Huh? Wuh? Buh? Gah!
Mar. 3rd, 2010 06:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elkyFucking hell, what a month.
For background. I work in Australia's only Linux retail shop. In fact, I run the joint. We have a web store and a shop front. It is... all kinds of customer service-y fun. I'm actually a web developer (no, I didn't design nor develop the site, please shoot me now), so you can do the equation on that one.
A few weeks back we had a few customers order laptops. The way we get our non-windows (freedos) systems is to order then custom. The <brand name hardware manufacturer> distributor we use for custom systems is awful. Their invoices come as .txt files. No, really. I shit you not.
Anyway, one of these systems had an ETA of the 12th of February. Advised to us on the 12th of February. After much prodding. The customer was duly advised "we'll have it in ready early next week". By the 16th, we had neither system nor contact about what the fuck was up.
We prodded the distributor only to be told "Oh, really? I guess I'll look in to that" and cue them trying to find where it had ended up. We then get an ETA of the 24th. Yes. 12 days later. In other words, the distributor either a) lost the machine that would have to have been en transit on the 12th for them to give such an ETA, or b) they never even ordered it to begin with. My boss and I are split over this. I say a, he says b. Either way, it was a farce. They blamed it on Chinese New year. Chinese New Year happened after the 12th of February.
Because we couldn't provide it by the 19th, the customer cracked the shits and cancelled the order. The distributor was informed and told us that we couldn't cancel the order once it had left <brand name hardware manufacturer>'s Singapore factory. Well sorry, that's not quite true. We could cancel the order if we wanted to be personas non grata with their ordering department. Great. So much difference there. We asked if it had left... and crickets chirped. Eventually we got a response that it was too late. I could practically hear the glee.
The system arrived with the distributor last Monday. We spent until yesterday ignoring the distributor's email requests for monies and talking to our representative at <brand name hardware manufacturer>. We had to break the silence once the second shipment for another customer arrived and the distributor sales monkey got worried and finally phoned us. 20 minutes, a mention of the Trade Practices Act and me expressing utter contempt at the "You'll never work in this town again"/persona non grata missive, we got a revised stance from the distributor yesterday saying we get to cancel the overdue order without penalty. We hence received the invoice for the second system today (after both boss and I pestered for it within an hour) and paid it. Yay. Lucky us. Theoretically I'll have a system to install Ubuntu on tomorrow afternoon.
As you can imagine, all that's been fun.
But wait, there's more. All the while this has been happening, our Real Estate Agent's lawyers have been pestering us to revise the wording on the Bank Guarantee. This means that I've lost several afternoons sitting in a branch of St George waiting to talk to them about getting a diff applied to the Bank Guarantee certificate. To cut a story short, it's gone like this:
Uh. Yay?
For background. I work in Australia's only Linux retail shop. In fact, I run the joint. We have a web store and a shop front. It is... all kinds of customer service-y fun. I'm actually a web developer (no, I didn't design nor develop the site, please shoot me now), so you can do the equation on that one.
A few weeks back we had a few customers order laptops. The way we get our non-windows (freedos) systems is to order then custom. The <brand name hardware manufacturer> distributor we use for custom systems is awful. Their invoices come as .txt files. No, really. I shit you not.
Anyway, one of these systems had an ETA of the 12th of February. Advised to us on the 12th of February. After much prodding. The customer was duly advised "we'll have it in ready early next week". By the 16th, we had neither system nor contact about what the fuck was up.
We prodded the distributor only to be told "Oh, really? I guess I'll look in to that" and cue them trying to find where it had ended up. We then get an ETA of the 24th. Yes. 12 days later. In other words, the distributor either a) lost the machine that would have to have been en transit on the 12th for them to give such an ETA, or b) they never even ordered it to begin with. My boss and I are split over this. I say a, he says b. Either way, it was a farce. They blamed it on Chinese New year. Chinese New Year happened after the 12th of February.
Because we couldn't provide it by the 19th, the customer cracked the shits and cancelled the order. The distributor was informed and told us that we couldn't cancel the order once it had left <brand name hardware manufacturer>'s Singapore factory. Well sorry, that's not quite true. We could cancel the order if we wanted to be personas non grata with their ordering department. Great. So much difference there. We asked if it had left... and crickets chirped. Eventually we got a response that it was too late. I could practically hear the glee.
The system arrived with the distributor last Monday. We spent until yesterday ignoring the distributor's email requests for monies and talking to our representative at <brand name hardware manufacturer>. We had to break the silence once the second shipment for another customer arrived and the distributor sales monkey got worried and finally phoned us. 20 minutes, a mention of the Trade Practices Act and me expressing utter contempt at the "You'll never work in this town again"/persona non grata missive, we got a revised stance from the distributor yesterday saying we get to cancel the overdue order without penalty. We hence received the invoice for the second system today (after both boss and I pestered for it within an hour) and paid it. Yay. Lucky us. Theoretically I'll have a system to install Ubuntu on tomorrow afternoon.
As you can imagine, all that's been fun.
But wait, there's more. All the while this has been happening, our Real Estate Agent's lawyers have been pestering us to revise the wording on the Bank Guarantee. This means that I've lost several afternoons sitting in a branch of St George waiting to talk to them about getting a diff applied to the Bank Guarantee certificate. To cut a story short, it's gone like this:
- Agent's Lawyers: We don't like this guarantee. We want different words. Here, make the Bank change the words in Clause 1 to <redundant wanky string of words>.
- Me: *originally doesn't get the fwd from the boss for some reason, but eventually, weeks later gets it fwd'd and goes to work on it*
- Me: Bank, this might sound silly, but the Real Estate Agent's Lawyers want these words changed to these other words. Please? With sugar and sprinkles and a cherry on top?
- Bank: Lolwat? Nobody's ever wanted to change a bank guarantee before in the whole entire history of before. Oh, but we have this form for doing it. *flail* Please come back with more informations! Kthx!
- Me: *Goes back and after being sidelined from Useful Stuff for a week by a sick shop hand, then catches up on missed useful stuff and kinda but not completely forgets about Bank Guarantee*
- Agent's Lawyers: We don't have new Guarantee. Bad leasee, bad. We want explanations by 7 days or you're out on your tush. Got it?!
- Me: *Runs to bank with extra paperwork gathered at leisure during the previous week.*
- Me: Halps!?
- Bank: Lolwat? (different person this time) We can't do that. It's like a contract. With this awesome contractyness about it. I'll have our lawyers write a letter for them to say this. Mkay?
- Me: Yay!
- Me: *Runs back and writes email to Agent's Lawyers to inform of Bank's decision and reasoning and promise them a love letter from other lawyers*
- Bank: Oh hai. We changed our mind. We can change the Guarantee after all! Yay!
- Me: Hai lawyers, the bank can change the Guarantee afterall. We need old Guarantee though. Plzkthx.
- Agent's Lawyers: Oh hai. We changed our mind too. Nevermind. Kthx!
- Me: Huh? Wuh? Buh? Gah!
Uh. Yay?