Fedex me arse...

Let me quote from Fedex's corporate website:

Employees: More than 140,000 worldwide
Service Area: More than 220 countries and territories worldwide
Airports Served: More than 375 airports served worldwide
Aircraft Fleet:

674 aircrafts worldwide, including:

* 53 Airbus A300-600s
* 65 Airbus A310-200/300s
* 11 ATR 72s
* 29 ATR 42s
* 13 Boeing 727-100s
* 94 Boeing 727-200s
* 25 Boeing DC10-10s
* 17 Boeing DC 30-10s
* 41 Boeing MD10-10s
* 6 Boeing MD10-30s
* 58 Boeing MD11s
* 10 Cessna 208As
* 243 Cessna 208Bs
* 9 Fokker F-27s


Vehicle Fleet: More than 42,000 motorized vehicles worldwide

With all that might you would think that they could collect a shipment in rural Tipperary, right?
WRONG!
They have so far failed on three occasions in the last 7 days to collect a shipment. I booked all the collections by phone and got confirmation via email.
It has even been "escalated" to their "service focus team" where I was repeatedly assured that they would sort out the problem. They even went as far as stating that they would ship for free. Which is no f*cking good if they can't collect the damned shipment in the first place...

The first two times they failed to collect because the depot didn't instruct the driver to collect the shipment. If that's not the stupidest excuse ever I do not know what is...
Today was going to be their third attempt. Considering their first two cock-ups I was expecting a Fedex chopper to land in the garden.
But nothing, nada, niente, niks, nichts....
I called the "service focus team" again to see what the hell was happening.
I couldn't believe it when I was told that it was not collected today because the drivers were "too busy" and did not have time to collect my shipment.
The next collection date was next Tuesday (as in next year).
I am dumbfounded......

The shipment is for a new customer in Israel who needed it urgently.
I could have walked to Israel faster...

It seems that eof the major couriers in Ireland handle any domestic collections or deliveries themselves. It all outsourced to two-bit operators who have only been selected on low cost rather than speed, efficiency & quality.
This affects Fedex, UPS, DHL as well as An Post. The result is a crappy, overpriced service. And quite honestly I am sick and tired of it...

E.

If anyone in Fedex reads this I would really like an explanation for this failure to perform but also for their decision to outsource the domestic service in Ireland.

I'm loving it!

On our way back from a visit to the East coast yesterday I decided to feed the herd in on of the few McDonalds restaurants in this country. This one was located beside a round-about outside of Roscrea.
Now, I had visited this one before and it was one of those 2nd rate locations for a McDonald restaurant. It's located on a small plot behind a filling station with very little parking. However I pass by their and that makes it convenient...

Last night I was tired and hungry, a recipe for disaster. On top of that the place was packed out.
Trying to feed a herd of tired, hungry kids in a busy McD's can be a daunting task.
Well, I was in for a great surprise.
Apparently the restaurant had a new manager. I rattled of my order and was not meet with the usual: "euh, wasda again?".
He took my order, repeated it without any mistakes and I had my order and was on my way back to the table within 2 minutes. No only that, he helped me carry all the stuff (2 trays) to the table.
On top of that he remined my wife that her latte came with unlimited refills (something that nobody in any of the other McD's restaurants had ever told us). The guy obviously believed in the McDonalds formula and followed it to the letter.
Having managed one of these restaurants many moons ago I could recognise the "rulebook" down the letter..

I started chatting to him and apparently he had done this job yonks ago in the US, married an Irishwoman, moved to Ireland and worked for a large pharmaceutical, got laid of and went straight for this job.
It was great to see his innitiative, professionalism and enthousiasm for the job.
This is a concept that is sadly missing in a lot of people working in customer "facing" jobs in this country.

I give this guy a 10 out of 10 and can only recommend people to visit this McD's.
Oh yes, before I forget, they have free wifi internet accces too.

E.

Lets all come together this Christmas.

Apparently today is "Global Orgasm Day".
The organisers want us all to reach a state of trans-global climax at exactly 4 pm CET.
I'll just quote from their website:


WHO? All Men and Women, you and everyone
you know.

WHERE? Everywhere in the world, but especially in countries with weapons of mass destruction.

WHEN?
Winter Solstice Day - Friday, December 22nd,
at the time of your choosing, in the place of your choosing and with as much privacy as you choose.

WHY? To effect positive change in the energy field of the Earth through input of the largest possible surge of human energy a Synchronized Global Orgasm. There are two more US fleets heading for the Persian Gulf with anti-submarine equipment that can only be for use against Iran, so the time to change Earth’s energy is NOW!

Get out the Cleenex and jars of vaseline!

E.

Fog knocks out North Tipperary telephone network..

I have been experiencing continuing problems with our home-phone lines.
For the last 4 months both lines would go completely dead somewhere between 4:00 & 4:30 in the afternoon. No incomming or outgoing calls, no dailtone, nothing...
Then two weeks ago both lines died on Friday and it took Eircon 4 days to repair the fault. Less than a week later it happened again. This time the fault was repaired within a day. Only to re-occur less than 24 hours later....
All in all both lines have been out of action for most of the last two weeks. To be honest Eircom have been very pro-active by sending people to my house and by calling me to ask if everything was OK. However they have not been able to pinpoint the cause of the problem.
Today I got the best call off all: an engineer called to explain that the backhaul from the local exchange was through a radiolink and that the recent fog might have been causing the problem.
So there you go: fog can knock out the Irish telephone network.
It's back to two cans and a piece of string I guess....

E.

No Broadband, just Bullshit.

I live in North Tipperary.
It's rural but not exactly the arsehole of Ireland either.
Property is expensive and we even have a "continental stylee" cafe within driving distance.
However we're f*cked when it comes to broadband.
It took Eircom 6 months to re-activate the phoneline in my house after I moved in. Any form of broadband is not availble through this phoneline bar ISDN which is just one step up from two cans and a piece of string broadband.
I got satellite through Aramiska and Aramiska promptly went bankrupt.
I tried other satellite broadband providers (at €200-plus a month) but now the few trees in my garden are in the way.
I didn't want to wait any more so I called Clearwire. They told me that I would probably have to wait until I am an OAP before they will supply me with broadband.
At that point I will probably suffer from alzheimers and will have forgotten what the Internet is.
I am doomed...

To top it all last weekends storm has knocked out both phonelines so now even dailup is not available.
Eircoms automated service tells me that the engineers are working on it and will probably be resolved in 4 days. It has been telling me that for two days...
I am now typing this sitting in my car, piggybacking on someone wireless network.
No wonder Ireland suffers from a high level of binge drinking....

E.