He Inadvertently Signed His Letter of Resignation

Some of you may have heard me talking recently about camcorders and my hopes of being the proud owner of one.  After talking to the right people I zeroed in on the model that I planned to purchase.  The Canon Vixia HG10 high definition camcorder, with a hard drive and optical image stabilization.   It came highly recommended.  Well it was a roller coaster of a ride with the price starting out low and then the company who was selling it for cheap decided not to sell it anymore, then it was only available for more expensive, but was out of my price range, then another company had almost an identical price, so I decided to buy it, finally.

But that isn't what this story is about.  

I ordered that camera online and I got my confirmation email that said it had been shipped and that it was going to be delivered to my parents house in a few days with signature confirmation.

  Shipping was free so I was delighted to see they weren't just shipping it cheapo-style and that the somewhat expensive camera would not be sitting out on the porch for 5 hours before someone got home.

Friday, June 12th rolled around and I checked the status of the shipment and much to my delight it said it had been delivered on June 11th at 12:22 pm.  The one fishy part of the equation was that the package was signed for by a "T Brock".  I am a "T Brock" and my brother is a "T Brock" but currently no "T Brocks" reside at the house that I shipped the camera to.  Well my brother lives near by so it wouldn't be ridiculous to think that maybe he was there for some reason.  Or my dad could have been home and saw that the package was for me and signed my name, I wouldn't put it passed him to do that.  

I saw my mother on g-chat and I asked her about the package.  She said she didn't know what I was talking about...I start to feel the flood waters of panic breaching the levies in my chest...Then her memory kicked back in and she said "oh, yeah there is one here for you"...crisis averted...I asked who signed for it, and she informed that no one had signed for it, but they had in fact found it on the porch when they got home from work.  

So, the mailman decided that he would sign my name on the package as confirmation that he delivered it, and then he left it on the porch...

All is good and fine, I am have the camera, it is sitting right next to me in all of its HD glory, no harm no foul, right?

I got in an argument with my father about this.  I was toying with the idea of filing a complaint and my father was doing his best to forbid me from doing so, for obvious reasons.  His logic was that the mailman was trying to do him a favor by saving a drive to the post office to pick up the package later and that it wasn't necessary to get him in trouble.  I agreed that getting him in trouble was akin to pissing off someone who could easily spit in your food without you knowing but I was determined to drive home the point that while signing MY name was meant to be a nice gesture, making decisions to circumvent carefully placed confirmation checks was, with all due respect, above his pay grade.

In the end, I filed no complaint.  And this is why:

1. I got the camera

2. Not necessary to get someone fired or reprimanded given #1

3.  I didn't pay for shipping, and if I did, I would not have paid for signature confirmation anyway

4. It's not my mailman and my father seems to have a certain kinship with him

But, if I was mailing something important to someone, paid the extra $ for signature confirmation expecting a secure transfer of my package, and found out that the mailman signed the addressee's name and left it on the porch, I would go postal, I would ensure that he never worked in the parcel delivery business again...I would march right into the offending post office, walk up to the counter with steam shooting out my ears, chicken out, and politely request a refund.