Getting things sent in the mail or delivered in a truck has always been a lovely experience.  I'm not sure why there are so many problems involved.  It seems like a simple premise:  A person buys something at a store or online, and that "something" comes to the person's house in a truck.  Simple enough, yes?  Apparently not.  Sometimes, when people order big things, they have to stay home from work so they can let the delivery people in their house.  That's fine.  It's better than having them leave it in the driveway.  But I/Wendy have had two problems with this in the past: 

One time, Wendy ordered a bunch of bedroom furniture for her apartment.  Then she picked a day for them to deliver it.  Not a problem.  So they call on the day of delivery and say what time they'll be there.  Some sort of problem happened, and the people weren't able to deliver the furniture that day.  We called the store and they asked us to pick a different day.  What they didn't realize is that people work for a living.  This work is done during the day.  To stay home for a delivery means not going to work.  The people from the store seemed to think this wasn't a big deal.  "Oh, sorry that the truck couldn't make it to your apartment.  That's out of our control.  Please pick a different day for delivery."  My solution seemed appropriate, "Wendy just took a day off work.  That means she used a vacation day.  A vacation day costs money.  The price is probably somewhere around $300-$400, before taxes and including overhead and things like that.  Why don't you just send along that money and we'll call it even?" 

Now the next fiasco:  We ordered a washer and dryer and they were supposed to be delivered to our house.  The problem is that construction is being done on both ends of our road, so the delivery truck apparently couldn't make it.  They said, "Here are your options:  You can pick it up at some warehouse in Timbuktu, you can pick it up at Home Depot, or we can *try* to deliver it another day."  Again, they missed a fundamental concept:  Normal people (term used loosely) can't take days off work in the middle of the week.  Sure, they can, but they like to use those days for useful things like vacations, not waiting for an appliance delivery.  The real solution is for them to deliver this stuff after the construction is done at the end of the day.  This is actually a viable option because construction ends at around 3 or 4, and the workers clear everything up so the construction doesn't even get in the way.  Did the delivery people see my point of view?  No.  If only everyone did what I said, the world would be perfect. #business