A few of you who ordered the book  received some strange and confusing notices during the shipping process. Things such as, and I’m paraphrasing, “Your books have shipped!” “Oops! They haven’t.” “They really have shipped now!” “No, they have not!” “I tell you they have shipped!” “I tell you, they have not!” And so on. This is because of our little friend, the thermal printer.

A your-package-has-shipped email is generated automatically every time a label is sent to the printer. If the label fails to print correctly, the label must be cancelled, and a your-shipment-has-been-canceled email is generated. Some lucky buyers received several such messages! The thermal printer is a hellish little animal that makes life in the mailroom miserable at the same time it makes it possible. Finally, we have learned how to talk to it and stroke it and make it comfortable, and it works as designed most of the time. The alarming your-shipment-has-been-canceled notifications are at a minimum.

There are IT people among you. What I want to know is, does anything ever work as it is supposed to work, right out of the box?