I have a dream. I dream the the equipment I order arrives on time, is delivered properly, and works correctly. I dream that services I’ve ordered are completed in a timely fashion. That certainly didn’t happen today.
First, there was my continuing problem with Bellsouth, now AT&T. I had ordered the data circuit for our new school way back in March. I was told it would be ready by the first of July. I kept calling, but couldn’t get an update. When I finally got through to someone in early June, I was informed that the fiber would be in place by July 3, and the circuit would be up and running by July 12. OK, so that’s later than I was led to believe, but I could deal with it.
I was a bit concerned with the fact that I didn’t see any circuitry in place this morning, so I made a call. I was told that the data circuit wouldn’t be ready until July 27 at the earliest. I hit the roof. With school starting in August, that’s far too late. I finally got a commitment of next week for completion, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
Then there were the computers. They arrived today, a day later than we were informed. The shipping company hadn’t prepared for an inside delivery, as we had requested multiple times. I couldn’t get through to our computer reseller, CSI. I finally called our rep, even though she is on maternity leave. I could hear the baby crying in the background, and I felt bad about disturbing her.
Neither I nor the assistant principal of the school were supposed to be unloading computers today, but that’s what we wound up doing. CSI finally sent a couple of high school kids over to help, but there was no way we could let them just work unsupervised. To say I was pissed would be an understatement.
When I was talking with the rep, she confirmed that the shipping company was supposed to do an inside delivery as we requested. We are short-staffed during the summer, and our maintenance folks are busy getting the new school ready. We were relying on this. The rep told me that they couldn’t give us credit for shipping. Here I am thinking, we have done multiple millions of dollars with this group over the years. Our contract is with them, not with the shipping company, so they should be the ones to take responsibility for getting things right.
Sometimes I really, really hate dealing with vendors. I’ll stop ranting now.