Apartment Living and FedEx

First of all, members of the parish, the replacement tower has arrived. It’s nothing amazing, just an Optiplex 780 with moderate specs. It works; I’m using it to write this post. It was a simple matter of swapping out the hard drive from the dead tower and nothing was lost. Debian had no trouble adapting to the new hardware.

[Update: I eventually figured out it was loading the “fb” driver (framebuffer) for graphics and not the Intel driver. It required that I actually force it to write an xorg.conf file and change the driver to “intel” to get it to work right. Otherwise, no problems.]

Now I’m going to whine, but you don’t have to read it.

When UPS delivers to my apartment, it’s always the same MO — the driver knocks or rings the doorbell and takes off, unless I need to sign something. DHL has never delivered here, nor have any of a dozen other small shippers. US Postal Service typically does what they are supposed to do, with the bonus of trying to deliver to my door packages too large to fit in the locked cubicles standing next to our community mail boxes. Again, ringing the doorbell or knocking.

Most FedEx drivers are cool, but we have one of about three or four who is a lazy idiot. Company policy says they have to try my door first, but this one guy never does. He always tries to save himself some work by dropping off everything at the office for the entire apartment complex. That’s two blocks away. And he has done this twice — with the biggest and heaviest packages, of course. Except, yesterday he came when those two gals in the office were out for a long lunch, so the office door was locked. Then he lied and reported that he couldn’t deliver my package because I didn’t answer the door.

This time I looked it up and called FedEx to file a complaint as soon as I checked their website with my shipping number. This morning the company called me back rather early and promised to speak to the guy’s manager. I think it must have worked. While I was sitting in my recliner waiting to see if he was going to do the right thing, I didn’t hear a knock of doorbell. I just barely caught the sound of the door handle rattling. I got up and checked the door and there stood my package on the floor of the breezeway. He’s not just a jerk, but he’s a coward.

Anyway, the tower is up and running and I had enough left over from the generous donations to get a pair of low-end audiophile headphones — noise canceling, steel construction and trimmed in hardwood. My, but they do sound good. They were a customer returned new product, package open, so it was half-price. We are back in business, folks, and I am grateful for your prayers and support. Thank you.