Of FedEx, circles, arrows, paragraphs on the back

I mentioned several posts back that I ordered some items from Lee Valley, to use in The Yard. They were supposed to arrive on the 2008 Sept 09, and I finally received them on the 11th. They were available for delivery on the 9th, and there in lies the tale...

It seems that in their infinite wisdom the FedEx delivery team decided that my address was incorrect, and without actually checking to see if it was valid, took the item back to the depot and asked for a corrected address; seems since they were familiar with mega-complex at 4616, there couldn't be anything at 4416. On the 10th they wasted the time of the resident manager at the mega-complex for ages, going through the listings for all 80+ units, and not finding me [surprise!] they then entered in their machine that it was 'refused by recipient' and were going to ship it back to Ogdenburg, NY. I happened to spot this on the tracking page of FedEx website, that they claimed it was refused by recipient, and I promptly disputed this via email. After calming down [several hours task, in this case, as they lied; they hadn't had any contact with the recipient, so how could I have refused the package?] I then called FedEx' 800 number to discuss the matter. Given the hour all they could do was direct a message to the local office indicating that they had not gone to the correct location, as I'd been there the whole day, both days, and that if I didn't hear anything by noon to call them again and they'd connect me to the local. Checking the status in the morning the item was shown as out for delivery, so I waited. And waited. And waited. In the early evening I got a call from the delivery chaps, they were about 15 minutes out from my location and wanted to make sure I'd be there, as even with the manager's help they'd not found me the day before. After several minutes of increasingly irate, loud, conversation, I convinced them to try two blocks north of where they had been, like, where the address on the property matched the address on the package!!!!

I hung around outside until they showed up, flagged them down, got the package from them, and when I checked to see how they reported the delivery, it was listed as 'Left at door, signature not required'.

These two ignorant twits couldn't even use the correct codes to indicate it had been accepted by recipient.

When calm, I am going to write this up and send copies to both Lee Valley [I'd contacted them after seeing the 'refused by recipient' entry, that type of thing can destroy a credit rating if a merchant chooses to report it] and to FedEx, so they understand that their two delivery men cost FedEx time and money [gas ain't cheap, unnecessary trips add up real fast], as well as loosing FedEx any goodwill I had toward them, and caused me to be snarky at Lee Valley for using FedEx instead of UPS [hey, the UPS delivery man knows me by sight, probably even recognizes the name, OK?]

Some of you may not have caught the reference in the title of today's entry. Back in the day, Arlo Guthrie had this talking/singing epic, 'Alice's Restaurant', and at one point there is reference to Officers of the Law armed with Full Color Glossy Photographs, complete with Circles and Arrows, and Full Paragraphs on the back, and the Judge walks in, accompanied by his Seeing Eye Dog, and the officers look at the judge, the dog, their photos, and then sit down and cry; it being a typical case of American Blind Justice, ya dig? Well, these two jokers, they could read the address just fine, it's just that it didn't say what they thought it should, so they ignored it. Circles and arrows and paragraphs on the back do no good with the willfully blind. I've read the addresses on all the labels on the package, it was addressed properly, they just felt they knew better than any of the parties concerned. My family has owned this place since August of 1976, you might credit me with knowing the address better than a couple of punks who hadn't even been born when we moved here.

Dang, no matter when I write that letter to FedEx, sarcasm and contempt is going to shine through it, given my impression of the competence of those two.

They're just lucky I'm not their supervisor.

Oh, and the tools? Lovely, work just fine, worth waiting for, just shouldn't have had to wait two extra days over normal.

snark snark snark

Post this Puppy!

Follow up...

Lee Valley's made a note in my file to use UPS for me; avoids possible repeats from that end.

FedEx Local is not impressed with The Lads, and expressed a regret that whopping upside the head isn't allowed anymore; funny thing, that phone call made all the difference, I'm ready to take chances with FedEx again. But yeah, he was about as impressed as I was with the twits behavior on this one. Glad I'm not a supervisor any more, being the heavy was not something I was good at. Matter of fact, I was downright poor at it, one reason I'm glad I'm not in management any longer.