fig. 1: corporate duck

But they don’t give you a lot of design direction. After internal debate about how to decorate the duck, we had to send the following request to the A2Y Chamber for clarification:

Dear A2Y Chamber:

As we at Metro Delivery prepare to customize our Corporate Duck for the A2Y Chamber Corporate Duck Challenge at the Heritage Festival in Ypsilanti, questions have arisen about specific limitations that may be imposed on the project, hypothetically.

Is there any reason to believe the following enhancements may disqualify our duck?

1. Remote Control Engines or Propulsion Rockets

2. Trained Mice inside on a paddlewheel or rowing, galley-style

3. Proximity-Triggered machine guns and/or flamethrowers

4. The substitution of an actual duck for the plastic one provided

Although there is little likelihood that our final design will incorporate all  or any of these accessories specifically, Metro Delivery’s Corporate Policy requires that we clearly define the extreme parameters of a challenge, in order to achieve best results-  and to prepare defenses and contingencies, i.e. if a competing duck will be firing torpedoes, we may choose to armor our Corporate Duck’s  undercarriage.

 We look forward to the event on August 19th, and thank you and the A2Y Chamber for sponsoring and coordinating the Corporate Duck Challenge!

Sincerely,

Metro Delivery

…the A2Y Chamber was quick to respond that motors and explosive devices were prohibited, which was a little disappointing.

Evidently any other modifications are fair game however, so we went with our TRUE SECRET PLAN: We replaced their Duck with our trained Company Penguin, Presto. Bet they never saw that coming.

fig. 2: corporate penguin

Extensive testing of his swimming ability was performed in the Metro Delivery kitchen, and Presto performed admirably.

fig.3: corporate penguin flotation test

As a coup de grâce we gave him a package to deliver to the finish line, as incentive.

fig 4: penguin, loaded.

Come on out to Riverside Park in Ypsilanti this Sunday 8/19/2012 to cheer for Metro’s duck! er, penguin! Race starts at 3:30 PM!

Race results next week! We think Presto will do great- unless the herring are running.

Here’s the background: for years, we’ve been fielding the occasional phone call from people around the State of Arizona, regarding a notice of failed delivery left on their door by a “Metro Delivery.”

They reach us because we’re the at the top of the Google Searches for Metro Delivery. We always tell those people that we operate out of Michigan, and it must be another, unaffiliated “Metro Delivery” that they’re looking for.

We don’t operate in Arizona, though we’re licensed for deliveries there if called upon to do so. And that is also what we told the Arizona Attorney General’s Office when they started calling up regarding complaints they’d received about this other “Metro Delivery.” -it’s not us, Arizona Attorney General.

Arizona’s a long way from Michigan, so we paid all of this little mind.

Then two weeks ago we were Googling ourselves, the way internet-savvy businesses do nowadays, and we discover that this other “Metro Delivery” has set up a clumsy, amateurish website, (metrodeliveryDOTorg as opposed to our legitimate metrodelivery.com)- and look! It features our own logo from the photos on our facebook page, with the stylish “METRO” logo designed by Graphic Artist Judy Stopke, and Presto the Penguin as rendered by Sebastian, our Business Development Manager.

Here’s a screenshot of their technologically-impaired site, featuring our Purloined Penguin posed ironically next to the phrase: ” Metro Delivery Practices High Ethical and Professional Practices.”

OK, now they had our undivided attention.

Other highlights from their website:

• There’s no mailing or physical address listed for their business, there’s no phone number listed for their business,  just a couple blocky email contact forms, which is a heck of a way to run a delivery business.
• They don’t know how to spell “Perishable.”
• Their company slogan: “Where Affordability and Great Customer Service Goes Hand-in Hand” would be awkward even if the grammar wasn’t wrong.
• The website is registered under what appears to be a false phone number, which belongs to a cosmetics representative in Massachusetts, or something.

And we looked around on the internet and we found this thread, which provides much speculation about the activity of these jokers.  Sheesh.  Honestly, we don’t want to know.

On the advice of our attorney, we sent them this  message through their blocky email forms:

“Hi There! We’re Metro Delivery of Ann Arbor Michigan. Kindly immediately cease and desist use of our proprietary logo featuring the penguin, which you took from our legitimate Metro Delivery Facebook page for use on your extremely suspicious .org website.”

…and within 24 hours our penguin was released, replaced by a small map of Arizona and the catchy phrase: “Ve Service the Entire Sta”.

…So apparently they got the message.

We hope this blog entry serves as an official notice that we here at Metro Delivery of Ann Arbor not only are completely unaffiliated with the alleged Metro Delivery of Arizona, but further, that we view their activities with disapproval and extreme suspicion. There’s something pretty sneaky going on there in the Sunshine State.

Thankfully, now, Presto the Penguin is safely back here at our offices in Michigan, enjoying a nice warm cup of herring soup and recovering from this harrowing experience. What kind of people would take a poor little penguin to Arizona, of all places, anyway?