I can’t wait for the next courtesy call from their rep…

To start with: one of our customers (Ethiopian Airlines – hi Zewdu 🙂 ) had an AOG (that’s Aircraft On Ground = emergency) requirement for a set of wheel change jacks. This wasn’t a problem, I quoted, got the job, got paid, got the jacks and they’d arranged for DHL to pickup the box.

This was last Wednesday…

Thursday morning – still no DHL, so I emailed Zewdu who got on their case, cue an apologetic email from DHL. Made it clear to them we closed at 4pm that day for the Easter break – I even hung about for half an hour or so, but the wankers never turned up.

Back to work Tuesday and immediately emailed Zewdu, who decided to fuck them off and use another courier – who was there within an hour, got the box to the airport and it was flown out on the first flight.

Once this was assured, I emailed Zewdu, CCing in the DHL contacts, expressing my company’s displeasure in DHL’s (lack of) performance, and stressing that it was in no way down to us that the shipment had been unnecessarily delayed. Got a reply back from him thanking me for my help and communication and we should continue to get their business. Woo!

Score 1 for me, 0 for DHL.

Then today…oh my god, my head is still hurting…

Another of our customers – European Air Transport (based in Belgium), is the air freight side of guess which company? uh huh – DHL.

We’d had a couple of jacks in for repair from them and they were ready for collection so I’d emailed them to let them know the address of the workshop, complete with contact details for them to arrange it (they ARE a transport company after all…).

Got a reply back simply saying, “Please arrange for shipment using our DHL account number 9XXXXXXXXX” 😐

So, I went to DHL’s website to get a phone number (because apparently you can only book a web collection using an account number beginning 16 or 17 or something – my brain has shut that out now), and spent 10 minutes (honestly!) looking for a link on the site for a contact number, slowly growing more and more irritated (Corina will vouch for the amount of ‘Fuckers!’, ‘c*nts!’, ‘wankers!’ coming from my office – the boss disappeared for a snack).

FINALLY got a contact number (you know, those automated fuckers) and after pressing1, 2, sacrificing a small chicken, 4, 9, I got through to a (sub)human – Zoe (actually, she sounded lovely, but she was a couple of beers short of a sixpack methinks…).

Started off giving her the account number, then said, “It’s the customer’s account – you’ll be picking up from a UK address.” All I could hear on the phone was mouth breathing (heh) as she laboriously typed the number in, then brightly said “Sorry, I can only take pickups from the UK.”

~~~ Small vein starts pulsing in my forehead ~~~

“No,” I patiently explained, “that’s the customer’s account – you’ll be picking it up from our workshop.” and proceeded to give her the address and contact details (very slowly, repeating and spelling everything for her).

“Is it ok if I put you on hold and give our local branch a call to see if they can pickup today?” Zoe said at the end of this.

“Yeah, fine.” I dully replied, rapidly losing the will to live.

3 minutes later she came back on – “I’m so sorry,” she began, “I’ll have to take those collection details again – my computer screen just wiped them.”

Yeah right you silly cow – I work in IT and computers ALWAYS do that – it has nothing to do with the ‘user too stupid to operate a computer’ error so common…

So, I gave her the details AGAIN – once again spelling all the words over 1 syllable 😐

Back on hold again for 2 minutes, then she was back: “Sorry,” she began “I’m getting no reply – can I take your name and number and call you back?”

So, with the beginnings of a major bad mood upon me, I gave her the office number, my name and hung up, then decided what I needed was a good hit of caffeine, so off to the canteen I trundle only to find THERE’S NO FUCKING BLACK COFFEE LEFT!

Stomped back to the office, told Corina I was going to get some food and coffee from the B&Q burger van (lovely burgers), and if Zoe rang, to tell her I’d died of an aneurysm.

And now, having eaten my burger and got most of the way through my coffee, I’m feeling calm again.

Fuck DHL – TNT are far, far better in my eyes anyway…