomb squad show up right at the end of the day when everyone’s leaving and let them all drive and walk right around where the bomb squad is looking at this thing!

hey! let’s not send any follow up emails about what happened!

seriously, people were bitching so much about the lack of information and why there was no evac notice. I can’t really say I blame them. you’d think if the bomb squad was called, that you’d be better informed and told to wait for an order to get out. nope. go about your business and hope part of the building doesn’t blow to hell.

a couple of months ago, one of the lawyers offices down the street had a bomb threat. the entire square block was shut down.

we get a suspicious package and a bomb squad call, and they let us walk right by.

I foresee a number of angry emails going to building management on monday.

plus we heard that half of the third floor was sent home by their managers because they were sick of waiting for an evacuation notice.

Thus we see the Second Fail of the Day.

that pretty much concludes the Fails of the Day.

on a brighter and much less failure note, this is what I got for our office gift exchange:

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see? Ron Maclean is MY pal, not your pal! true story. it says so right there.