Delivery Man

I find it funny that once something goes bad enough, everyone knows about it. Case in point, my Xbox 360 died last week (thank you for your concern everyone), and I called in to 1-800-4MY-XBOX. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised in how good the customer service was. Yes, they had to have me sit in front of my 360 in order to properly test it, and yes they made me go through each individual steps designed only to test my patience, but after it was determined that I had a defective 360, they immediately took action. It was fast, easy and very efficient.

Now comes the very laughable part. They asked me if I had been shipped a “coffin (mailing box that MS sends out)” before. I responded yes, and they immediately shipped it to me. Fine. What bothers me the most about these “coffins” is that EVERYONE knows what they are for. In fact, this exchange happened to me just a few minutes ago.

The UPS man came through the door of my office to deliver the packages. He wheeled them in the systems helpdesk room, had someone sign for them and then started to hand them out. He called my name and handed the box. As soon as I had the box in my hands, the man looked at me and said, “If you didn’t play it that much, it wouldn’t blow out.” It really bothers me that the UPS man knows that the contents (or lack there of) of a package, the shape and size can tell him what the box is for. Not only is this a privacy issue, but what about security? What if my replacement box comes and it is immediately identified and stolen? Microsoft, could you please find a new box to ship things in?

Better yet, can you make a console without a HUGE hardware issue like this?