Oh man, getting packages shipped here is still a nightmare.
I had ordered stuff, which apparently UPS tried to deliver at exactly the one point in time last week when I was not at home (seems I was doing groceries... I think).
They didn't leave a notice.
The parcel shop is less than 100m down the road, so that is not an issue, but the guy will not give out any packages without the physical notice. Which I don't have.
The UPS website allows you to schedule another delivery, but only with a code which is on the previous delivery notice. Which I don't have.
So that package will sit there down the road until July 8, when it will get shipped back.
Similar to my last package, which was delivered elsewhere, and couldn't be found.
Oh man.
I once made a lolpic in which I said that UPS stands for Ungodly Pathetic Service.
On two occasions the driver went to the apartment building. The first time, he buzzed the suite (which made the phone ring). Then when I answered it, he just breathed into the intercom. I couldn't actually see him, so I didn't know it was UPS. So I figured whoever buzzed must have hit the wrong number and ignored it.
Then the phone call came (automated, with a snotty attitude). I called the local office - warehouse all the way across town, nowhere near a bus stop. No, they would not redeliver. I needed the item urgently, so I had to get my city map and take the bus to the south end of town, and on foot, try to find this place in a maze of warehouses. Eventually I did find the place and eventually the person behind the counter got her backside in gear to find my item. I told her next time I had a delivery, tell the driver he's actually supposed to speak into the intercom when I answer, because how would I know it was UPS wanting into the building?
Apparently the driver was unable to understand that having both the apartment number and my name meant that I lived in that apartment.
Fast-forward a couple of years, and I'd ordered 6 identical bookshelves from Jysk. The day I was expecting them, I suddenly started getting identical phone calls from the same snotty-sounding automated system. I realized, here we go again... except this time nobody had buzzed the suite. So to head off getting four more calls, I phoned the local place and told them to redeliver. They said no, and I told them the driver hadn't even made an attempt to buzz my suite, knock on my door, or even holler at me from the parking lot. And since I was physically disabled and didn't drive, there was no way that I could, or would go fetch this stuff myself. Besides which I had paid for delivery and I don't live in the lobby.
So they reluctantly agreed to redeliver, and I said also, would you cancel the other four annoying phone calls I was probably supposed to get when I hung up the phone.
I got my shelves... and for awhile later, there was a really good driver on that route... handy because around that time Amazon and the Marketplace sellers I usually used was using UPS to deliver books... and I was ordering a lot of books back then. Finally the driver asked why didn't I order all this stuff at once so I didn't have to get deliveries several times a week. I told him that's not how Marketplace orders work - the seller chooses the delivery service, it's not Amazon's decision. And since these items were coming from various places in the U.S. and U.K., I couldn't expect everything to take the same amount of time to get here (seriously, I can - or could, pre-pandemic - get a book faster from the U.K. than from Ontario).
It helps to have a good regular driver for another reason: One time I was supposed to get a delivery and found a notice that a delivery was attempted, I wasn't home, so come get the thing. I didn't find the notice until after office hours, so I was not looking forward to arguing this crap AGAIN (I was home). But the next day I got a knock at the door and it was the regular driver. He asked if I'd been away yesterday, I said no, and he said, "that's what I figured, since you're always home." Then he explained it had been his day off and his substitute had claimed I wasn't home. He was upfront about saying he figured his sub had lied - hadn't even tried to buzz me, to avoid the "hardship" of bringing my item up one floor by elevator and down the hall. So the regular driver went and got my item, brought it right inside (another shelf, this time a heavier one I couldn't possibly have managed myself), and that situation was fixed.
Amazon does its own deliveries now, although the Marketplace sellers still use a hodgepodge. DHS is particularly bad, especially for their shady practice of tacking on "duties" the customer doesn't actually owe (CBC Marketplace did a segment on this company on their Go Public feature). They did that to me - slapped duty on a couple of books that was more than the combined cost of the books - and when I told them that books were not charged duty for such a low amount, they refused to remove the charge. The books were being held at the post office until I paid, which I had no plans to do.
So I called the seller, told them what happened, and said I was leaving the books at the post office, and they would be returned in 15 days, and therefore I wanted a refund of the books + shipping (the charges were in addition to shipping). They were shocked; they hadn't known this courier company would do this, and agreed to a refund. Then I phoned the post office and told them the reason why I would not be in to pick up the books and to just return them. They said they still had to wait 15 days and I "might change my mind." I said no, the courier service was playing fast and loose with bogus charges, so just return the stuff.
It's been awhile since I ordered books. The shelves are full now, and I've discovered that Kindle has these things called sales. So now I've got almost the whole Cadfael series on Kindle (there are 3 titles which they stubbornly refuse to put on sale and the physical book costs less than the Kindle version for some reason).
It seems like people on the subway have gone back to being self-absorbed [bone]heads. Just this morning, an elderly man - like,
really elderly, walking with a cane and everything - got on and none of the four able-bodied people sitting in the seats near the doors moved a muscle. Then when I was getting off, a woman with one of those SUV-sized carriages for todlers was just standing right in front of the doors, forcing the 6-8 of us trying to exit the train to squirm around her. I suppose it won't be long before the BMOCs and prom queens who think they own the entire city will be back. Oh well. I guess the holiday I got from these [tools] couldn't last forever.
What profoundly annoys me about those gigantic "strollers" is that often the kid is old enough to walk or the mom carries the kid and just uses the "stroller" to carry her shopping, purse, snacks, and other stuff. So it's no more than a shopping cart disguised as a stroller and I - a physically disabled rider - was once told to move out of the disabled seating so this woman and her gigantic shopping cart masquerading as a stroller could have the space.
I complained to the supervisor about that. They whined that what were they supposed to do if the bus was full? I told them that this seating is designated for seniors and disabled - and healthy young women pushing gigantic shopping carts and carrying their kid are not disabled. If the bus is full, they can take the next one, like disabled people in wheelchairs have had to do on occasion when there was no room to accommodate them.
Thank goodness I qualified for the handibus. No gigantic strollers there.
.
Rules which have been laxly enforced, are now back. 
Police are clearing people off the beach next to my house. I can still use my pass on Wednesdays and Thursdays to go into Tag to my bank, the supermarkets, and the department stores, but sheesh. 
