Remember the post on September 22 about my ALA profile change not sticking the first time? Since I logged back in that day after updating and viewed the changes, I felt reassured that at last, after protracted dorking around on company time (which is time I like to use for MY company, not for ALA), the changes had been made.
Then I got an email today from Membership Services, asking to confirm my OLD address. I logged in. All of my old information was there again–there wasn’t a single change made.
Here is what I do not want to do:
1. Email Membership Services and ask them to make changes (though I did email them to complain and ask for feedback)
2. Call Membership Services and ask them to make changes
3. Give someone all my personal information over the phone, which among other issues will send me the message that this is now the ONLY way to reliably update my personal information (again, on ALA’s timetable)
Here is what I want:
I want to know that when the ALA software tells me my profile is changed, and sends me a message confirming this, that my profile IS changed until I change it again.
I also would like ALA to pick up any forwarding costs for mail that is now sitting at my old address. (Yes, we filed a change of address, and how amused I was watching the hideous movie The Lake House on the flight home last week to hear a character disparage the USPS’s forwarding service, which is abysmal.)
ALA, get it to-freakin’-gether!
Posted on this day, other years:
ALA sent me an email today that told me “your membership in ALA, the American Library Association expired on November 30, 2006. ”
It’s a little thing, but you’d think they could train their email robot to know what today’s date is.
Miriam B.
A reliable system for receiving mail from an old address is to provide the new residents with two or three post-paid priority containers–the ones that have a fixed rate no matter how much material is inside. The envelopes ship for $4.05 and the boxes for $8.10. The folks at the old address can just stick your mail into the pre-addressed box and leave it at the mailbox out front. This is much better than waiting for mail forwarding, which has questionable reliability. See: http://www.usps.com/shipping/flatrate.htm?from=priority&page=flatrate
ALA membership called me, so I called back and they adjusted my profile. Apparently, word up is that this problem is not new, and not unique to me.