Adam Kalsey

This is the blog of Adam Kalsey. Unusual depth and complexity. Rich, full body with a hint of nutty earthiness.

Products and Tools

Amazon Reactivated

4 Dec 2003

As if my hassles buying a phone through Amazon.com were not enough, now I have a new wrinkle. I received the phone by FedEx last Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. It wasn’t activated like it was supposed to be and I spent much of the day working with AT&T to get things straightened out and the phone turned on. On Friday I received an email from Amazon stating that my order was delayed and would be shipped the day before Thanksgiving. I chalked the email up to delays caused by the Thanksgiving holiday.

This morning I received another email from Amazon.com. My order has been shipped, the phone is activated, and here’s my new phone number. There’s even a FedEx tracking number that shows my shipping status—for the original delivery last Wednesday.

Calling AT&T, I discovered that I now have two accounts. One for the original activation and one for the new number that Amazon has just sent. Of course I cancelled the new number, but AT&T is unable to tell me if I’ll see any activation charges on my next bill. They don’t know if any additional charges will show up, but if they do, I’m to call them back and have those charges reversed.

It appears that Amazon’s systems aren’t well synced between the physical delivery of phones and the creation of wireless accounts. Although my phone was available and shipped immediately, it took a week for them to create my wireless account. During that week, Amazon’s systems thought my order hadn’t shipped yet because a portion of hte order (the activation) was still pending.

It’s great that Amazon shipped the phone as soon as it was ready, but I’m curious as to why it took a week to get a phone number. Any idiot can do that in half an hour over the phone. I thought automation was supposed to speed things up.It also would have been nice had Amazon included a note with the phone shipment explaining that the activation was still pending and that I’d get an email when it was complete.

Recently Written

Your OKR Cascade is Breaking Your Strategy
Aug 1: Most companies cascade OKRs down their org chart thinking it creates alignment. Instead, it fragments strategy and marginalizes supporting teams. Here's what works better than the waterfall approach.
Your Prioritization Problem Is a Strategy Problem
Jul 23: Most teams struggle with prioritization because they're trying to optimize for everything at once. The real problem isn't having too many options—it's not having a clear strategy to choose between them. Without strategy, every decision feels equally important. With strategy, most decisions become obvious.
Behind schedule
Jul 21: Your team is 6 weeks late and still missing features. The solution isn't working harder—it's accepting that your deadlines were fake all along. Ship what you have. Cut ruthlessly. Stop letting "one more day" turn into one more month.
VC’s Future Lies In Building Winners
Jun 21: AI and megafunds are about to kill the traditional venture model, forcing smaller VCs to stop hunting for hidden gems and start rolling up their sleeves to fix broken companies instead.
Should individual people have OKRs?
May 14: A good OKR describes and measures an outcome, but it can be challenging to create an outcome-focused OKR for an individual.
10 OKR traps and how to avoid them
May 8: I’ve helped lots of teams implement OKRs or fix a broken OKR process. Here are the 10 most common problems I see, and what to do instead.
AI is Smart, But Wisdom Requires Judgement
May 3: AI can process data at lightning speed, but wisdom comes from human judgment—picking the best imperfect option when facts alone don’t point the way.
Decoding Product Leadership Titles
Mar 18: Not all product leadership titles mean what they sound like. ‘Head of Product’ can mean anything from a senior PM to a true VP. Here’s how to tell the difference.

Older...

What I'm Reading