Trips to Greyhound

Anytime we take a trip to the Greyhound station, I leave with a great story. My trip there on Tuesday was no different...


Checking the phone messages when we arrived home after church this past Sunday, I listen to a message from Greyhound informing us that they have a package for Bean waiting to be picked up. We are heading to the airport on Tuesday to drop my parents off after a great 4 day visit, so I figure we'll stop in then and pick up the package.

So we head to the airport, drop my parents off, and get to the Greyhound depot 20 minutes before they close. Mama Bean figured she'd wait in the car with Bean while I ran in and picked up the package, since we figured it would be pretty quick.

Walking in, there is one person in line in front of me, and one person at each of the two open tills. It was the couple at the till to my right that caught my attention. They wanted to ship a large suitcase and something wrapped in a plastic shopping bag, neither labeled, tagged or anything.

When the attendant said they couldn't ship something just sitting in a plastic bag, they removed the contents and put it on the counter. 2 packages of 12" square tiles. Okay, kind of a weird thing to ship, until they say there are 14 more packages in the suitcase! I don't think the attendant thought much of it, and taped the two packages from the bag together, put a shipping label on it and asked for the suitcase.

Now, this suitcase has 14 packages of tiles in it. Each package of tiles weighs about 25lbs (when he was weighing the package he'd made of 2 he said as much). So I'm not quite sure what he expected when he asked them to lift the suitcase and put it on the counter. That thing weighed around 350lbs! He explains to them that they can't ship packages over 100lbs, and that they'd have to take some out.

So the couple takes out 4 packages, and the attendant tapes them into packages of 2, and asks for the suitcase. Again, the couple tries to lift this thing, but as it still weighs about 250lbs (Was I the only one paying attention to the math here?) they were unable to lift it. So they take out 2 more packages, he tapes them together and they try to lift it again. This time they are able to lift it, but it is still 200lbs, which is double the shipping limit...

At this point the other attendant is free, and I head over to pick up my package while this couple, and the attendant proceed to pull all of the packages out, tape them together in packs of two, and create shipping labels.

Now they are shipping these tiles to a small reservation up in the boonies. Collect. That's about $450 in shipping for these friggin tiles. Not to mention, THEY ARE TILES! Tiles are fragile. I would NOT be shipping something fragile like that via greyhound up to the boonies. I've worked in Greyhound's depots, I used to do all the work on their conveyor systems in Calgary. Guaranteed a bunch of those tiles would have been broken before they even made it onto the bus.

When I finally made it to the attendant I told him who the package was for, and which unit it was it. He goes and gets it and when he returns he asks me for ID. Now this package is for Bean, not me. Bean is 5 weeks old and doesn't have ID yet. I tell him as much and he gives me a funny look. So I show him my ID, and that the addresses match, and with reluctance he gives me the package. Though I had to fill out a little form saying I was authorized to pick up this package for Bean, and put down all my contact info and everything in case there was a problem. Kinda weird, but it made me laugh.

As I left the other attendant was still taping packages of tiles together, looking very unimpressed.