The company I work for is not especially large, but we are fairly busy most of the time. Often this means that I don't have lots of time to devote to projects that aren't urgent or especially important. Sometimes, though, items that really shouldn't be all that urgent or important turn out to be one or the other. Sometimes both. And usually, it is exactly that sort of thing which ends up going wildly off the rails.
One of my responsibilities at work is handling most of our procurement. This includes things we order all the time, and things we may only ever need once. New special order items can be . . . interesting. For example, two years ago, I wrote about an order that ended up going to Peru. Well, a few months ago something similar happened. Only much, much worse.
It started out as just one item in a much larger project which involved an outside contractor. A reel of cable, four conductor, shielded, 16 gauge if I recall correctly. There was even a particular part number and brand that the contractor asked for, which usually makes my job simpler. As it was, we needed several other types of cable for this job, and a local supplier was able to order them for us with about a week or so lead time. Simple and straightforward.
Of course, if it remained simple and straightforward, you wouldn't be reading this right now. As it turned out, a few days before the job was to begin, I checked with the cable supplier. Everything was supposed to be in by the end of the week. Everything, that is, apart from the four conductor shielded 16 gauge. That was going to be another week at minimum.
And it should go without saying that no one else has the same cable locally. Or even semi-locally. That would be far too simple. So I checked with the contractor to see if I could substitute something else. As it was, 18 gauge instead of 16 gauge would be fine.
That gave me something to go on. Time to call all the local suppliers. After half a dozen calls, it turns out that the original supplier had some 18 gauge in stock. Multiple boxes, in fact. Problem solved. Once again, my resourcefulness had saved the day. Well, almost. The cable they had in stock was yellow. Everything else I had ordered was either black or grey. The boss decided that the customer would not want to have yellow cable on their boat. Picky, but understandable, I guess.
A few more phone calls later, and I had appropriately grey cable, even the same brand as originally specified, coming from a supplier in Ontario. They even promised they could do next day delivery with UPS, so I directed it to be held at main depot in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, which was on the way to the job site so we could arrange to pick it up on the way there. Once again, problem solved.
Only it wasn't there the next day. The supplier did not have the cable in stock in Ontario at all. No, it was coming from New York. And it was going to be a day late. But perhaps it could be redirected to the job site? UPS refused to redirect it until it arrived at the depot, but once it arrived, a day late as expected, I was able to give them the new address where to send it. A day or two late is better than never.
And here is where the story takes an unexpected turn, because the shipment did not go to the new address. No, it went to British Columbia instead. Kamloops, to be precise.
If you aren't familiar with Canadian geography, that's about 5300 kilometers by the shortest route. That's the distance from Seattle to Miami. If you're in Europe or Asia, that's as far as Paris is from Tehran. It's far.
It took almost two weeks until I was able to redirect it back from BC, as UPS explained (repeatedly, I asked several times) that they had no way to change the destination while it was enroute. So I waited until the box reached Kamloops, and was then able to ask them to send it to Nova Scotia. They were even able to direct it to the job site, rather than have it wait for pickup at the depot.
It took another week and a half for the box to make its way back across the continent. Then it took a couple of days for it to actually get to the job site. And this is where it gets complicated. The job had been completed before it arrived there, so we did not need it at the job site. But despite my attempts to have it redirected to my office, I was told that UPS could not do that, at least not until they attempted to deliver it.
To make this work, someone at the destination would have to tell the delivery driver to take the box back to the depot for redirection. They were not to refuse the package, because then it would get sent back to the original sender. Fair enough. I called the job site — a shipyard, if you were wondering — and explained the situation to the receptionist. She promised to tell the person who recieves packages there to send the box back to the depot, but not to refuse the package.
You can probably guess what happened. They refused the package. And so back to the depot it went, earmarked to be sent back to New York. I figured this would be solveable, I'd call UPS and have them redirect it here. Only no, they can't do that, on a refused package that instruction had to come from the original sender.
So I called the original sender, and got a sympathetic person who went and talked to the shipping manager, and got back to me an hour later with the news that there was nothing they could do at their end, and that I should talk to UPS. So talk to UPS I did, and I was told that this wouldn't be a problem, they could redirect that box for me. Where did I need it sent? Oh, to Prince Edward Island? Sorry, can't do that. Can't redirect a box to a different province. How about you come to the depot and pick it up?
Up to this point I had been patient, polite, understanding. Not any more. This had been going on for weeks, and it was just too much. NO, I was not going to pick it up at the depot, I told the UPS person. They were going to deliver the box to me.
UPS was not anxious to do so. Why couldn't I come to the depot and pick it up? It's only a four hour drive, and four hours back. I explained this to more than one person, and I explained that the original supplier didn't want the box back, they really would be much happier if UPS could only deliver it to me. UPS didn't seem convinced. They even told me that someone was fired over this. I told them that I didn't want anyone fired, I just wanted that box of cable delivered to me.
Eventually someone at UPS decided to talk to someone locally, maybe whoever was in charge of the local depot. And wouldn't you know it, they had no problem redirecting that box to another province. Two days later, it arrived, somewhat the worse for wear, but intact. It was one month to the day from when I originally ordered it. So much for next day delivery.
Oh, and if you're wondering, we ended up using the yellow cable.
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