Only 30 shopping days until Christmas!
Yeah, and then what? Given how this year has been measured out in coffee spoons full of POISON, it seems like this year there should be a multitude of tiny little gifts instead of one big gift. Perhaps that’s why so many friends have been buying themselves Advent Calendars. Advent Wine Calendars, Advent Cheese Calendars.
Done. Exotic cheese of the day calendar for me. I suppose I should get something for Gary too. Well, he can have half the cheese.
39 responses to “The Season’s Cheese”
Yes. This is a good year to have a small and good surprise to look forward to each day, and samples of delicious cheese sound like they fit the bill excellently!
KC – it sounds like it may be delayed – which is awful for an advent calendar. Actually, all it means is for one or two days I will have to eat two pieces of cheese. But still.
The Horror of having two pieces of cheese instead of one on some days! But yes, that is annoying.
I’m sending out advent calendars to two friends who have been having Unpleasant Times, and the Advent Calendars have now been split into two packages (each) because there were shipping delays on a couple of items (so a few things won’t get here until Monday: not enough time to turn around and get them to recipients), *AND* the USPS hasn’t even *shipped* the priority mail boxes that I ordered a week ago. So. There will be the first installment, and then the rest of them, and that is just how 2020 is…
KC – habit to cobble together an advent calendar is spot-on 2020.
I hope 2020 doesn’t hit the advent calendars any harder – there are all sorts of rogue shipping accidents that *can* happen even when they are not likely (your advent calendar box was below a box of wine. and some of the bottles broke.)(or your advent calendar was run over by a forklift)(or was accidentally sent to Michigan – a friend had an Etsy order ship to Michigan instead of NJ earlier this year…).
But yes, I suppose that it is quite 2020 to have Semi-Chaotic Advent Calendar. 🙂
Also, I just checked the tracking on these. They both think they’ll be delivered tomorrow, but while one is now safely in the post office of the recipient’s city, plausibly ready to be delivered tomorrow… the other one, which is also East Coast Bound, apparently sent the entirety of Saturday “in transit” to the next facility. Which ended up being the same facility? In Oklahoma? So 2020 may have hit that one another blow, although it could still plausibly get there if it flew today after leaving Oklahoma (if it, in fact, did *leave* Oklahoma, that is):
November 29, 2020, 1:42 am
Departed USPS Regional Facility
TULSA OK DISTRIBUTION CENTER
Your item departed our USPS facility in TULSA OK DISTRIBUTION CENTER on November 29, 2020 at 1:42 am. The item is currently in transit to the destination.
November 28, 2020
In Transit to Next Facility
November 27, 2020, 11:19 pm
Arrived at USPS Regional Origin Facility
TULSA OK DISTRIBUTION CENTER
KC – Well that is just wrong. Your package is in advent calendar Purgatory. I will send prayers so it can get out of limbo
It made it to Connecticut this morning! (final destination: New Jersey, so… why Connecticut?) But it’s at least on the East Coast now, so maybe it’ll still make it there today! 🙂
KC -hurrah! My advent calendar is 12 miles away and it’s going to arrive tomorrow. So, I will have to eat at least two pieces of cheese early on to catch up.
It’s in NJ, but not at the post office local to its final destination, as of this morning (perhaps unsurprisingly, the “this item will be delivered by 9pm on November 30” thing on the tracking system page has gone away…). So it goes. We’ll see when it gets delivered to the apartment complex, and then see when the apartment complex package system disgorges it to its recipient…
And yes, a couple of double-days of cheese (or Weirdo Advent Calendar items) is definitely not the end of the world!
KC – the cheese is here, just in time.
Hooray for timely cheese! That’s fabulous. 🙂
(also, the advent calendar that languished in Tulsa was not delivered today. It has apparently just spent the day, since 1:33am, hanging out in a facility in Kearny, NJ, wherever that is. Priority mail, sent on Friday, supposed to take a maximum of three days [instead of the regular two] due to COVID slowdowns, now going to take at least four postal days…. so it goes.
KC – aha -they are blaming covid now? Before it was the election.
Before the election, the “priority mail may take 3 days instead of 2” thing was COVID-based. (I mean: it’s reasonable that it would take longer, given people needing to be socially distanced and safe, and having fewer employees available to work.) I am okay with labeling priority mail as three days instead of two. I am not okay with this priority mail history, however, given the “your package will be delivered by Monday, November 30 at 9pm” statement produced by their systems when I purchased the postage (especially the whole “okay, as of yesterday, we now admit that it’s late, but we won’t tell you where it is” thing):
December 2, 2020 – In Transit, Arriving Late – Your package will arrive later than expected, but is still on its way. It is currently in transit to the next facility.
December 1, 2020, 1:33 am – Arrived at USPS Regional Facility KEARNY NJ DISTRIBUTION CENTER
December 1, 2020, 12:13 am – Departed USPS Facility EDISON, NJ 08899
November 30, 2020, 8:49 am – Arrived at USPS Regional Facility SOUTHERN CT DISTRIBUTION CENTER
November 29, 2020, 1:42 am – Departed USPS Regional Facility TULSA OK DISTRIBUTION CENTER
November 27, 2020, 11:19 pm – Arrived at USPS Regional Origin Facility TULSA OK DISTRIBUTION CENTER
—
Admittedly, if the current postmaster general hadn’t given convincing evidence by his own statements that he was either malicious or incompetent, I would be cutting more slack right now. But still. Make your estimates accurate so we can make informed decisions about what to do!
KC – yep, I’ve got things arriving late, too, one from Amazon and one not. And I too have noticed that the tracking details have vanished.
So, the two-day priority mail package finally arrived this morning after 6 days and 17 hours in the hands of the USPS. But it did get there! So that’s nice. 🙂
I do wish, though, that I knew what of this is malice, what is deliberate incompetence, and what is simply unavoidable due to extra strain on so many systems involved. Not that I can especially do anything about it aside from maledictions against the current postmaster general and all the people who are trying to make good USPS employees feel either like totally interchangeable, hope-we-can-get-a-cheaper-edition widgets or like fools, but still: I’d like to know.
KC – probably a perfect storm of all the reasons. My brothers office chair and my new new Romba are both in USPS limbo. Maybe it’s the price we pay to vote by mail.
Ye olde Business Republicans have been trying to kill off the USPS for years (I mean, they’ve audibly admitted to it, in addition to the various bits of legislation) to make way for “private enterprise” so I do not think it is the voting by mail that did things in.
I do think that this year would have been rough even without the current postmaster general – I mean: a pandemic that means everyone is ordering even more online and shipping more than normal (due to avoiding in-person things or due to in-person things being closed or due to not being able to be with family for the holidays), plus that same pandemic meaning that you have to space out people at internal operations to a greater degree, plus that same pandemic presumably taking a portion of your work force out of commission on a rotating basis (between those who get sick, those who have to quarantine before test results come back, those who have to not work because they’re high risk, and those with children who need supervision and whose children-supervision methods are not presently available).
But then adding “oh, let’s decommission some sorting machines” and let’s not fix things before the Christmas rush and various workforce overtime reduction things, etc., and… yeah. No good.
But! The priority mail package did arrive, 6 days and seven and a half hours after it was picked up by the USPS (although one of those days was a non-postal day). Now both “part 2” boxes are in the mail; they had no updates after the Friday pickup until Saturday evening, at which time they both changed to vague “In Transit” with expectations of arriving on Monday. We’ll see.
Kc – yes, my two missing packages are back on track again. I suspect they were never lost or delayed, rather that there wasn’t enough stock when I ordered them. Or perhaps not. Only twenty percent of what I ordered. Perhaps that’s the average packages lost.
I’m so glad your packages are back on track! If they haven’t been acquired by the USPS, then usually the shipping status at the USPS is “label created” or similar, so there’s that – if they weren’t in stock at the story, then their tracking history is initially just “label created” and then when picked up by the USPS, *that* becomes the earliest record in their tracking history, so you can have reasonable guesses as to which delay chunks are related to which thing.
Both “part 2” boxes were supposed to be delivered on Monday; both are now “in transit” with no current location or estimate on arrival. Sulk. (can we please fire DeJoy?)
I am pretty sure average packages lost are not 20%. At least normally. Maybe this year, but we’ll see…
KC – well that clinched it, people are lying about inventory. They are selling more than they have, and what the don’t have is “delayed in shipping.” Bogus.
One Part 2 box was “in transit’ between Tulsa distribution center and Tulsa distribution center. For four days. It has now, theoretically, left that center again.
The other Part 2 box is still nebulously in transit, but from when it increments to the next day, I *think* it’s managed to get somewhere with EST instead of CST (before the other box said it had just re-left Tulsa, there were a couple of hours where one box hadn’t yet been updated for the day but the other had; previously they’d both updated at the same time).
It is possible for people to have the inventory but not have the staff (due to COVID or whatever) to pack the inventory and thus to create the shipping label and… it gets actually-packed whenever people get around to it. But yeah. They’re probably hoping for a fast restock. Which, if it’s arriving by USPS, will probably not happen. (I want DeJoy fired.)
KC- I was dismayed when something that had been 12 miles away suddenly headed for New Jersey, but then it arrived later that same day. I think there are a lot of errors.
Part 2 boxes, mailed a full week ago, still not there, and the USPS form to complain about it is broken at the last step, and the USPS form to complain about a broken features on the USPS website; also broken.
I read the congress testimony of DeJoy back in… August was it? Some… errors… were definitely made, and also most of the Republican senators were clearly signalling “do not upgrade the infrastructure, do not make things better, do not prepare adequately for the upcoming holiday season or the election, USPS should be replaced by private enterprise.” and I am just… boiling… that some of this was deliberate. Like, yes! Let’s strand homebound people even further during a pandemic! For political and financial goals! Brilliant.
December 10, 2020, 9:41 am: Departed USPS Regional Origin Facility: TULSA OK DISTRIBUTION CENTER
December 9, 2020: In Transit to Next Facility
December 6, 2020, 4:57 pm: Arrived at USPS Regional Origin Facility: TULSA OK DISTRIBUTION CENTER
December 4, 2020, 1:45 pm: USPS picked up item
(if you want to see This Package Going Nowhere Fast – but hopefully eventually getting to its destination in NJ? – the tracking number is 9405503699300153636438)
KC – The last month I watched a cat food shipment Gary bought be delivered in Miami, and then my hairdryer was sent to Indiana yet somehow still landed on my front porch that same day. They assured us this morning that delivery the vaccine won’t affect other shipping schedules. I’d accept a late package for that reason.
The other package did make it to its destination today – 8 days for a 2-day priority mail package. The other one is still “in transit to its next destination” although they did snip out the “in transit to next facility” line between the two Tulsa lines, which probably more accurately reflects the package’s actual geographic reality during that time…
But yes, if all delays of non-essential packages were exclusively due to 1. the pandemic, 2. prioritizing medication shipments, and 3. prioritizing vaccine shipments, I would totally be fine with package delays. 🙂 (They just… aren’t, and it makes me really cranky that they’re trying to trash the USPS so that they can sub in a privatized system that would *not* be a public service.)
KC – still not there? All of my missing stuff made it here, even the stuff they didn’t anticipate until January. Also, I ordered stamps from USPS, I ordered and paid for three sets of ten “� basic forever flag stamps “� and only got one. They say they may come in separate mailings. DeJoy! (Shakes fist in air.)
Still not there. Also no actual location yet. Just “In-Transit.” The specified friend has, however, noted that January is an excellent time for tiny presents as well, as is February, so she is apparently not fretting about the Advent Calendar Hiatus.
Yeah, I ordered stamps from their ebay store, since the shipping times for the regular USPS store were Not Encouraging (and because the Priority Mail supplies I’d ordered a week or two before I put in the order for stamps hadn’t even been listed as shipped. They still haven’t arrived, actually… order placed November 21, no shipping notice yet.).
The stamps arrived all in one package within the time frame specified, which was lovely and helpful. The ebay USPS storefront has fewer options than the USPS website, though; there were a few types of stamps that I was planning to buy that were not in ebay stock (I want another Snuffleupagus or two; they’re excellent for friends who are having bad days; but I will probably wait to order them until sometime in January so that anyone who needs stamps specifically for Christmas has a fractionally better chance of getting them in a more timely manner?). But in exchange for getting the stamps I needed rapidly enough for them to be useful? I’ll happily accept the reduction in options!
KC – that’s awful. I would be imagining some mail truck crash with the package at the bottom of a creek.
“Your package will arrive later than expected, but is still on its way. It is currently in transit to the next facility.” – so either 1. they still think they know where it is, 2. they don’t care, 3. they don’t know where it is, or 4. know it’s at the bottom of a creek, but hope that I’ll eventually forget it was supposed to exist and/or be delivered…
It’s dimly possible that, where there are “okay, we have 300 pounds of mail and only 220 will fit on this plane” situations, that they may be prioritizing mail that is still on time over mail that has already failed to be on time, so as to improve the “percentage of on-time deliveries” metrics. Or it could just be that no, DeJoy just refused to prepare for this or expand systems adequately to cope with holiday pandemic postal traffic, so… given the existing bottlenecks, it just takes this long for priority mail to get from OK to NJ (I wish they would label their “your package will arrive on” dates correctly, though!).
I would note that I got mail-order medications last week, and seeing that it was a next-day parcel, I looked up its tracking history. *If* the USPS fulfillment partner portion of the tracking history doesn’t count as next-day, then they managed next-day! If it does, then they managed two-day, which is still pretty close. That was only traveling from one state away, though…
KC – I looked it up and supposedly there’s just too much stuff. 10 days is average.
Ouch. (but again, DeJoy should have been upgrading infrastructure and hiring workers and finding good options for processing and shipping a larger than normal volume of election and holiday mail, so that the USPS could serve the public well during the pandemic, since he was appointed postmaster. Instead of what he did when he was appointed, which was cripple the USPS and then say it’s fine he has no USPS experience because it doesn’t take USPS experience to optimize truck schedules. Which, sure, you can ask people to judge you by performance instead of prior experience, but if you’re asking people to judge you by the outcomes you’ve produced instead of by your qualifications, *maybe* you should double-check that the Senate doesn’t have documentation of your outcomes being amazingly lousy?)(also: the USPS was given money to be able to continue to serve the US public through the pandemic, and DeJoy *objected* to that because he said the USPS could handle things without it. DUDE: this outcome is not fine.)(neither was some of the election mail stuff, for that matter…)
KC – well, but deJoys got about a month. Maybe things will improve with the new govt
He’s probably got longer and/or indefinitely unless Georgia flips such that the board that rules on whether he has or does not have his job can flip. and privatizing the USPS has been a long-held (baffling to me: why do they want to completely screw over rural and small-town America and wipe out a bunch of businesses that are not in a position to do their own delivery?) goal of most Republicans. (but seriously, I don’t get it; postal service is a *service* and not a *business* for a number of very specific reasons! No one asks Congress, or the military, or the FDA or EPA or anything else like that to always turn a profit! Enabling the US to function, be safe, and have some economic stability is adequate? and I think it should be reasonably adequate for the USPS, although I *like* it when they break even!)
The package, after being “in transit to the next facility” for a while and then remaining stuck on December 14th for a while, this afternoon managed to leave Tulsa *for the third time* and… I have no words. Just a bit of awe, as when a small dogs appears to vomit more than its apparent body mass or something…
KC – I noticed our nearest facility has changed form one that is actually near us to one that is one state over. Perhaps the nearer one closed? Or perhaps the facility is mid-labeled.
It’s all very mysterious… (I mean, honestly, actually, since it sounds like some facilities are just absolutely and entirely swamped, if there’s another facility within sane reach, it would make sense to truck all deliveries temporarily to a facility that *is* able to keep up with the flow. So that would be cool, if they were doing active re-routing to spread the weight around so that no individual facility becomes just a dead zone!)(but the level of confidence that I have that they would be approved to do that extra truck-shipping is low. But maybe!)