*Other, equally useless, courier companies are available.
Over the last couple of weeks I have been ordering a lot of things for the access trolleys and the quiet space at our new site: from fidget toys and ear defenders to weighted shoulder wraps, twiddle muffs and friendly puppets. Families arriving with children who have additional needs will be able to pick up a sensory bag to take on their journey around the galleries, and adults will be able to choose the items they need to support their visit. In the quiet space there will be calming things for people feeling overwhelmed or reflective.
All of the things have had to be delivered by people who are paid (admittedly extremely badly, in some cases) to do exactly this: deliver things. It is their job. It is the sole reason for the existence of their employers: DHL, Evri, Royal Mail, Yodel and so on. I buy something on a website. The company dispatches the item, either by taking their parcels to the appropriate parcel place or by handing them over to the courier company when they come to collect them. The parcels are taken to a hub. They are sent from the hub to local delivery depots for collection by the local courier. The local courier picks them up and (ideally, in theory) delivers them to the person who ordered them: in this case, me.
This seems simple, yes? Order thing, thing sent, thing received. Unless something goes wrong between point A (the company) and point B (me), this should be the end of things. Things do go wrong, often with Evri in my experience: things disappear in transit, they experience ‘shrinkage’ in the warehouse, the courier throws all the parcels in a ditch in protest at being paid 50p a day or something, the parcel is ripped open in transit and arrives damaged and missing some bits which point A then has to make good so point B can start her new crochet project (for example), the parcels go back five paces, miss a turn and do not pass Go, that sort of thing. These things can often be resolved although not in the case of shrinkage/eddies in the space-time continuinuinuinuum when there is no hope and one must attempt to deal with customer service. The company has my money and I have the goods I have paid for. Like I say, this should be the end of things.
Ah, if only. If only.
I had two days off earlier in the week courtesy of the Grandtwins, who shared a particularly virulent bug with the family last weekend and which knocked out me, my Beloved, Things 2 and 3 like skittles on Sunday night. When I opened my emails on Wednesday the full horror of ordering things online (from UK companies, not even the big river) dawned in the shape of messages from Evri, DHL, Yodel, Royal Mail asking ‘how did we do?*’. Well, you did your job. Jolly well done. That’s really the very least we can expect.
Readers, I work in a ground floor office in the middle of Islington. Drivers can pull up literally outside, step from van to door, ring the buzzer and someone will come and relieve them of the parcel within 30 seconds. It is not rocket science. It is not even normal science. Not a single one of these drivers is ever required to abseil through a skylight, steer a speedboat through shark-infested waters, climb a mountain, freeclimb over a precipitous balcony and confront a vicious chihuahua armed with only a balaclava in order to leave a box of mediocre chocolates parcel on my desk. So why, therefore, should I be expected to rate their ability to hand a box to someone?
I am, of course, aware that these pesky emails are autogenerated. They’re also unsolicited, as I opt out of all of these things – when given the option. Any complaints made via this system aren’t read anyway and it tells you this from the off – especially in the case of the larger companies whose customer service is provided by bots until you accidentally enter the day’s prize password which grants you your wish to engage briefly and usually unsatisfactorily with an alleged human. In the cultural sector we talk about not doing evaluation for the sake of evaluation: ratings collected and input into some spreadsheet which is filed away and occasionally used to say things like ‘90% of our sessions are rated as excellent’ in a funding bid. Nothing is acted upon, so nothing improves, and the world (at least in my opinion) is made just a little bit worse by having to waste time deleting these unasked for, resource-wasting, AI-generated emails from your inbox.
The one that particularly annoyed me this week was nothing to do with work, however. It was from Evri, relating to a Wool Warehouse parcel they had mostly delivered. The new Attic 24 blanket CAL (crochet-a-long) started last Friday so I opened the yarn pack I’d ordered ready to start. I have never taken part in a CAL before so I was looking forward to it.
Six balls of yarn were missing, including the second colour needed from the pattern, some of the bands were ripped and the yarn was unravelling, so I emailed the yarn company who were wonderful as always. On Monday the WW team responded by 9am and despatched the missing yarn. Evri had damaged the original parcel and shoved most of the contents back in any-which-way before taping it up, sticking a new label on and delivering it to me (a day later than expected). The replacement yarn was sent on Monday, next-day delivery. It turned up two days later. So, a parcel that should never have been necessary, delivered late….and they ask you ‘how did we do?’ It doesn’t matter how amazing an online retailer is, how fast they send your parcel and how beautifully packaged it is, if the customer experience is marred by the delivery experience. Royal Mail is now so expensive to send parcels with that the courier companies have customers and retailers over a barrel. Or at least they would, if the barrel had been delivered on time.
*This isn’t even considering the emails from the companies supplying the actual products, who also emailed me. And heaven forbid you leave something in your basket, or put something in your basket and then remove it – that’s a whole new inbox of wheedling, passive-aggressive emails trying to tempt you back.
Things making me happy this week
- Getting lots of reading done, which at least makes being ill more bearable
- Deciding what to do with the enormous pile of 4-ply granny squares I’ve been glaring at for months
- The first ridiculous amigurumi of the year. He’s a KING prawn!
- Making a skirt with cargo pockets. Not sure they’re sewed on quite right but they do the job!
It’s been a creative week, as you can see – later today I am off to Heather’s for a crafty afternoon as we’re not going to the wool show this weekend. This week I have a couple of evenings with friends planned which I’m very much looking forward to!
I’ll leave you with a picture of Bailey looking singularly unimpressed….
Same time next week, everyone. How did I do?
Kirsty x
What I’ve been reading:
Mudlarking – Lara Maiklem (Audible)
Cold Shoulder Road/Midwinter Nightingale/The Witch of Clatteringshaws – Joan Aiken
There Will Be Bodies – Lindsey Davis
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy/The Restaurant at the End of the Universe – Douglas Adams (Audible)
The Retired Assassin’s Guide to Orchid Hunting – Naomi Kuttner
Vagabond – Tim Curry
What Kirsty did next 