magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

Please bear with me as I complain about bureaucracies, I just need to get this out of my system.

One: I came into my studio today to find the door unlocked and things somewhat dishevelled. Nothing, so far as I could tell, was missing, but I was still a bit concerned. I was headed out at about 4:00 to run some errands, but with one shoe on I decided to continue working for a while and consolidate the errands with my evening plans, as the two are only a few blocks apart. When I came back in to the studio, I noticed that some of what I had simply taken for disarray was in fact a number of unplugged cords. Some of which were for technically sensitive things like hard drives. Some further exploration found that the cord that powers the built in, surge protected plugs in the desk was missing. I looked around and others were missing as well. I enquired in the department office (after checking to see if there was any info sent to the department mailing list; which there wasn't) to find that there had been a safety recall and that facilities had removed all of the plugs before even notifying the department chair. It doesn't appear that anything was adversely affected, but I certainly don't like the idea of people entering my studio, unplugging powered-on computer equipment, and then leaving the door unlocked. So, one, grrrr.

Two: I was expecting a UPS delivery of a new pair of studio headphones, which I need for my Electronic Music class. I can't seem to put my hands on my old ones, I think I may have left them in the living room at home at some point, and one of my roommates may have absconded with them. They were super-cheap anyway. (The new ones are much more expensive, but got good reviews.) At 4:53AM the tracking status was updated as "Out For Delivery." At 4:32PM it was changed to "The package was left in a UPS facility. / Forwarded to the facility in the destination city." Then at 4:49, "The receiver requested a hold for a future delivery date. UPS will attempt delivery on date requested. / Delivery rescheduled." I of course made no such request. Best guess? The driver accidentally left it at the warehouse and entered a status of a receiver request for a later delivery to cover their ass. I called UPS customer service, and although you can say customer service representative and be connected to one, they don't actually tell you that you can do so anywhere within their labyrinthine automated menu system. The representative I spoke to made a note that I had not, in fact, requested an alternate delivery date, and forwarded this information to the local distribution centre. I was told they would give me a call this evening.

Three: Moments later, I received an email from ConEd telling me that my online payment had been declined and so my payment service account had been suspended and I had to call them to clear it up. Now, this was entirely my fault; I wasn't sure which of the routing numbers I had noted down actually corresponded to the checking account I still use (I never use real checks, and haven't had any printed for any account that I've had for the last 5 years, at least) and apparently used the wrong one in filling out my online payment profile. I figured that this would be the sort of thing that would be checked automagically (other places that I've set up online payments with have done so) and so assumed that if I used the wrong number it would tell me so, and the fact that it didn't tell me meant I must have picked the right routing number. Now, again, this was totally my own stupid fault. My only complaint is the horrible hold music that I had to listen to for just shy of 20 minutes waiting for my call to be answered. It's all fixed now, in the midst of typing up this paragraph.

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Two (addendum): Actually, I didn't listen to the hold music for the full 20 minutes. While on hold I got a call waiting beep for an unknown Brooklyn number which I figured must be UPS, and so I put ConEd's hold music on hold to take the other call. The woman at the distribution facility was snippy on the phone and made no apologies for the fact that the package had been left at the warehouse, but did assure me that it will be delivered tomorrow.

Oh and, One (addendum): I forgot to mention that I was told facilities would provided temporary replacement surge protectors for anyone who needed them. Well, if you unplugged five things from the desk's six plugs, and there's a completely full surge protector strip on the floor just under the desk, isn't it obvious that I need a temporary replacement? Couldn't the have just left a replacement with anyone who had things plugged into the desk plugs? Or even with every desk? We're paying a whole lot in facilities fees for this space, I appreciate that you sweep the floors and clean the glass in the doors and (sort of) clean the bathrooms, but if you break our tech, you should fix it.

Plus, Three (addendum): I just logged into the online bill payment service to resubmit the payment on my ConEd bill, and according to their accounting of my recent payment activity, the payment was made two days ago with no errors. Which, along with contradicting the email and what I was told on the phone, is of course impossible, because I really did enter the incorrect bank routing number when I set up the profile. It would be nice if they just decided cover it anyway, since it would have no way of coming out of my pocket, but I have a feeling that won't end up being the case.