Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Incompetence (or, Last Post Before China)

I really dislike incompetence and I really hate when I attempt to make my life easier and incompetent people end up making things harder for me. For example:

I had to send off my passport to a company in Washington DC to have the visa put into the passport for my entry into China. They refuse to accept anything further out than 30 days, and if you want it back within 15 days of sending it there is a huge rush fee. So I had to make sure that I sent it out on the exact day.

After they received my stuff and my check, they called to tell me that I had made the check out incorrectly. The company's name it CIBT, Inc. I had made the check out to CBIT, Inc. - OK my mistake, but they told me that they would have to rush my stuff now and they wanted payment over the phone and would not accept the incorrect check.

So, I had originally requested that I have the stuff back by 10-10, but I told them that as long as I had it back by 10-15 I would still be OK and would that change spare me the rush fee. It would!

On their website, you can watch the status of your stuff, I mailed my stuff in on 9-16, the website said that it was complete and in their shipping department on 9-26. I finally called them on 10-10 and asked about it. I was told that it was going to ship out that evening and on Saturday morning I could call Fed-Ex to make a change to the delivery method (Since I was not planning on stay home from work on the delivery day to sign for it, I wanted it stopped at the hub and I would pick it up).

I called on Saturday and she made the change to the delivery instructions. Then she told me that the tracking number was more than a week old and are generally rendered invalid after a week. I had to wait until Monday (10-13) to call the company and find out what was up. I was told that it actually would not leave their hands until that evening and they had special arrangements with Fed-Ex and everything would be fine on Tuesday morning.

I called Fed-Ex on Tuesday morning and asked again about making sure that the package would be held at the hub, she told me that the package had already been changed to have it come to the hub. So, the phone call on Saturday worked!

I checked online this morning (10-15) to make sure that the tracking number said that it was at the hub, it was! I drove about 20 minutes across town to the offices on my lunch break to pick it up. When I got there and she looked up my tracking number, I was told that it had been delivered, left on my front door.

I told her that it was my passport and that I had been told that a signature would be required for delivery, she told me that the account was noted that it should have been left at the hub, but it went out on the truck anyway.

I had to drive all the way home to pick it up. Mostly, I wanted to make sure that it really was there!

Bottom line, everything is fine. I just hate all the crap that I went through. I have so much to do before this trip, spending almost 2 hours running all over town for nothing really pisses me off!!

I hope to have great China pictures on my next post!!

5 comments:

  1. yay for china! how long will you be there? i can't wait for pictures!

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  2. Hey, I didn't know you were going to China! I was there in 2004. It's got some great history and beautiful scenery. Can't wait to see your photos!

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  3. I’m sorry to leave this in your comments section, but I did not see an email.

    I promise I’m not spam. I’m the Marketing Manger for Turner Publishing.

    I’m going around to Roanoke bloggers and freelancers to let them know about our new book by Emily J. and John S. Salmon, the Historic Photos of Virginia. We’d love to send you a complimentary copy for possible review consideration on your blog. This title is done in a large 10x10 format and all images used are culled from archives and represent rare or never before seen photos of the state of Virginia. We’re trying to get the word out to local folks, so I hope you don’t mind me dropping you a line to let you know about our book!

    Hope to hear from you soon.

    Best,
    Rachel Joiner
    rjoiner@turnerpublishing.com
    Marketing Manager
    www.turnerpublishing.com

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