The Entrez CD-ROM and the Government Printing Office (US)

[David Kristofferson]

rhughes at ucsd.edu (Richard J. Hughes) writes:

>Has anyone else been having trouble ordering the Entrez CD-ROM from the US 
>Government Printing Office?  I have had plenty of difficulty.

>I initially faxed an order, waited, received no response and faxed a 
>query.  Still no reponse.  Thanks to help from the Net, I managed to locate 
>their voice telephone number.  I had in fact sent the faxes to the correct 
>telephone number but they had been ignored because they didn't include a 
>check (?...but that's what they said).  I wonder why they even have a FAX 
>number.

>When you call the Gov't Printing Office, you are put on hold for a long 
>time. When someone finally answers, the audio is so faint as to be almost 
>indiscernable (maybe 5 dB above background).  I and one of our secretaries 
>have called them on four separate occasions and have made very little 
>headway.  The audio always borders on the inaudible and whoever you speak to 
>passes the buck (and you) to someone else.  You can just tell that they
>aren't interested in selling you this CD-ROM.

>Turns out that they won't send out the goods without prepayment.  UCSD 
>P.O.'s aren't good enough.  But UCSD can't generate a P.O. number without an 
>invoice.  The Gov't printing office doesn't want to send invoices without 
>the goods.  Catch 22.

>**<<flame on>>**
>It ticks me off that I'm paying taxes to support these bozos in a job 
>that they don't give a damn about.
>**<<flame off>>**

>Maybe the best thing to do is not to order from them.  That way maybe the 
>Gov't won't be able to justify paying all those bozos to jerk us around.

>Richard


Tsk, tsk (silence).  This is doubly sad because Yuki Abe who worked
very hard in her former role handling GenBank orders at IG is now out
looking for a job .... such are the ways of the world 8-(.

				Sincerely,

				Dave Kristofferson
				BIOSCI/bionet Manager

				kristoff at net.bio.net