Journal

July, July! (Return Orders)

Brand New Month

And the Web Walrus would like to remind you to flip your calendars.

Return Orders

A couple of weeks ago, I received my Amazon order for two books, one of them being Nick Brandt’s On This Earth. There was a problem between pages 8 and 9, because the edge was a bit stuck and there was also a bit of a tear. Basically, there was a very rough texture and some bits of page 9 on page 8 and a hole in page 9 itself.  They weren’t even fully separated.

I tried to follow the returns policy of Amazon and one of the requirements was that I would have to send it back. So I arranged for a return, and printed the barcode and mailing address and all that. It was all going well until I arrived at the post office and learnt that the mailing of the book would cost more than the book itself. Aghast, I went back and deliberated over this for a while. (It should be noted that Amazon can only refund up to, I think, four USD from the postage costs.)

I wrote an email to Customer Service, and the reply was swift and extremely helpful. One of the resolutions offered was a replacement of the book at (almost) no further costs and without the need for me to send back my damaged copy. This was arranged for very quickly, and I saw the new order being made as well as the refund for the new order going through (and this is why I said almost, because the refund was about 1 SGD less than the amount paid, for some reason).

Yesterday, I received the new book and am now very happy with it. And I just wanted to say that the Amazon customer service was all quite excellent, extremely efficient and professional, and in all, very helpful.

Sometimes,  good customer service just makes your day.

I Am

Slightly ahead of schedule, in the sense that I’ve been writing faster than I thought I would, but the project is also looking longer than I first thought it would be. I’m trying to keep the numbers down, but, you know, whatever it takes.

It’s becoming a bit monotonous. Or maybe that’s not the word for it. It’s very workman these days, very procedural. I’m just sort of piecing things together, filling in gaps and the like, which is something I obviously want to avoid. It probably has in part to do with how quickly I’m going, but my experience is that if my pace abates too much, I’ll end up just never getting anything done. Besides, like I was saying the last time, I’ve kind of got the momentum for the final run-in going, and I better capitalise on that and just ride the wave.

Shopping

Last Friday, I went shopping with my parents, and there was this bunch of bargain books outside Plaza Singapura. I think it was a Carrefour thing. From there, I got the Stephen Colbert book (I Am America (And So Can You!)), an Alice Munro book (The View From Castle Rock), some Philip Roth (Exit Ghost) and a Michael Chabon novel (Gentlemen Of The Road).

Apart from that, I also got a new Gravis bag for the new term. It is orange. And to top it all off, I got a couple of bits of stationery.

Battery

My laptop battery appears to have died.

Bah.

Off to work.

d

© 2009 a modest odyssey.