Hey gang - its Friday, its been a long week, I’m working tomorrow, and in the middle of trying to find a use of the 2004 set of sweets catalog, which I just took out of the box:
In no particular order:
Uses for my Sweets Catalogs:
They probably make great doorstops
Great for laminating artwork
Maybe a quickie bookcase - now where can I find some shelves? Let’s see the old drawing board - hmmm!
Back to the list:
Mad at my teenage daughter - could use them to lock her in her room? Nahh, that does not work.
Great bookends
Good for a printer stand
You know I could use some exercise…one, two, one, two - ok how about in lieu of barbells
Let’s see, couple more uses -
wonder, need to change the oil in the old car, could they be used instead of my car jacks?
Monitor stand
Could use them as projectile weapons on clients who don’t pay their bills - nahh, not enough projectiles, and I could hurt myself.
Well you all get the idea - now Colin, don’t delete this, how about it any other uses for my sweets catalogs -
Please help or they go in the recycling bin!!!
These are cute guys, but seriously, I have found that the VO-Tech Center here in town likes to receive them as a tool to teach high school students preparing to enter the building trades how to do product research. They always get my old set every year.
Yes Margaret that is a good use, however I have tried to donate them in the past, however I needed to have someone come get them - and no one ever came - though I did call several organizations. Well, I expect to try that when I get the 2005 set.
Anyone else being pestered by McGraw Hill and their legion of salespeople to buy the 2005 set? We decided in 2003 to discontinue ordering these dinosaurs, but still get multiple calls from people trying to sell them to us (order now and save $$!).
We not only cannot give them away when we have them, we cannot, evidently, refuse to order them (we were sent the 2004 collection for free after repeadetly declining to order).
The calls are getting to be quite annoying. They were still trying to push the 2004 Sweets as late as July. I think they must be overstocked with leftovers and desperate to boost sales for 2005. I work for a large firm and each and every architect fowards calls to me. I get at least one a day. I have tried to tell them not to call, but it doesn’t work.
I knew someone who couldn’t get their trash people to haul them away (too heavy) so he buried them.. and 10 years later, he found them in perfect condition.. when he was trying to plant a tree. Marc Chavez and I managed to burn one volume, (purely in the interests of science) but you have to fan the pages to get enough air into the thing to combust.
Regarding anon’s comment about receiving a 2004 set, even after repeatedly declining the order … sounds to me like McGraw Hill is becoming a scam artist. Check out this website (http://www.opwa.org/scams.htm). Quoting the article “Knowing your rights. If you receive supplies or bills for services you didn’t order, don’t pay, and don’t return the unordered merchandise. You may treat unordered merchandise as a gift. By law, it’s illegal for a seller to send you bills or dunning notices for unordered merchandise, or ask you to return it, even if the seller offers to pay for shipping” … they even tell you at the bottom of the page where you can register a complaint.
And, I agree with the annoying and numerous telephone calls. It finally got to the point towards the end of last year and the beginning of this, that whenever someone representing McGraw Hill would call, I would ask to speak to their supervisor and I would complain about the incessant calls. Supposedly, they put something in their computer that said we should not receive any more calls and that any call should come directly to me and no one else … but it didn’t do much good because the calls did continue even after we were supposedly put on the “special” list. Although (knock on wood), I don’t think we’ve received calls lately so maybe it did work after all (and I better not have jinxed myself by telling y’all about it either)!
Jerome, I just happened across your posting and have one more use to add if I may, although belatedly. In college we found that the slick pages in the catalogues made fabulous paper airplanes and spent a good deal of time throwing them out our third floor studio windows when the winds were just right. This went on much of the school year until a passerby complained to the dean that the College of Environmental Design wasn’t being very environmental. She had a grocery bag full of airplanes to prove it! Guess we should have gone into aeronautics.
Well my list is not yet complete, work load has been so busy have not had a chance to complie the list - so you all still have time to add your Sweets Catalog Uses - actually, I thought about mailing one volume to a current client who called me on Friday at 6pm EST and asked for specs on a job by the following Monday without a signed contract as a personal favor to him - I figured due to its sheer weight, he would be so excited to think I would respond that fast to his ridiculous request the week before x-mas break. I haven’t done it yet, but I am considering it and if successful it will be added to the list.
H’mm, I wonder if McGraw Hill will blackball for this?
I just stumbled on two big boxes in our reception area - Sweets 2005. I was suprised to see them, more suprised to find they had my name on them (especially since I don’t handle the library and I’ve only been here 7 months). I checked and found that the 2003 copy in the library is pristine, and the 2004 copy is still in the box.
We received Sweets in both of our offices because our staff of 5 are all SCIP members. We received 2 sets in NJ and 10 sets in PA - 7 sets were refused only because someone was there when UPS arrived.
The UPS delivery man reported that he just visited a one-man engineering office and dropped 17 sets on the porch (That should teach him to be out of the office). That delivery should be enough for all the architectural firms in a 10 mile radius.
The same day we received the sets in NJ, I got call from Sweets trying to sell me a set. Fortunately I could tell them: “We’ve already got them, you see. Thank you very much.”