All the world’s morons

A week ago, Mirinda ordered a wardrobe for the flat. I discussed the delivery situation with the company, saying how I’d need at least 24 hours warning of the day of delivery. The guy at the company said that would be fine. Having ordered the item, the company was back on the phone to me to arrange a date. I chose today because I knew the office would be finished.

Naturally, you don’t get a time for delivery until the morning of delivery so I left the house stupidly early to get to the flat. It could have been worse but Mirinda had a teleconference that she could have at the flat so she’d be there until at least 9:30. Even so, I had to leave the house at 7:30.

I still felt a bit sick when I left the house; by the time I reached the station I realised I was well from well. I slept for the entire trip into Waterloo, roused only once by the ticket inspector as we passed Queenstown Road. The Jubilee Line wasn’t as bad as it could have been and I walked into the flat at 9:20.

I now need to take a few steps back. While on the train, I received a text from the company responsible for delivering the cupboard, saying they would deliver it between 8:43 and 9:43am. They are always this accurate which is weird but probably worked out by a computer that, obviously thinks very literally. This made me grin wryly, thinking it was a waste of time because Mirinda could have been there to receive it.

Then, as I approached the flat, the delivery van was parked in front of the building. I figured I’d pass the driver in the lift. I didn’t.

At 10am I decided to check what had happened to the delivery which had yet to materialise. Imagine my disbelief when I checked my email to find that it had been delivered to the building concierge three quarters of an hour beforehand by some dipstick called Delroy.

When customers have the misfortune to have a delivery made to them from DPD (which I call Dire Parcel Delivery), they are ordered to be home. The company maintains they will only deliver to the address and to the addressee and all deliveries must be signed for. I always make every effort to do so. As I did today.

My heart sinks when I find the company I’m ordering from uses DPD because they are such rubbish but it’s not like I have a lot of options. Clearly knowing the reputation of these useless people, most companies that use them don’t advertise the fact.

So, I set off to the concierge’s office to pick up the cupboard. You’d think this would be fine and dandy; quite a handy thing to have when you’re out at work all day. And so it would be if the concierge was not such a moronic jobsworth without the capacity to think for himself.

He sits behind his desk, perusing a piece of paper with writing on it, trying to work out what all the funny squiggles mean, gives up and glances up at me on the other side of the counter as if I’m interrupting his quality concentration time.

Being unnecessarily polite, I stated my case. I gave my name, the flat number, the building name (there are four) and that I was there to pick up a parcel that had just been delivered to him for me. You’d think I’d spoken in dolphin. His expression didn’t change and he mouthed an almost audible “what?” I repeated the information slowly and distinctly, realising I was dealing with a man not fully cognisant with the subtleties of verbal communication. This time he stood up and went to a plastic folder on a shelf.

I pointed towards the actual parcel that was leaning on a wall quite near me, letting him know that it was the one to which I was referring. He was far more interested in his ring binder. He actually asked me for my name. I held back a reasonable sigh of exasperation and, still politely, repeated my name. And then came the clincher. Did I have any ID that had my name and address on it. Clearly I didn’t.

He waved a piece of paper in the air with writing on it and asked if I had one of them (parcel notification slips) which I didn’t. He shut the ring binder declaring I couldn’t have the delivery. I stared at him in disbelief. He insisted he couldn’t let me have it without some form of ID.

I gave up any pretence of politeness at this point and told him he could keep the parcel, that I’d tell the delivery people it was not delivered and get another one delivered so we could do the whole thing again. I didn’t ask how many times we’d go through this charade before he grew sick of cupboards filling up the concierge waiting area because, sadly, I didn’t think of it until I was on the train home. I walked out of the concierge office as his voice, wafting worthless work directives, gradually and thankfully, faded away.

Back at the flat, Mirinda, gathered up her work stuff and I then accompanied her on the ferry to work. There was no magic slip of paper in her letterbox so we can only assume it will appear later in the day when she can go down and claim her own property.

So, to sum it all up: Feeling quite ill, I made the two hour trip into Canary Wharf to pick up a parcel which was NOT delivered to me only to turn around and make the two hour trip back home feeling even sicker and realising I’d wasted half a day because of some idiot called Delroy and the pathetic company he works for, DPD.

And just in case anyone thinks this is merely my experience with DPD, here is what a simple search reveals:

Spare a thought for poor Adam Fielding, back in 2011 who has a right old rave on his blog.

Or poor Gail, who writes:

#1: Special arrangments to be at home. They can’t locate my address. Back to depot. No notification sent to me – I had to phone them to find out what was going on and give directions for the next attempt
#2: Special arrangements to be at home. No email/text notification on the day. I phone to be told that the driver “forgot” my parcel at the depot. “These things happen”
#3: Currently making special arrangements to be at home for the 3rd time. I have been upgraded to a pre-12pm delivery but considering I have to arrange to be a home for the day, this makes no difference.

Or Richard, who also had a delivery this morning:

I was expecting a delivery from DPD today, 30th August 2012. As per usual; I received a notification e-mail indicating that the delivery would be made between 0800hrs and 0900hrs, great, so I made sure I was up and ready to accept the said parcel. There were also four other persons spread throughout the house. The blinds were open, the tv was on and both cars were on the drive, there was also two windows open upstairs.

At about 0820hrs I was going upstairs and noticed that there was a DPD Sorry We Missed You card in the letter box??? I was mystified as to how we missed the delivery, we were all in the house, and as stated the tv was on in full view, cars on the drive, windows open; it was more than obvious that there were people in!

At this point the driver should have made more of an effort to alert us, he could have knocked on some of the downstairs windows which he didn’t and I can categorically vouch that he didn’t. Instead he took the easy option and posted the dreaded letter.

And one last one from Samantha:

I’ve only had 2 parcels delivered by DPD – well, I should say, I’ve only had 1 delivered! The first parcel, back in March, was a pre-order from Amazon. We were sent the text confirming the delivery time – fine. It was due to be delivered before I went to work that day, great. I waited, nothing came, and when I left for work I found a note saying that they had attempted delivery but couldn’t gain access to the building. As it is a private building with 4 flats in, the front door is always kept locked, but we all have doorbells – this wasn’t used, as we were both in and never heard it once. My partner then had to drive for 40 minutes to pick the parcel up – or we could have paid another £5 to get it redelivered!

That’s enough for starters. It makes me wonder how they can operate such a dodgy service but then, I guess they undercut other delivery companies, enticing customers…which just proves that the customer always comes last. Which is strange when the customers keep the companies operating in the first place. What a world full of morons I’ve had to deal with today.