Odd ponderings

I have a Fedex account that I use all the time – ground for delivering print patterns and samples when I am actually ahead of schedule, and of course express in all its flavors when I am hot on the trail of a deadline, which is pretty often.

I have two locations that I use frequently for drop-0ff – at one the last truck out is 4:30, at the other it’s 8:00. I prefer the earlier one because the location is closer and it has a parking lot, but sometimes those extra few hours count.

A couple of weeks ago I saw a new-to-me location, about halfway between my two usual haunts, with a 5:30 last truck. I had a box ready to go between 4 and 5 so I thought I would give it a shot. It was a newer location with untrained staff and the woman on duty had never seen my pre-paid ground labels before and was worried about whether she was handling them properly on her end, so I left her my cell phone number and suggested she call me with any problems.

About 20 minutes later the phone rang – it was the manager at this drop-off location. He was grilling me about the label – kept asking me if it was new, and saying that if I had peeled it off another package it wouldn’t work. I was sort of offended by this line of questioning – did he think I was trying to scam Fedex somehow? – but assured him it was a regular label from my long time account and he should just send it on. All was well, the package went out, but I decided not to use that drop-off anymore because it just bugged me.

Last night I dashed to my usual haunt, racing to beat the 8:00 PM deadline (yea baby, made it with six minutes to spare!), then figured since I was in town I would run a couple of errands before I went home. Strolling through the drug store, I caught a look at myself in one of the display mirrors – messy hair, wrinkle clothes that I clearly just threw on at the last minute, shoes inapropriate for the weather that I just grabbed because they were by the door, and a general harried, not quite put together look about me.

And the lightbulb went on – maybe that’s why the manager at the new location was so concerned that I had stolen or was trying to mis-use a pre-paid label! When I am that close to a deadline I am just trying to get the work done, not really worrying about what I look like to the outside world. He probably took one look at me dashing through and assumed I couldn’t possibly be a responsible business owner! It occured to me that even my regular guy only sees me at my worst!

He shouldn’t have judged me by my appearance, but now I feel like someday I should go to all of my regular drop-off spots when I am put together and not rushing, just to let them know that I am not always a crazed harridan with yarn clippings falling out of my pockets.

Back to the wool mines –
MBT