I don’t go to the Post Office often. Maybe twice a year.
Today I had to go because I was mailing a Christmas package to my brother who lives in Beijing. I checked online, and the priority-air flat-rate service for a small box to China was $12.95. Awesome deal.
So I drove to the post office. I arrived and began searching for a small box. They only had one small priority box. I grabbed it. I packed, taped, and addressed the box and filled out the customs paperwork. Then I got in line. After 15 minutes I got to the counter.
“Hi! I need to send this box flat-rate to Beijing.”
“Okay.”
He punched a bunch of keys, scanned some codes, weighed the package, and announced, “That’ll be $28.95.”
“$28.95? I checked online, and it said it would be $12.95. Why is this so much higher?”
“I don’t know. But this is the price.”
“I’m sure it was $12.95.”
“Well it’s not.”
“Maybe I was looking at the non-priority price… would it be $12.95 if I paid the non-priority price?”
“We only offer priority to China.”
“So are there any other ways to send a box to China? I’m just trying to figure out why it was $12.95 online and it’s now $28.95.”
“Well you could always send it flat-rate. That’s $12.95.”
“Oh, that’s what I want to do!”
“You’ll have to use a flat-rate priority box. This priority box won’t work.”
“Okay. No big deal. Where do I get a flat-rate box?”
“Over there” and he points to the area where I packed my box.
“Oh, I was just over there and this was the only kind of small box you had over there.”
“They’re over there. NEXT!!”
So off I went back to the packaging area. I checked and double-checked. No small flat-rate priority boxes anywhere. Back in line. 18 minutes later I’m back at the counter. Same guy.
“There are no small flat-rate boxes over there.”
“That’s because we are out.”
“What?!? You just told me they were over there.”
“I forgot. We’ve been out of those for a couple days now.”
“You don’t have any in the back?”
“Nope. And we’ve called all the Post Offices all over town. Nobody has them.”
“So when will you get some in?”
“Two weeks.”
“That won’t work. This is a Christmas present for my brother. I need to mail it this week.”
“I’m not sure what to tell you.”
“Can we just use this priority box since it’s the same size?”
“No. It’s the wrong box.”
“But it’s the same size, the weight of the items is within the limits, and it goes with the same air-service that the flat-rate box would.”
“But it doesn’t say ‘Flat-Rate Box’ on it.”
“Can we just write that on the box?”
“No.”
“Okay, what would you suggest I do? What are my options?”
“I guess you’ll just have to pay $28.95. It’s the only way.”
“Well, I guess if that’s my only option…”
“Oh, wait!! Here’s a small flat-rate box right here behind the counter!”
He bends down and pulls out a small flat-rate box and innocently hands it to me.
“Wow. Great. Thanks!”
“NEXT!!”
I go back to the packaging area, cut open my small priority box and move the contents into the small flat-rate priority box. I re-tape and re-address the box. Back in line. 20 minutes later I’m at the counter. Same guy.
“I think we’ve got it right this time.”
“Good.”
He punched a bunch of keys, scanned some codes, weighed the package, and announced, “That’ll be $12.95.”
“Excellent! Do you take credit cards?”
“Yes, just swipe your card there.” He pointed to the credit card reader in front of me.
I swiped my card.
“Don’t swipe your card yet!! You need to tell me if it’s debit or credit first.”
“It’s credit.”
“Okay. NOW you can swipe your card.”
“Thanks.”
“Here’s your receipt. Next time you come in, make sure you know what you’re doing and this won’t happen again.”
It’s impossible to have a reasonable transaction with the US government.
Jason’s post on 37 signals’ valuation is one of the most brilliant pieces of satire I’ve read in months… read it here.
September 15, 2009
Dallas, TX – ServiceBrook Ltd. Co. announced the launch of their first publically available software-as-a-service today: Affiliate Link Vault (www.affiliatelinkvault.com). Philip Miller, co-founder of ServiceBrook, explained, “The launching of Affiliate Link Vault marks our first step into the freemium software world. This revolutionary link cloaker provides the best protection for affiliate links… we’ve already protected hundreds of links, and it’s day one!”
At its core, Affiliate Link Vault is a link cloaker. It allows affiliate marketers to hide their links from prying eyes and unfriendly spyware programs. Affiliate marketers use link cloakers to keep their income stream secure. SearchEnginePro.net praised the new software, “Affiliate Link Vault is my favorite tool for cloaking and protecting my affiliate links. If you are an Internet marketer and you’re not cloaking, protecting, and tracking your affiliate links you’re leaving money on the table. Whether you’re an experience affiliate marketer or a novice just getting started, ALV has pricing for every level of your growth.”
Daniel Ice, co-founder of ServiceBrook, commented, “It is difficult to cloak affiliate links effectively using scrambled javascript, frames, purely server-side, or other third-party hosted cloaker software. What Affiliate Link Vault offers is a simple, professional link cloaker. Anyone can use it.”
When asked what advice they would give their customers, Miller and Ice took a shot at a competitor, “Watch out for ninjas.”
Affiliate Link Vault launched September 15th, 2009. They offer a free link cloaker plan as well as paying plans ranging $17-$97/month.
Overstaffing is a huge problem. Most organizations could loose 1/4 of their staff and never miss a beat. If you did that, the remaining people could shoulder the load.
But working people hard leads to dissatisfaction. People want to be underutilized. They want room to breathe. They don’t want the stress of working hard each and every day.
Or do they? I’ve found that people really do want to work hard, to be challenged, to grow. They just want to be compensated for their effort. If you expect people to give their all and then get stingy when you write their paycheck, you’re crazy. It won’t work. Top-level people deserve top-level pay.
So here’s the ServiceBrook philosophy: underhire and overcompensate.
We work hard. We put in late hours. We enjoy what we do. We get paid well.
We’ve found that having a few, high-octane people that are compensated extremely well is the way to go. We could probably save money by hiring several less qualified individuals, but in the end, the cost to the culture is too high.
We love the high-energy, high-octane, high-bandwidth atmosphere at work. We’re here to make money. No chatting. No discussing the news. No web-surfing or online shopping. No forwarding of stupid emails. Just good, old-fashioned, give-it-your-all, hard work. We’re all here for the same reasons. We’re committed. We’re a team. We’re all owners.
There’s not enough of us… but we all have more than enough. Everything gets done.
- Albert Einstein
Web business has it’s own lingo. Where else do you regularly hear about cloud computing, transparency, going viral, social media, search engine optimization or web 2.0? But there are some terms that are carry-overs from the world of brick-and-mortar businesses of the “old” economy. Read the rest of this entry »
Affiliate Link Vault is just a few weeks away from launch! We’re still working to make sure everything works just right. We want to deliver a product we’re proud of on day one. We’re in alpha-testing right now. Here’s what we’re working on:
After all, why pay for something you can get for free? Sometimes going with free software or open source software is hands-down the way to go. But when it comes to link cloaker tools, that simply isn’t the case. In fact, free = frustration.
Here’s why…
Read the rest of this entry »
Most affiliate marketers know that URL cloaking is important. The problem is most solutions are too technical, too complex, and too hard to use. When our company tried to find a good link cloaker tool, we looked and looked… but we never found a good one. The options were very unimpressive. Most looked like they had been built in a garage. Others clearly never used their products or they would have built them better. We wanted a link cloaking tool that actually worked. Read the rest of this entry »
