Every now and again I pat myself on the back for having relaxed so much since coming to Spain. No longer do I get a nervous twitch when having to wait 20 minutes at the bank while they discuss their life history instead of getting on with their transactions; if someone turns up late then I only start to get slighty irritated after they are more than an hour late as I would be shocked if they turned up on time.
But every now and again.....
I signed up for a Cuenta Nomina with ING, who in the interests of security will only send the documents by courier to delivered directly into your grubby little hands. And they chose UPS - a global, established company to make the delivery.
The first day I missed the delivery but that´s ok - I didn´t know it was coming. So I duly call them to rearrange a time and they ask me when I will be available. 9-5 I tell them being generous I think giving them an 8 hour window to deliver.
At 4pm I call to make sure they are coming as I had to leave at 5pm to collect the children. ´He will be there by 6pm´ was the reply. So I calmly explain that I have to leave at 5pm and I explained that when I had arranged the delivery. ´Delivery times are 9-6pm, if you can´t wait go home and we will deliver tomorrow´. Feeling my blood starting to boil I explain that I have already wasted a day waiting and do not plan to do it again tomorrow, so he grudgingly says he can get the warehouse at Sevilla to call me - but it will take at least 60 minutes so I might as well just wait. Grrr.
60 minutes later - no delivery, no phonecall. So I check their website to find that there was apparently no-one at the address and the package could not be delivered. By now I have been waiting in the office for 10 HOURS, the kids are with me complaining how hungry and bored they are - and quite rightly so.
So I go into Spanish mode and phone them to tell them how incompetent they are and that tomorrow I want the driver to call me if he can´t find the office. Oh God forbid. That is not possible they tell me as he does not have a phone in the truck and couldn´t possibly call clients.
All thought of giving them any leeway has now been blown right out of the water and is not helped when they tell me I am not allowed to talk to the warehouse in Sevilla to find out why the cretin did not deliver.
So I can´t talk to the delivery driver, he can´t call me and I can´t call the distribution centre to help them use the map book to find the only block of shops in a small urbanisation?
Mix centralisation with Andalucian lack of urgency and you have UPS - Utterly Pitiful Service.
My advice? If you want to use a courier service choose a more local one like MRW who you know will want to get all their deliveries out of the way before 2pm so they can have their long lunch or siesta!
