It's Ed Stern, RN (...and his big mouth)

"Free Gift" from UPS

I don't even believe this and I was the guy on the phone.  Get this:

I walked into my company apartment in Pasadena to find a UPS overnight letter at my door.  I picked it up and realized it was addressed to the right apartment but it's not my name.  The letter was from Fidelity Investments and I figured... humm It must be important.

So I asked our management here is the name matches and they said it didn't.  So I called UPS, and here's where it gets interesting....

When I asked what their "policy" was related to this, the guy on the phone (who was clearly bored with his job) said "do you want to keep it"?

Oh my god!  Can you believe that.  Just "keep" someone elses official documents!  I told the guy "no" (duh) and he offered to have someone pick up the package "tomorrow" (mind you it's noon today).  But, he tells me "you need to be there for the pick-up".  Dang that ain't gonna happen either!

(Later same day)

I went to the UPS website and was going to email customer service.  Then I realized they were the cause of the problem, so I emailed one of the PR people (always a good trick by the way).  To give fair "airtime" to UPS, here's the response:

"I very much appreciate you sending this to me.  I'm going to reach out to one of our senior customer service managers here at the Corporate Office.  There absolutely would be no excuse for one of our reps saying something like that, and it would violate every tenet of their training.

regards,

Norman Black"

The Drain Cover....

OK, those of you who've known me for a long period of time know that I have had this saying I've done my best to live by for many years...

"In the cesspool of life, someone must be the drain cover  -- Hi, I'm your drain cover."

What exactly do I mean by this you ask?... go ahead... ask me...  "Ed, what exactly does this mean?" (thanks!)  Well if I was the cup is half empty kind of guy, it would meant that I get pooped on a heck of a lot.  Now, most of you know that I'm the consummate glass half empty kind of guy.  However, I'm also the "feces occurs" guy.  So if you combine those you have... well I guess you have one really messed up dude.  I guess that makes me the poster child for every known anti-everything pharmaceutical on the market.

So, before I break a few more HIPAA privacy laws, let's really look at things as half full and break with the mold.  Think about this.  What's the purpose of a drain cover anyway?  Why don't you go into your kitchen of shower, take a look at the drain cover and contemplate that...  go ahead...  I'll wait.

Oh, you're back.  OK I can only imagine what you found.  It's probably things that would make my Microbiology Professor drool.  But on some occasions it actually catches good things... right?  The wedding band that falls off while you're in the shower (you should never have lost those 200 pounds).  The spoon before it ends in the garbage disposal.  The crack pipe before it.. oh no wait, I'm projecting to my patients again.

So the premise of the "Drain Cover" is what...  Sure things we don't mention in polite company do go past it, but on occasion... there's that odd chance that something... interesting is actually "caught" by "The Drain Cover."  That's the principal of a new editorial work I'm going to build.  Maybe a Blog/web, maybe something else.  I'm going to make it my life work (we'll OK more like a minute here and a minute there) to find the crap stuck in the drain cover..

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