Monday 3-24-14 chat

The USPS needs every customer they can retain.  lol  The local PO office I use has a woman on the counter that drives me bonkers.  She treats everyone like a 6 year old.  I don't mind people explaining this or that but there's no reason to treat everyone as though they were senile or six years old.  

DH is driving his new truck today.  It's not brand new but new enough to still be in warranty.  He's pretty stoked, to say the least.  He did let me drive it for a few minutes.  

Nothing much going on here.  No rain but lots of wind to dry out everything even more.  I bought tomato and pepper plants but decided to wait to plant them.  I didn't want the little things to get beaten to death by the wind.

I'm sitting in on a conference call and having a super hard time staying focused on the conversation.  I feel sorry for anyone who isn't an engineer sitting in on this meeting. We pick apart every single thing someone says and break things down to nitty gritty detail. ugh. I'm usually an offender, but I can hardly deal with it today. Maybe I need more coffee. Plus it's been over an hour already. Meetings shouldn't be more than an hour imo.

Tina, I'm so glad to hear that GingerD is doing well after her dental surgery.  Hopefully with the infection cleared up from the bad tooth/teeth, she'll have even more pep.  GingerD, you sound like a girl who doesn't give up easily!

We had a beautiful sunny weekend . . . 60 degree temps and no wind.  I spent a lot of time on the patio, reading.  I did pull weeds for an hour or so, just to feel a little productive.  

Ruby enjoyed lounging in the sun, but she was driving us a bit nuts, barking at every little thing.  She's always been an alert/alarm barker, but usually only certain triggers, but this weekend she barked way more often.  Every time another dog barked somewhere nearby, when someone walked by, when voices were in a neighbor's yard, etc.  I had to put her inside a few times.  I'm hoping it's just because this was the first real "yard hangout" time she's had this season, and she'll settle down as we spend more time in the yard this spring.

I'm off today, taking care of some medical appointments, hopefully home early enough to enjoy more time outside.  It may reach 70 by late afternoon!

Tina So happy to hear that GingerD is doing so well after her dental surgery. Haven't had a chance to comment in a few days but did read some of the posts and so knew how worried you were about the surgery.

Sorry about your having to deal with the nasty postal clerk. As Jackie said, the USPS needs every customer they can keep. I have no problems with our clerks but have had many problems with our rural delivery. We were constantly getting someone else's mail and to find out, it was someone who had a post office box and not even rural delivery. This went on for months, probably even a couple of years. We would take the mail right back to the post office, in order to let them know and it still kept happening. Well, finally we received some mail, something from an attorney, that the people were waiting for, and I kept it a couple of days before going in. The people had apparently questioned the postal clerks about it and were getting worried about what happened to it.  Knock on wood, we have not received anymore of their mail and it has been a few months. Yay.

Still have a fair amount of snow around. Feel bad for the birds who are looking to nest. It's been a really tough time for the ducks, just trying to survive, as the rivers and even a large portion of lake ontario have been frozen. Saw a dead duck yesterday, down by the lake, and suspect there were more buried in the snow, as the dogs were really wanting to go towards some other areas. Had them on leash.

We are seeing some very large patches of bare ground, so hopefully Spring will come.

Thanks Tracy & Maureen re: GingerD. It's funny how quickly she made her way into my heart, even with the minor behavior problem.

I spoke to the post office rep who called me. He apologized and said he will speak to the clerk. He also mentioned she had once been a Marine, not using it as an excuse for her behavior. I said that she probably made a great Marine, but perhaps her best place is not at the front counter. His response was that contractually they are not allowed to put her elsewhere. Good grief, it's no wonder the USPS business is in such disarray. Whatever happened to putting your "aces" in the right places?

We have those darn cluster boxes her in our little town with about a dozen boxes and one mail slot in each one.  Ours is at the end of our u shaped street.  It ia amazing how many pieces of mail for other people gt put in our box, and vice versa.  One morning in Dec. Jerry was going out to get paper and there were 4 cards propped up against front door--apparently put in wrong door.  Several times people we known and bou=rought our mail to us, and when we get other people's mail we take it to them if we know them and if not, wrote on envelope PUT IN WRONG BOX and put it in the mail slot.  But I think some just toss it.  A neighborhood kid found a jury duty summons to me in the middle of the street on the other end of the U and brought it to me.  Another time a DVD I had ordered was found in the street--run over.

And UPS and Fed Ex are HORRIBEL about ringing the door bell once and leaving package.  We have gone to leave and almost tripped over a package by the front door--I order a lot of stuff from like Terry's Villae, Lakeside, etc, especially in Sept-Dec.

It's raining.  :)

I have always been a fan of USPS. I think it's cheap for what they do and overall it's worked well for me. And then our delivery person must have retired. I don't know who delivers our mail now but it is a wreck. And sometimes it just seems flat out weird. We likely get half the mail we did with the other person - one can only wonder where the rest is! I scheduled a priority INSURED pick-up for Friday and they never picked it up yet I got an email saying they had. First time in my life I was furious as it was a valuable item.

I went to our PO which has superb staff and it was sad to see that they realized how screwed up the organization was but they couldn't fix anything. I do know that like most fed orgs they are not replacing people that retire so are on a shoestring staff daily. Ought to be page 1 in the "how to destroy morale and your business 101"

In other news, Bugsy is still sick. Took him to the vet today and they were fairly stumped. No temp, urine sample was fine, color was fine etc but even they could see he is miserable. I am such a worrier with him, I hate that I am but I also know he is impossible to read. If his new GSP friend popped by he'd be ready to play and then be a disaster after he left.

I am going to regret my lack of focus on work. Remind me of this when I am crying next weekend as I am cramming.

I guess it's a sign for me of feeling overwhelmed - not really sure where to start

In happy news, my niece is a runner for James Madison U and will be running a meet in Raleigh this weekend, I can't wait to see her run and take her out for a meal!

That's it.

GingerD keep getting better. Ruby if you  bark too much outside you'll be stuck inside!