Friday, January 21, 2011

So here's the thing.

I don't think I am unreasonable. I am not a racist, I take people for who they are, I don't care if they are Chinese, Indian, Australian, English, French, Armenian, anything. BUT if you apply for a job as a delivery driver and ring me to ask directions I expect that you speak English. That is most definitely not too much to ask.

So I had an online grocery delivery scheduled today. Mr non-English speaking delivery man phones because as far as I can understand there is a tree down on the road he is trying to take. I can not understand him and assume that perhaps it is a bad connection from my mobile phone, so I return his call from a landline. Nope. That wasn't it. He simply couldn't speak English. So I phone head office, and I'm on hold forever before my mobile phone rings and it's a Sydney number, so I hang up the landline, answer the mobile, and find it is in fact head office for the grocery mob. They have the driver on the other line. I ask the Sydney bloke to ask Mr non-English speaking delivery man what road he is on. We conclude he is on a road that does not in fact exist. So in addition to failing to learn English as a language, he has obviously failed to learn the alphabet because he is unable to spell out from a road sign. Frustration building.

So Sydney man tries to get further information from Mr non-English speaking delivery man and comes up with zilch so says to me that he will attempt to get the delivery done after he has completed his other deliveries, or they will reissue. Okay that's fine, no problem. Delivery window is 11am to 5pm. At 6pm when still no groceries I was becoming concerned. I eventually phoned at 7.30pm. Lo and behold Sydney have no idea where Mr non-English speaking delivery man is. He has not reported in whether or not he has made the delivery, nor has he advised whether or not he intends to. So they have to get on to the transport manager. They do this and eventually come back to me that Mr non-English speaking delivery man has decided that he will not make the delivery and returned the stock to the store. Problem? Yes. He neglected to tell anyone this. So Sydney assumed the delivery had been made, while Mr non-English speaking delivery man didn't really give a toss as to what happened.

Now I have three children under three. Two of those children drink milk, and one drinks formula. I had 6 litres of milk due to arrive today. There is approximately 500ml of milk currently in my fridge. I am one very unhappy camper. I have however been assured that Mr non-English speaking delivery man will be receiving a very severe reprimand on Monday. Well in my opinion he got off lightly. What if I had formula on that list and I was relying upon it to get me through tonight? What if I had absolutely no food in the house and was relying on the delivery to feed the kids? And as they don't deliver on the weekends the soonest possible replacement delivery is Monday at 7am. Um, yes, very helpful. Not.

I'll be honest, I just about burst into tears when they said Monday was the earliest they could get back here, so I cracked it and told them to cancel the order and I would see what I could do to get people to help me on the weekend to try and get whatever I could. I repeatedly reminded them that milk in a house of three toddlers is an absolute necessity. I realise it wasn't the operator's fault, however I did want them to realise it wasn't just an order of potato chips and salsa we were talking about here (although I may just add salsa to the next order now I think about it). So very very annoying.

I still love online grocery shopping. But its glowing sheen is a little tarnished right at this moment in time.

I had other things I was going to rabble on about but to be honest they have all flown from my mind thanks to Mr non-English speaking delivery man. So thank you Mr non-English speaking delivery man for messing me up twice. Grrrrrr.

Not happy.

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