Saturday, December 7, 2013

Good News - And a Complaint

First, the good stuff:  Both Larry and brother-in-law Kent are awake and alert and their surgeries went well. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers for their well-being and recovery.  Now we have to await the biopsy results on Kent's brain tumor, and hope that it is something that is relatively easily curable via radiation and/or chemo therapy.
   I was a bad puppy yesterday afternoon.  I made a telephone call to Papa John's Pizza corporate headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky.  I made a complaint against a delivery person.  This is the scenario - I had a massive migraine in the morning and took medication.  When I awoke at 3:30, I knew that (a) I needed a second dose to clear the pain away, and that (b) I would need some food to keep the medicine company in my empty, roiling tummy.  I figured the baked Chicken Poppers and some cheese bread would do the job, so I called the Papa John's that is a block away.  It's in the Arapahoe Village Shopping Center, and is a straight walk along the sidewalk from my apartment building. It was 3 degrees outside, and I didn't want to get all dressed up to walk a block to pick up food from Papa John's - so I "splurged" and paid for delivery, plus adding on a large tip, before my credit card was processed.  Turns out that was not a good idea.
  I received the e-mail from Papa John's that the delivery would be made within 30 to 40 minutes.  After 35 minutes, I walked out into the hall beside our lobby.  I saw a Papa John's sign on top of a car drive slowly by, and thought, well, they're delivering something else first.  That was fine with me. After 15 minutes, I walked back into my apartment, and found I had missed 4 phone calls - the last was a message from the delivery driver saying he was lost.  I called him back and he rambled on and on about where was I? Why hadn't I answered the phone?  He was in Newton Court, and couldn't find my address...  I finally cut him off, stating that my apartment building was directly behind the Jo-Ann Fabrics store in his shopping center; and/or sat directly to the west of the Millennium Harvest House Hotel; I lived across the street from married housing for CU. (To be honest, I didn't know that the married housing across Folsom Street was named Newton Court.)  I asked if he had good enough directions to get to my place, and he said yes.
  I then called the Papa John's and told them their driver was lost.  I told the young lady who answered where I live, and she said, oh, yes - she knew exactly where it was.  She would call the driver and give him explicit directions.  It was another 15 minutes - 4:40 - when the young man knocked on my apartment door.
He started explaining that he couldn't read any building numbers from Folsom Street, and that he was just driving aimlessly, trying to find a number near it.  Well, the delivery tag clearly states 1444 Folsom St - he was driving around in the odd numbered buildings on the other side of the street.  He was holding the hot pack with my order in it in his right hand, and waving around the receipts and a pen in his left.  I finally grabbed the receipts, signed the merchant copy, and handed it and the pen back to the young man.  He was still talking about how hard it was to see building numbers, and that all apartments should have their names emblazoned above the entrance so that delivery people could figure out which places are where.  He was still yapping about it when I reached into the hot pack and took out the two boxes that were mine.
  I finally cut him off, saying I found his delivery "Unacceptable."  He paused and then started all over again, using the same points as before.  I asked how long he'd lived in Boulder - he's been a student here for 3 years, he replied.  I asked if he normally drove around Boulder, and he said yes.  I asked if he knew how building numbering worked  - and he looked blank.  I asked if he had any idea where he was supposed to go to deliver my food before he left the store, and he replied, "Well, yeah - I looked at the address."  So I asked, did you know where the address was? And he said, "No."
   I asked if he had asked his co-workers for direction? No.  Did he look the address up on a city map or GPS? No.  I again said that I found his delivery unacceptable and  (losing my temper) that I had made deliveries for five f-ing years - and I knew how to find an address.  His mouth gaped open; then I said, "And  you're an idiot."  As I closed the door behind me, he started saying that I had over-stepped the politeness line.  I kept on going, having to heat everything back up in the microwave oven....  Then I called the customer service line at Papa John's corporate...
  I explained everything to the representative on the other end, and I freely confessed to saying the f  word, and calling the young man an idiot.  I also said that I have been a customer at that particular Papa John's for seven and a half years, and that up until this afternoon I had always received exemplary service, both in carry out orders and the few delivered orders I've had.  If the young man had driven past my apartment building, the business building to the south of us states in huge numbers that it is number 1370; if he had driven north, the businesses on the west side of the street on the next block also have huge, easily seen numbers that read 1525, 1555, and 1575.
    Am I silly to get upset over something small like this?

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