Frustration Friday

Everybody has days like that. They just manifest in different ways, is all. Here is how it works on my job.

There was the morning cookie delivery. Stop in at bakery X, pick up the order ( two dozen chocolate chip cookies in a grocery store style tray, thin aluminum with a snap-over clear plastic lid - how cheap!), and deliver them to house Y. No problem, they'll be home, and you can't leave them and walk away if they're not, because they're cookies, and hey, they'll be there.

Except, when you get there and walk up the long walk and up the stairs and on to the porch and ring the bell, you can't hear anything. You don't know if it works or not. You ring again, and this time the little outer ring around the button lights up, so, hey, maybe it didn't work before and it does now. Except the button stays in and the ring stays lit. Oops, don't want to annoy the people, so you quickly shoot out your fingernail and pry the button back out of where it's stuck.

Nobody comes anyway. You try again after a decent interval, and this time nothing lights up again. OK, try knocking - no, not with that hand, idiot, set the cookies down on the step and use the good hand. Nothing? Knock again. The bell may never have worked for you, and this may still be the only way they know you're there. If, that is, they're not stuck in the shower or the basement or, well, anywhere out of range of your puny knocking noise.

OK, time to dig out the Nextel and reread the text, see if you've missed anything. It's happened. Nope, right address, no phone number, no other instructions. Now it's time to dig out the cell and call dispatch. Perhaps they have a number or two to either roust the household or get an OK to leave it.

They'll call you back. Meanwhile, the knees are getting really unhappy with all the standing, but there's good stonework surrounding the door that offers a sturdy seat. Right out where the cold north wind pours right down your back. You could go back to the car, but if the OK comes through to leave the cookies, you just have to do the walking and stairs all over again. So, alternate standing in shelter from the wind with sitting in the wind, knees versus freeze.

OK, here's a call. The bakery lady is puzzled. No answers there. She was assured he would be home. The sender has already said do not leave, and now that number gets only voicemail, as does the company switchboard. So I can wait some more while my phone helper goes and talks with our head boss and tries to get a determination on the cookies. They are only worth $14. How much of a damage claim can there be? Should we risk leaving them?

While I wait, I amuse myself with imagining the people behind the order. Wife sending hubby cookies? Boss sending to "sick" employee? And what would take such a recipient out of the house when everyone is positive he's really there? Cheating om wifey? gone to the casino? Or is he really sick, too much so to come to the door? How much trouble will he be in when his absence is found out?

While I'm on hold with everything but my imagination, a workman comes to the door from the outside - hey, I didn't see anybody drive up - and asks if I'm trying to deliver something. I point to the cookies still on the step. He asks if I need a signature. Yes, of course, are you perhaps Mr. Y? He is. He signs, and I carefully hand him the cookies.

It seems he's actually been home, just working in the garage. (That's real helpful.) As he returns to whatever he's been doing, I notice that he grabs the cookies tray on one end and lets the rest fall down, no doubt breaking into crumbs in the process. Perhaps he's as impressed with the delivery as I was. Maybe he wanted molasses cookies instead.

Later in the day, when I'm in a big hurry because something else is going to be late, I get a run to a familiar stop. When I pull up to the dock, there's a sign with tiny lettering on the door. It's small enough that I have to climb up the dock stairs to read it. It says they've moved their delivery point to another end of the building.

OK, I put the box back in the car, and drive to that one, which has another tiny print sign on it. The special kind of freight I'm delivering goes to yet another door, around the corner.

Sigh!!! Emphatically. OK, reload the box, AGAIN, and drive around the corner. No sign on this door. Let's hope that this time it's good news. It's only 5 wasted minutes, but the customer waiting for my next package will not care that it's only 5 minutes later than it already was going to be.

The story of why the next one is already late winds up being a wild goose chase. We're told to pick this one up at the dock. Nothing unusual, but this dock is underground, and a gate arm and security speaker bar the entrance. After pushing the button and explaining my errand and instructions, the guard asks me if I have the name of the person who authorized this visit? That information is no longer provided to us mere drivers. We are apparently incapable of handling it. So I tell him no, and he makes a/some calls. After about 5 minutes of my blocking traffic, he refuses me entry and sends me around to the guard desk inside the front door instead. OK, no biggie. Nor is it the first time at this building, but we have to follow the instructions on our orders.

At the guard desk, I wait a couple minutes because somebody's magnetic pass card has expired. She's set off alarms, and that needs to be dealt with. Then I explain what I'm looking for, some small package to company Z. He looks around his station. Nada. He points me to a table where both incoming and outgoing packages sit, a handy spot between the door and guard station where things can come and go without needing Security to intervene.

On that table sit several packages, among them one with just a name, not a company, as its destination, along with our company name. No way to tell if it's come in and is waiting to be picked up, or is ready to go out. No way to tell if the name on the package belongs to somebody at Campany Z.

Doncha just hate when that happens? When will people learn to give both the courier and the package the same information? Are those lumps on that piggie's back the beginning of wings?

So I get to call HQ again, so they can find out if this is my package or not, and by now, request loadtime for all this misinformation goose chase. It also has the handy function of providing an alibi for when we show up late, and after all, I have all that we-changed-the-dock-but don't-want-to-make-it-easy-for-you-to-find-out nonsense to go through still on my way to Company Z.

Finally, the word comes through, along with an exasperated tone from dispatch, and we all discover the package I've been hunting has been sitting there all the time. Just not labeled for identification.

We don't always get our freight in the end. This one started out seeming simple enough. Go to a freight forwarder, pick up a load from them that they're handling for Company A and deliver it to Company B. Company A turns out to have the office behind the dock manager, so as soon as he hears their name, he sorts through the bin, finds one order with the notation my company will be picking it up, and shoves it over the counter for me to sign, date and time also please. It's a weird form, and I'm busy asking whether I sign on the line as consignee, and getting enough of his (thoroughly crabby - must be having a bad day or a bad personality, who knows which?) attention for an answer. After all, he knows his forms backwards, forwards and upside down, so why don't I? I don't notice until after I've signed that this is not my order, this one goes to Company D, and is one 406 pound box/crate on a pallet. Pallets just don't go in and out of hatchbacks. The forks on the forklift aren't made for it.

Anyway, oops, my bad.

Now we have to cross my information off the triplicate form, and he has to go back through the door to Company A and try to wangle another order out of them for the destination I asked for in the first place. And incidentally, 10 pieces, 81 lbs.

Oh, that order? They're still working on it. Luckily for me, there are chairs for folks who get to wait for their orders. It must happen often. Finally the right papers are brought out, I sign after checking the right spots, and I get my copies to take back into the warehouse for the guys there to find and load.

They start the hunt. Since there are no chairs here, I tell them I'll be waiting at my car, getting it ready for the load. You know, folding seats down, removing the 2-wheeler, making space. Nothing yet? OK, I'll sit on the hatch opening. Two semis pull in, load/unload (I can't tell which), and still nothing for me. Time to go in and check on my order.

Both warehouse guys are working on it by this time. They're way past the it-ain't-where-it-should-be part, and are well into the so-where-else-could-it-be? part. One breaks off to consult with the dock manager, who by now is even less well pleased than he was when I first arrived. There's speculation my freight is in Chicago. Coming out, the first relays to the second guy that the manager needs to speak with him, and I can overhear enough to know he's about to get himself reamed a new one.

Ahhh, if only it helped!

Finally, I'm called back into the dock manager's office, told they don't know where my freight is, and I should go away. Oh, and he now has to cross my name and info off a second form.

OK. Time to contact dispatch formally. I've been texting to them off and on as things go awry and delays mount, keeping both of us slightly amused. The information on the noload is taken, and I'm told to leave. While I'm writing it up, grabbing a cup of water, turning the radio back on, and all those other things before rolling, I get a message to stay, wait. Company A is calling us. Who knows, there might be a change. But finally, 50 minutes after I pulled up the ramp, it's official: noload, with paid waiting time.

Whew!

I'm glad that there are two whole days off following Fridays.