The Daily Peeve / Rant

[Chicken lady]

Ordered whole grain cereal online. Wanted to order the bulk cardboard box of 25lbs (400 ounces) but the place offers free shipping on all orders over $50 except those containing “bulk” items. So I ended up buying 5 “cases” of 4 25 ounce bags (500 ounces) to get the free shipping and save $15. (The cereal is more per ounce, but the free shipping makes the total cost less.) it can’t possibly cost the place less to pack and ship those 5 “cases” than to pack and ship one box, and now I will have 20 non-recyclable, single use plastic bags. (It was a hard choice for me, but I decided that I could do something environmentally better with that $15 than avoid the bags)

[CathyA]

I don't know chicken lady.......plastic is pretty awful.

[iris lilies]

I don't know chicken lady.......plastic is pretty awful.

This is not helping her.

[Chicken lady]

Cathy A, i don’t know if you are serious, or sarcastic, or teasing? No tone.

[SteveinMN]

DW and I returned this morning from a vacation to A Famous Place. For us it required airplanes. Minneapolis-St. Paul is "blessed" with an airport that has two terminals, imaginatiely named "Terminal 1" and "Terminal 2" and located more than just down the road from each other. Rather than park the car near the airport ($$$) or bother friends to drop us off at 4:30 am and fetch us at 1 am, we opted for a taxi. Because of the earliness, I pre-arranged our pickup times.

To the airport, the driver started taking the exit to the wrong terminal. We pointed out his mistake, he corrected it, and then he drove past the exit to the correct terminal (!). He adjusted the price of the ride for his mistake, but, seriously? You have one job...

From the airport, I was told the driver would call me when we arrived. Crickets. No call -- ever. Finally went to where the "next" taxis wait. That driver couldn’t spell words (for his GPS) even when we spelled them for him. We finally arrive home and the driver, whose taxi has Square and credit-card logos all over it, asks for cash.

Neither driver touched our luggage despite our body language implying that shoud happen.

I've never been a fan of ride-sharing services because I'm not big on lowering the standards for public transportation (AFAIK driving requires no CDL and I'm pretty sure many of the ride-sharing drivers out there don't tell their insurance companies). But I'm not happy with the state of commercial taxi service. Gotta reevaluate this ride-sharing thing....

[iris lilies]

Here, the rides shares are required in some way to charge ridiculous fees for airport service. I cant remember if the fee is TO the airport or AWAy from it, but it is competetive with taxis and their airport run is expensive.

But you arent talking about cost here, so maybe the sharing system will work.

I like taking the light rail train to the airport. It is not a good thing late at night, however.

For our European trip DH left a few days before I did, and he refused to take the train because of the weak excuse all of our friends say, it aint safe. Friends drove him there.

I told him “I am taking that train“ but lo, a fight broke out on the train, a girl fight. lovely. There was shouting and bitch slapping and etc, and the train stayed stopped while a train cop booted off the trouble makers.

[catherine]

Steve, I hear ya on the lowered standard of service. You would think that service would have gotten better having a technological tool like GPS at the driver's disposal, but that is certainly not the case. I have experienced just what you described. You feel like you are teaching mapping skills to a kindergarten kid when speaking with some drivers. They act like if YOU don't have the right directions AND keep them on track to be sure you get there, YOU are not doing YOUR job as the rider. Many taxi drivers are simply incompetent these days.

I had one taxi driver that took me from midtown Manhattan to Newark Airport once, and I greatly feared for my life. It was night, the driver clearly had no idea where he was going, and so he would slow down to 35 mph on the NJ Turnpike to read the directions. I had 18-wheelers laying on their horns and swerving around us, while I prayed to God for my life while simultaneously screaming at the driver.

My experience with ride sharing is better for the most part. The GPS is built right into the business model and is very advanced. It is clear that the driver knows where you are going and they use the tools to get you there. They tend to be friendlier, they frequently offer phone chargers and water, and the price is cheaper.

[SteveinMN]

It interests me that the existing livery business has not responded more strongly to the rise of ride-sharing. Oh, there are a few local taxi companies which banded together to offer a mobile app that makes them look more like Uber/lyft. And some livery associations have flexed their legal muscles to try to maintain their monopoly. But they seem to have done little to upgrade the base product itself, at their own peril. Even the U.S. postal service reacted strongly to the rise of express delivery and survives despite choking restrictions FedEx, et al. do not face (but which most livery companies don't face, either). It's almost like they want to be driven out of business.

[CathyA]

Chicken Lady........I didn't mean to insult you. I go through this kind of thinking all the time......which of my actions is better or worse for the earth. It can drive me crazy. I've recently been seeing all the floating masses of plastics in the oceans, and it really gets me down. I see plastic bags all over the county. I see very few people around here using cloth bags at any store. I guess I was just thinking out loud. If I offended you I'm sorry. Maybe I only offended Iris Lilies. haha
It's sure hard to avoid plastic though......it seems to hold almost everything now.

[Chicken lady]

You didn’t offend me, it just bothered me to not understand. So now I think that you were serious and arguing for the more expensive cardboard box.

but I sadly do not have unlimited funds (and so my house is not solar powered) and so, when I have to make environmental vs. cost trade offs I try to apply my money where i feel like it will do the most good. I will give the company feedback and maybe they will change their policy or packaging....I doubt it though.