One Winged Duck

The situation : V has some (some ? – that’s something i will comment on later) furniture shipped from India. After one month on the sea, we receive a phone call that it is due soon. I mentally steel myself for an ordeal, because the shipment is only till the port of Oakland. Someone will have to go and deal with it, and get it home (or get shot in the process)

The constraint : As i mentioned earlier, both V and me are leaving for France on monday. And if we dont get the stuff ASAP, we will be assessed massive storage charges.

The update : I get a call from the shipping company in LA that the shipment is here NOW. The asian-speaking woman tells me that we should “oberniiiee” the payment to LA so that we can get the cargo released in Oakland. That is done. So now we have a”Release Notice” in our hand.

The action : Has anyone ever ventured towards the Oakland docks ? Suffice to say that now it will not make its way into the ToDo guide very soon. We follow directions and land up in front of a gate which boldly proclaims “US Customs bonded area. No unauthorized entry”. The woman masquerading as a gaurd gives us a entry log tells us to go to Shipping and Receiving. The area is dotted with some semis and some drivers .. getting loaded .. yeah, both.

We park a little way away as all the spots near the warehouse are marked “reserved for US customs”. Timidly approaching the 3 counters in the building, we are at our wits end to figure out which one to go to. Should not have mattered – none of them had any sentient presence behind it. Not to say there were no people there.

We are granted audition by a young man after waiting for 10 mins (A multitude of notices inform us of dire consequences if we dare to disturb anyone inside by knocking on the windows. The only way to attract attention is to do interpretive dance movements outside the window, in the hope that someone inside will notice you.) It does not seem like we are the kind of people he interacts with on a daily basis. Once he realizes we are totally unversed in the art of cargo manifests, he relents and actually becomes quite helpful.

We do not have an Arrival Notice. This wonderful piece of paper holds the key to releasing our beloved furniture from its bondage. Another call to Tiffany ( “oberniiiee” ) in LA is in order, and she duly faxes over the A.N. after only a 30 min wait. It does take some people that much time to fax. Fact of life. Friendly young man now gives us some pieces of paper and tells us to mosey over to the US Customs building for clearance.

Now I want to know exactly how we are going to get our stuff. FYM will get it loaded into the truck for us. Cool. And BTW .. we will have to break apart the crate at some point in time. Crate ? Break Apart ? What the hell ? It seems that there is a 5 cubic metre (yes !!!) large crate that contains 3 boxes that contain the furniture. I brush away V’s suggestion that we will break this up at home (yeah, in our living room, which is about 5 cubic metre total) and ask this guy if he can break it up for us. Sure. $100. OK. But atleast I wont need any hired help in loading up the truck when we decide to pick up the stuff as he will load it for us with a forklift. OK.

The foil : US Customs guy takes one look at us and informs us that “no way you are gonna get clearance today. Or tomorrow for that matter”. Not surprising to me .. all government officials have a right to first refusal of service. Does V have her passport ? Of course not, its with the Irish consulate for visa processing. Green Card ? Same. We WILL need some ID when we come to get the clearance. Which BTW will be monday. And if we are going away for 2 weeks and will have to pay storage if we cannot pick up our stuff by Friday – *silence* . Although i must say that he was very polite in hearing our appeal. But he was also very polite in making no response at all.

The kicker : We go back to the FYM at the warehouse. It seems that the customs folks actually come there, inspect the cargo, and then release it. And it seems that usually this happens in 15-20 mins. We feel special. And Oh.. BTW.. if the customs folks ask them to break up the crate to inspect it, it will be $50 for the breaking, and $100 for recrating. Charged to us, of course. And can we not get it recrated, as we will have to have it broken up later for loading in the truck ? Nope. Company policy. And there will be a $25 forklift charge, $25 some other charge, and $2 IT charge (wtf – are we paying for the fax paper separately?) when we come to pick it up, in addition to the storage fee. and the crate breaking fee. and the extra fee if customs wants it broken for inspection. By now I have resigned myself to paying about $400 for this. OK.

The future : So, on coming back from France, I can look forward to renting a u-haul, getting our stuff to our apt, renting some mexican day laborers, getting all the stuff INTO the apt (where inside the apt you ask ? good question. lets leave it at that), returning the u-haul, returning my temporary labor force, and relaxing in a apt which by now probably has no space for any such activity. And did I tell you that V’s mom will be there all the time

Check out my blog for some pics of my hometown. Njoy.

Woke up in the morning and we were out of milk. I walk down to the corner store and get a carton of Low Fat Organic Milk (no growth hormones !). Only in SF.

And I dont live in a particularly affluent or yuppy neighbourhood.

This might be the only city in the world where organic milk drinkers outnumber regular milk drinkers !

So what do you guys think is the best job in the world?

Yesterday, I got to sit in on this weekly doctors' review meeting at this cancer research center client of ours. This hospital is slightly different from other cancer practices because it is a "clinical trial" site and so there are about 35 experimental drugs being tested on live patients. Plus they specialize in terminal patients, who have less than 1 yr of projected life.

The format of the meeting itself is simple – each of the 5 nurses go around and describe the status of their 5-10 patients who are not tracking to plan or responding to treatment; and the doctors brainstorm and agree on a course of action. And btw 5 patients had died during the week since the previous meeting. I want to give you a flavor of the discussions so I'll give you an example: One doc says " I dont think this new growth h as anything to do with the pancreatic tumor, its just a lymphatic drainage (or some such jargon) and so I would maintain the 10 cc and not add nay chemo sessions". The other doc says "I agree but since there is also loss of appetite, I would do 5 cc of this new drug and add an anti-depressant to reduce the mood swing side effects." The most bizarre thing was that neither the nurses or doctors looked at their notes or referred to charts, everyone seemed to know exactly what was going on with each patient. And naturally, no one took notes as well. I am sure med school hones the memory and all, but this is one meeting that I wouldn't being run by a process nazi like Baxter.

Not that the doctors openly relished playing God but clearly they must be okay playing this role, some may even like it. And that got me thinking, is this the most impactful and fulfilling job in the world? Personally, I don't think I have the balls to live with this kind of a responsibility, and besides, i don't think my poor memory would let me get past med school and residency and what ever else you get to go through.

So, what do you guys think is the best job in the world? Or did I already ask the question, I forget