Unconsumed holidays

Word on the street is that with the supposed Trump tariffs looming on goods made in China, people should buy what they need now to save a buck or two. If you’ve been eyeing a dishwasher upgrade and the thing is Chinese made, time to buy yourself a Christmas present.

Anecdotally, sales representatives have warned us at work to put in big orders now, should the tariffs come into fruition, and suddenly that batch of laptops is now 20% dearer in price. I’m sure the representative has an incentive to sell as much as possible before the end of the year for that bonus. That said, our university is not exactly loaded with cash, so any savings on bulk purchases is not nothing.

Maybe Trump is playing 4D chess: threatens tariffs, inadvertently causes the biggest holiday buying season of all time.

It may be the most wonderful time of the year in terms of weather and atmosphere, but the blatant and rampant consumerism of the holidays is kind of disgusting. The combination of Black Friday and present shopping is both a financial burden and environmentally unfriendly. The endless shipping boxes and the energy it takes to get them to customers.

I’m glad my friend group do not have holiday gifting culture. And even if we did, I’d buy everybody stuff they’d actually use. Like toilet paper, or a pack of USDA Prime beef. The last thing I need more of are items that just sits on a shelf to look nice. It would go straight to the trash bin if and when I ever move home again.

Good news: I saved 100% by buying nothing!

Take me out.

Not enough juice

We are about two months away from the annual new iPhone launch in September (typically). I cannot wait to get a new one this year, because the battery life on my current iPhone 14 Pro has been the worse I’ve ever used. (And I’ve had every single iPhone since the 7.) The iPhone is famous for robust battery life compared to the Android competition. In my experience, this has been very true. I’ve never had to plug my iPhone in mid-day to top up the battery ever. It’s never gone down past 20% at the end of the day even in my heaviest usage days.

That is, until the iPhone 14 Pro. 10 months in, the battery life have not held up to standards. These days I’m down to 20% by the time I get home from work in the early evening. Mind you this is without any heavy usage of social media apps whatsoever. I’m only chatting with friends on Signal and reading ebooks on Kindle. I joked to my friends that I’ve become just like them: having to charge the phone battery during the day, otherwise risk running out of juice.

The forthcoming iPhone 15 Pro could have zero new features - only improved battery life, and I would still happily do the yearly upgrade.

Obviously, this is the most first world of problems. Here’s some quick perspective to bring me back down to earth. A new coworker of mine recently remarked that in all of his previous jobs, he’s never had the major holidays off. In the typical service industry-type jobs, the holidays is when you definitely have to show up for work. That’s where the money is made: restaurants needs tables filled, shows need to go on, and parcels need delivering. That coworker’s remark is a humbling reminder that I’m so lucky to only have had jobs where major holidays are actually a thing.

It reminded me of my younger (than me by 10 years) brother. He’s currently working his way up from the bottom at entry-level service jobs. There are no holidays off. And should he wish to take any time off, he has to find others to cover his shift. A two week vacation? He can certainly take one, but just don’t come back to work afterwards. It’s tough work for not that much pay. Fingers crossed he can eventually find a job that provide proper benefits and time off - like my coworker did.

View fullsize

The cord of shame!

We got the slow shipping

As an avid purveyor of books, I greatly prefer the feel of actual pages than the digital equivalent. Therefore I buy physical copies on Amazon, instead of opting for the Kindle version. The latter is likely kinder to the environment, but the analog texture and smell is worth the sacrifice of a few trees. Besides, I don’t want to give Amazon even more information than I already am: the company is not getting my highlights and reading patterns. It only knows what genre of books I tend to purchase.

In the effort offset some of the environmental impact, I buy used books whenever possible (unless the price difference between new and used is negligible). The downside of this is that shipping takes forever. I am so used to stuff arriving from Amazon in two days (Prime shipping!) that something taking more than two weeks feel downright archaic. Books would show up to my surprise that I had bought it in the first place. Multiple times lately I thought the item for sure got lost in the mail.

It is a busy time for shipping, after all. Everyone is trying to get their holiday shopping in. Amazon managing its own shipping supply chain is a massive advantage over its competition. You’re not handing off a package to Fedex and praying it’s able to keep its delivery timeframe promise. And as a customer, who can you trust but Amazon, when you’ve procrastinated until the last minute to buy presents? It’s far easier to get refunds too should an item arrive late, not that you should abuse this.

What Amazon should offer is the ability to read the Kindle version of a book, until the physical copy I bought actually arrives. That would be so clutch. I’d even buy a Kindle device just for that purpose. Anyone got a line to the current Amazon CEO?

View fullsize

Pray on the altar.

Shipping tip

A quick word of advice: before you head to the local post office/Fedex/UPS location to ship a package, make sure it is prepaid and ready to go. That way, you can skip the long lines and simply drop off the package at the counter. You’ll thank me later for the massive time saved.

Yesterday, I had to ship a package to a friend via USPS, and the service line snaked out of the post office and down the block. Of course, the need for social-distancing probably caused the line to appear longer than it really is, but I would say there’s still significantly more people than a typical year. Due to COVID, the demand for shipping presents this holiday must be tremendous. In lieu of being able to gather, you’ve now got to ship presents out to multiple places. No wonder the wait at the post office is so long.

I had to drop off a package at Fedex as well, encountering a similar situation. Honestly, I did feel a slight smugness, being able to walk pass everyone in line and put the package down at the front desk. Caveat: you’ll have to be okay with not getting a receipt. There isn’t a clerk there to print one out for you. If you insist on a receipt, maybe because it’s a particularly expensive item, then you’ll have to wait in line like the rest of them.

Kudos and shoutout to everyone working in logistics. Surely it’s been tough year, with people buying stuff online more than ever before. The workload right now must be crazy, since everybody is buying presents as well and shipping them out. Despite that, I am still getting my Amazon Prime packages in the promised two days. A great testament to the efficiency and skill of workers and machines.

Healthcare professionals deservedly get most of the publicized glory, but delivery personnel should get a lot of the credit as well for keeping this whole thing together.

View fullsize

Pugnacious BM.