Charlie G
04-21-2008, 07:55 AM
I am sitting in a hotel in Jacksonville, Fl. waiting for a UPS package to arrive tomorrow.
Jacksonville is where Florida's main Bulk Mail Center is located.
I got a call yesterday from there,
Pam Denson, a marketing rep of the post office told me that "a few" of the bundles of It's all in the JOURNEY had broken open, and what did I want to do with them?
"What's a few?" I asked.
"Oh..I'd say at least 500." She answered.
My choices were to let the post office trash them.
That wasn't an option.
Or,
Let the post office send them back to me to re-package;
With me footing the bill.
That wasn't an option, either.
With printing, mailing, office rent, paying Joel, Deana & I, phone, DSL, electricity, ink, paper, etc..
It costs about $20,000 to put an issue of JOURNEY out.
So the two options were not;
Options.
"How about," I spoke as I was thinking,
"If I drive up there and re-pack & re-label the broken bundles?"
"Will you ship them as usual with no extra charge, since they are still in your facility?"
She agreed.
So I got 50 boxes from my printer & I drove to Jacksonville,
From Florida's toes to her nose;
(Think of the panhandle as her hair standing out in the wind).
So this morning I'm at Fla.'s Main Bulk Mail Center,
The guard told me they were expecting me and to drive to bay 24.
I get to the right spot, go in; 25 folded box under each arm, and meet "Pam"
She took me inside and told me she would get the magazines.
“They arrived like this from Miami.” She said as she picked up a phone.
A few minutes later a fork truck rolls up with a big box,
And sets in down in front of me.
Then another one, with another big box, rolled up and sets it down in front of me.
I peer inside.
And want to cry,
But I think I was in shock.
‘Pam was right,’ I mumbled to myself,
There was 'at least 500',
There was at least 5,000-
In each box!
I couldn't believe it!
I print 13,500 copies of It's all in the JOURNEY each month,
And mail out about 12,000 (the rest are for subscriptions, promotions & conferences).
I shrink wrap 24 to a bundle.
I don't box them because of the beautiful covers.
A few hundred broke last issue,
And my printer promised they had a much stronger wrapping this time.
I stared at the twin mountains of loose magazines and actually thought;
“I’m going to need more boxes.”
I went outside to smoke a cigarette, and think.
I was figuring out the logistics of renting a U haul & taking the whole thing back to the printer in Miami,
When Pam came out and said she had her supervisor on the phone.
I said hello to Charles (Buddy) Goodin, and told him what I was going to have to do;
And that I was not happy with it.
“I delivered these bundled, addressed & secured on two pallets.
I completed the paperwork & walked that through,
I took them off the truck with a pallet jack myself,
I weighed them on your scale,
I got your employee to check them & sign all the paperwork,
And I saw him put the stamped approval letter on each pallet.
“How could they have been delivered from Miami like this?”
“Poured into two boxes?”
“Wasn’t there a quality control red flag that went up somewhere?”
Buddy didn’t know.
Turns out there was no approval stamp with them either.
No one seems to know what happened,
Or where.
Then Buddy told me,
“Since we accepted them, we will repackage them,
And mail them for you.”
But they needed the labels with the addresses on them.
All 488 of them.
I told Buddy it wasn’t a problem; give me 10 minutes to make some calls.
I asked him if he knew of any mail handling companies in Jacksonville?
He did, and gave me the phone number.
I called the number and explained what ha happened.
“Can you accept an Excel file with the mailing info, print them on labels & deliver them to me?”
“Today?”
They couldn’t do it until tomorrow, and wanted $400 to do it.
$400 to print 488 mailing labels!
That wasn’t an option, either.
So I called my office, and told my secretary to start printing the labels again.
Then I spoke with Joel and told him to call UPS, FED EX, and DSL.
“Get me the best price for delivery to Jacksonville by 10 am.”
I went back inside, asked Pam to call Buddy for me, and told him what I was doing.
He agreed to it.
And now I am sitting here, waiting for a UPS delivery in the morning.
It’s never easy, I’m telling you.
I tell myself that I will look back at this and laugh some day.
Someday.
The good thing out of all this?
I got to go to an AA meeting in Jacksonville, Fl. that night.
I took some of the magazines with me to give to them;
They would be the first to get this issue.
And you know what?
They love JOURNEY!
They’d been waiting for the next issue!
That,
Made all this,
Worth it.
peace
Jacksonville is where Florida's main Bulk Mail Center is located.
I got a call yesterday from there,
Pam Denson, a marketing rep of the post office told me that "a few" of the bundles of It's all in the JOURNEY had broken open, and what did I want to do with them?
"What's a few?" I asked.
"Oh..I'd say at least 500." She answered.
My choices were to let the post office trash them.
That wasn't an option.
Or,
Let the post office send them back to me to re-package;
With me footing the bill.
That wasn't an option, either.
With printing, mailing, office rent, paying Joel, Deana & I, phone, DSL, electricity, ink, paper, etc..
It costs about $20,000 to put an issue of JOURNEY out.
So the two options were not;
Options.
"How about," I spoke as I was thinking,
"If I drive up there and re-pack & re-label the broken bundles?"
"Will you ship them as usual with no extra charge, since they are still in your facility?"
She agreed.
So I got 50 boxes from my printer & I drove to Jacksonville,
From Florida's toes to her nose;
(Think of the panhandle as her hair standing out in the wind).
So this morning I'm at Fla.'s Main Bulk Mail Center,
The guard told me they were expecting me and to drive to bay 24.
I get to the right spot, go in; 25 folded box under each arm, and meet "Pam"
She took me inside and told me she would get the magazines.
“They arrived like this from Miami.” She said as she picked up a phone.
A few minutes later a fork truck rolls up with a big box,
And sets in down in front of me.
Then another one, with another big box, rolled up and sets it down in front of me.
I peer inside.
And want to cry,
But I think I was in shock.
‘Pam was right,’ I mumbled to myself,
There was 'at least 500',
There was at least 5,000-
In each box!
I couldn't believe it!
I print 13,500 copies of It's all in the JOURNEY each month,
And mail out about 12,000 (the rest are for subscriptions, promotions & conferences).
I shrink wrap 24 to a bundle.
I don't box them because of the beautiful covers.
A few hundred broke last issue,
And my printer promised they had a much stronger wrapping this time.
I stared at the twin mountains of loose magazines and actually thought;
“I’m going to need more boxes.”
I went outside to smoke a cigarette, and think.
I was figuring out the logistics of renting a U haul & taking the whole thing back to the printer in Miami,
When Pam came out and said she had her supervisor on the phone.
I said hello to Charles (Buddy) Goodin, and told him what I was going to have to do;
And that I was not happy with it.
“I delivered these bundled, addressed & secured on two pallets.
I completed the paperwork & walked that through,
I took them off the truck with a pallet jack myself,
I weighed them on your scale,
I got your employee to check them & sign all the paperwork,
And I saw him put the stamped approval letter on each pallet.
“How could they have been delivered from Miami like this?”
“Poured into two boxes?”
“Wasn’t there a quality control red flag that went up somewhere?”
Buddy didn’t know.
Turns out there was no approval stamp with them either.
No one seems to know what happened,
Or where.
Then Buddy told me,
“Since we accepted them, we will repackage them,
And mail them for you.”
But they needed the labels with the addresses on them.
All 488 of them.
I told Buddy it wasn’t a problem; give me 10 minutes to make some calls.
I asked him if he knew of any mail handling companies in Jacksonville?
He did, and gave me the phone number.
I called the number and explained what ha happened.
“Can you accept an Excel file with the mailing info, print them on labels & deliver them to me?”
“Today?”
They couldn’t do it until tomorrow, and wanted $400 to do it.
$400 to print 488 mailing labels!
That wasn’t an option, either.
So I called my office, and told my secretary to start printing the labels again.
Then I spoke with Joel and told him to call UPS, FED EX, and DSL.
“Get me the best price for delivery to Jacksonville by 10 am.”
I went back inside, asked Pam to call Buddy for me, and told him what I was doing.
He agreed to it.
And now I am sitting here, waiting for a UPS delivery in the morning.
It’s never easy, I’m telling you.
I tell myself that I will look back at this and laugh some day.
Someday.
The good thing out of all this?
I got to go to an AA meeting in Jacksonville, Fl. that night.
I took some of the magazines with me to give to them;
They would be the first to get this issue.
And you know what?
They love JOURNEY!
They’d been waiting for the next issue!
That,
Made all this,
Worth it.
peace