I feel compelled to write something since I've not in a couple of weeks and I just left things hanging in the middle of vacation. I like the idea of writing, and I love to read, but when it comes down to it I am just not very motivated to express myself via blog on a regular basis.
A few things, as they come to me...for those who haven't read anything by Salman Rushdie, and who think you might appreciate some challenging and brilliant writing, pick up a copy of The Satanic Verses, Midnight's Children, or Shalimar the Clown. I'm actually reading the latter now, and I am loving it 100 pages in. It goes from poetic to concise and from reflective to irreverent...I can't really convey the brilliance that is Rushdie, so you can just read.
I'm taking some training at work this week that involves receiving the results of a consulting/influencing skills survey from some of my colleagues, and I'm learning that I need to be more assertive when talking about my ideas. More than one person said I had valuable things to say but back down too quickly. That's really useful to know, but I think it's going to be difficult to overcome my natural disinclination toward sales.
Also, I tried to mail a box to Mexico City yesterday. I stopped into FedEx after work with the box containing about $25/1.5 lbs. worth of giftage from me and Nicole (one of my direct reports) for Tania (my other direct report). After a few minutes of elaborating on how there would be duties and fees to pay for shipping internationally, which I decided was okay with me, the FedEx employee then said something like, "Oh, yeah, and the shipping itself will also be over $100." My response was, "Are you kidding?" And unfortunately he wasn't. The tab would have come to $117 and some change, which he attributed to gas prices, etc. But Mexico D.F. is not that much farther away than California (a fact I pointed out as I politely declined to ship), and I fly myself there with the box in tow (among other things) for under $300. What the crap?
3 comments:
That is ridiculous! I've never shipped internationally before. Is it cheaper to just go on Amazon or something and have them ship it to Mexico? I don't understand why it was so expensive.
I don't know all of the tarriffs and duties involved in particular countries. However, whenever I ship internationally at work, they encourage me to use USPS or UPS because it's almost always cheaper than FedEx.
Yes, I looked online the other day and it looks like USPS might get it there for ~$15. Crazy! FedEx must do more domestic business or something.
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