Friday, July 25, 2008

Bobbled: An Addendum

At last, I just received the (completely unwanted) bobblehead promised to me from a stock photo company that I have no interest in.

On June 12th, I posted a blog about this situation, which I see as junk mail of the highest, most bobbley form. Recall that prior to my post, the company spokesperson informed me that the package had already been sent to me, and there was nothing they could do to stop it.

Hmmmm...


Clearly, the issue was not that they had pre-printed address labels. (I'm feeling more like Perez Hilton every day. Not good.)

I don't mean to make a big deal about this bobble head, but I see it as representative of a greater issue. I have to reference my upcoming move again here, and the time I spent ridding our home of unnecessary items. I also spent an entire evening (hours!) shredding junk mail that had accumulated in the to-be-shred pile. Receiving these unwanted items is a waste of my time, a waste of our resources, and the mass printing of our contact and account information is just not safe. Junk mail, most of which is designed to look important, often leads to confusion when sorting to find the actual mail (bills, statements, etc) in the inbox.

So, how does this "Return to Sender" thing work, anyway?

ADDENDUM to the ADDENDUM, July 30th: An unnamed coworker of mine insisted upon opening the Bobblehead package. I agreed, but only on the condition that it would belong to her once it came out of the box. Worse than I ever even expected, here's what we found:


I think it speaks for itself.

2 comments:

Cami said...

I can not believe that the bobblehead has resurfaced... NOW. It was so long ago that you posted about it. I mean, come on. What are they doing?

You should not open the mail, write on it in marker "Return to Sender" and leave it for your postal carrier or drop it off at the post office. The key to return to sender is to not open the mail. Mail can be forwarded the same way. Cross out the address, and write "no longer at this address, please forward to" the new one.

Cami said...

And another thing- think about all of the unwanted junk mail collectively, and its impact on the environment. There's the trees and plastic to make the mailers, the electricity put into making them, the fuel to ship them out, and the wasted paper (including fuel to haul it away)! Damn. That's costly. I wonder if anyone has quantified it...