I ordered my new 2011 wall calendar for my office from Amazon.com because they had the best price and free shipping. But I thought that free shipping meant “no cost” not “brain free.” Apparently that’s not the case because Amazon sent me my 2011 calendar in a box big enough to ship a flat screen TV. Check it out:
When the box arrived via Fed Ex ground, I got excited thinking someone had sent me a large gift…
I mean this box was huge, dwarfing my large sized trash and recycle bins…
Damn thing is more than half as high as my office front door…
But when I opened up the box here is the only item shipped inside it. Come on now, Amazon, what the hell is up with this? Are you people really that thoughtless and lame? Are the people packing stuff during the holiday season already all jacked up on rum cake or have they been dipping into the warehouse’s supply of adult chocolate milk? Wal-Mart’s supply chain management is looking like sheer greenius compared to you guys. What a waste of resources, space and money from a company that’s supposed to be so smart.
A look inside the box shows you how mindless whoever put this small flat item inside this gargantuan box is. Just how little do you have to care or be paying attention to make this decision? Did someone from the cardboard box association pay somebody off? Is this just a joke to you guys?
Here’s all the paper they had to stuff in the ginormous box to keep the calendar from rattling around inside the behemoth they shipped to my house. Maybe autonomous robot packers are to blame?
Damn it, Amazon. I spend most of my waking hours working on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, reducing waste and trying to help people, cities and businesses become more sustainable – and then I have to put up with crap like this from people who aren’t acting responsibly and who should know better. People who have gotten stinking filthy rich and can afford to hire smarter, more caring and more accountable people and put in place more sustainable practices. But instead, Amazon is just part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Nobody has benefited more from Amazon’s success than Jeff Bezos and he’s the one I’m holding responsible for this. The buck stops with Bezos and Jeff needs to step up and make this right.
And one thing’s dead solid for sure. If I got a planet-killing wasteful box like this, how many other customers also did and don’t have a blog to call it to your attention? I’m guessing thousands of them every day.
I know that we’re already past the point of stopping the climate catastrophe that’s fast coming our way, and that this kind of waste is just a tiny drop in the bucket in the big picture, but when you hand deliver the Age of Stupid right to my front door and rub my nose in it I’m not going to suffer silently and I’m not going to stop pointing out what a world class jerk you are for doing it.
Creative Greenius 
Hope you get an answer from Jeff Bozo as to why this happens. Don’t let him get away with it, keep hounding him like you’re Michael Moore.
1) Stop shopping at Amazon, that’ll show ’em. 2) Walk, ride a bike or drive to your local Target, Office Depot etc. and pick up a calendar there. 3) Go paperless and use Google calendar.
…oh but wait, then you wouldn’t have anything to write about would you? OK never mind 🙂 Nice header picture by the way.
Now come on, Ann. We both know that Amazon doesn’t care if I shop with them or not, despite what Jeff Bezos said to me in his apology phone call. And unfortunately Target, Office Depot and even the etc. store all wanted much more money for the same calendar and I hate shopping at bricks and mortar stores. Finally, I do use a Goggle calendar on my Droid phone, iMac and Powerbook but I still like my giant 3’x2′ calendar on the back of my office door that I can see halfway across the studio. And btw, I’d still have plenty to write about even without this incident, but Amazon did make it awfully easy for me to get up a post.
Thanks for the kind word on the head pic. My wife, Deb, took the shot.
Maybe the box was being re-used rather than Amazon tossing it into the recycle bin. If that is the case — and I imagine it is — then this rant is unwarranted and you should be applauding Amazon instead of scolding them. I believe you’re assuming too much. Re-use is an appropriate use of an item like this.
The box was brand new and didn’t look like it was being repurposed in any way. And clearly it is you who is doing the wild assuming in imagining that Amazon has suddenly started a box reuse program. Go ahead and play yes-man for Amazon and applaud them if that floats your boat, but I’ll continue to rightfully scold them as they so richly deserve.
By the way, when a post is so true and right on as mine is then it doesn’t qualify as a rant. It’s simply accurate reporting designed to inform, enlighten and provoke a response.
Thanks for the post! I had the same thing here in Germany, but I thought it had to do with Amazon running low on normal size boxes because of the holidays 🙂
If you were really so worried about greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprint you probably wouldn’t do online shopping. The big retailers, Wal-mart being the best, have shipping down to an efficiency science. Since they have LARGE amounts of shipping of the same item to one location, they ultimately use a lot less in energy than FedEx or UPS running all over town.