there is a distinct lack of customer service in this country, i guess because minimum wage is in the neighborhood of $25/hour and people are not dependent on serving customers well for their salary. it drives me absolutely batty at times. let me give you the latest example...yesterday, DHL tried to deliver a package of MOO cards to me when i was not at home. so i take the half-filled-out form that their driver, who apparently had a palsy of some sort, left in my mailbox and go to their website. there, typical of all too many companies today, they try to make it completely impossible for you to get in touch with them except through some wholly incomprehensible and very narrowly defined forms and drop-downs that don't really quite describe your problem. so i fill out a form and i get a chance to enter the package number and my phone number and email address before some glitch happens and it submits itself and won't let me back in to try to fill it out completely. it apparently "knew" better than i did that the form had been submitted once and you can apparently only do one per day (i pity companies that have more than one package coming).

so, this morning, i tried again. and after filling it all out with my address and phone and the times i am home, i get a mail asking me where i wanted it delivered. hello? to the address that is now both on the package and on your stupid form, people! AND on top of it, they tell me it cannot be delivered before monday, despite the fact that i actually sent the request YESTERDAY! what do they not understand about their business--it's about getting a package quickly, for which they charge a small fortune. and then they have the audacity to be pissy that i'm a little pissy that i cannot get my package in a timely manner! after i expressed frustration that it was to the address that was on the package and on the form and why were they asking me for an address...they actually sent a mail telling me to "speak nicely or they wouldn't help me get my package." (just because i wrote in all caps.) righteous bastards. unbelievable. and it caused my blood pressure to go through the roof! on top of it, i write to them in english and they keep writing back to me in danish! not that i can't read it, but still, it's just such a lack of customer service!

and it's not the first time DHL has been less than stellar. i had a box of brochures sent to me to take to a conference and they claimed they had tried to deliver (which they couldn't have, because there had been someone home all day that day) and so i asked them to forward it on to my hotel in germany because i had to catch a plane and didn't have time to pick it up. they told me that would be impossible, and although they took the hotel address, they said they would call me if it was possible. well, they never called (and i had given them two different mobile numbers, both of which i had on me). and the package never came. however, an invoice for nearly 3,000NOK ($428) came to me at work! WHAT? the absurdity! for a service they said they couldn't do and apparently didn't do, but had no qualms billing for. and it was a small box, the size of 2 reams of paper! unbelievable.

ok. i'm done ranting now.