October 19, 2005
Complete Waste of Time
No, sorry, I've misled you all with the idea that this was a post about Monty Python, and I duly apologize for that.
This is about something completely fucking up despite all of your best efforts and hard work to make it end up otherwise.
We commission larger vehicles (box trucks, stake beds, etc.) from several truck rental chains. We went with one of our usual providers for a box truck that was needed yesterday. They delivered it, everything seemed to be going off without a hitch, and then the rain hit.
The customer called back within an hour with a perfectly valid complaint that the windshield wipers fell apart, and that the cargo space was leaking like a sieve.
They had to transport electronics all the way to Chico, so this shit wasn't going to fly. So I had them call the chain (after all, we're only the mediators and it's their vehicle), and work out an exchange that would take place on our premises. Of course, the only one they had available was 70 miles away. With the rain and the traffic, it'd be two hours at least. Great.
And then they acted like I was going to say, "Well, fuck it, a little rain never hurt any disgustingly expensive electronics!"
Which, you know me. I didn't.
So they said they'd bring it in two hours. This was at 4 p.m. Our office closes at 5. The lot attendant went out to check if there were electronics in the back like the customer said...nothing there. And we had this huge-ass truck parked smack-dab in the middle of the fuel island, taking up four vehicles' worth of space because of the supposed electronics. So I said fuck it, told the lot attendant to take it up to the top of one of the parking structures, bring me the keys, and I'd take care of the rest.
So I called the customer, told them the situation, told them my plans, called all co-workers on the evening shift, told them what was happening, called the manager of the truck rental chain and told them what I was going to do with the truck and asked them to repeat it to the driver, and assumed everything was fine.
Came in this morning, and fine went out the fucking window. Apparently the people were late with the truck after telling me that it would be there at 6:30, they never called the customer (whose cell number I gave to them), the customer was freaking out thinking that they weren't going to get a truck, which caused my high-strung night shift co-worker to freak out and start calling people, and the manager didn't tell the driver a goddamn thing that I asked them to tell him. To top it all off, my manager walks in from a late work session to find all of this bullshit taking place and came in this morning a little hacked off over the proceedings. Luckily I told him what all I had done and he chalked it up to incompetence on everyone else's part, but...fuck.
Posted by Jake at October 19, 2005 06:09 AM
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