So, I just got back from my boyfriend’s apartment. He was expecting 2 shipments of rather valuable computer accessories today, and his building has theft problems, so he asked me if I could hang around his apartment, since I had the day off, to ensure that the shipments arrived and made it to his apartment. One shipment was coming UPS, the other was being delivered by Staples’ own delivery service.
I arrived at my boyfriend’s apartment around 9:20 AM. At 5:15 PM when he arrived home, neither of the two shipments had arrived, which I found odd. I basically spent the whole day watching BBC America and (eventually) wondering why I was there if nothing was going to show up.
When my boyfriend came home, he said to me “I’m worried.” So I said, “Me too, nothing’s come yet.” And he said, “But Staples called me on my cell phone and left a message that the driver had come by and not found me at home, but had left the packages in a ‘secure area’. However, there are no packages here for me.” I confirmed that there was no sign of such packages at 9:20ish when I got there, and that no one had buzzed the apartment in the last 8 hours. Clearly, we had a problem. So my boyfriend called Staples customer service, and was told that yes, records showed that the packages had been delivered at 10:23 that morning, and if they weren’t there, either they had been delivered to the wrong building or stolen, and in either case he was not responsible, they would redeliver if necessary. My boyfriend was extra-pissed because he had specifically not validated the waiver that would allow them to leave the packages without a signature, fearing just such a situation. Meanwhile, the UPS package arrives, shipshape, no problems.
Anyway, we’ve just started to settle down and think about dinner, when he gets another call. My boyfriend lives at 123 Beacon St, Apt 666. The phone call was from the resident of 123 Commonwealth Ave, Apt 666. There are 4 large packages with his address and phone number on them in their foyer and could he come and get them, please? My boyfriend expressed gratitude that the packages had been found, and said “If I come over in a couple minutes, will you be home to buzz me in so I can get them?” Oh don’t worry, the person says, the packages aren’t in a locked area, you can just open the door and grab them.
Ok, so we have now determined that the Staples delivery folks have brought my boyfriend’s new CRT monitor, RAM and computer desk (remember the desk, it will come up later) to a building with the correct number on the TOTALLY WRONG STREET, and left these things in the completely unsecured foyer, despite the fact that they are not supposed to leave them anywhere without a signature, and then claimed that they left the items ‘in a secure area.’ Lovely.
123 Commonwealth Ave is only about 3 blocks away. Neither of us, it should be noted, owns a car. So we decide to walk over to Comm Ave, assess the situation, and then hail a cab to transport the goods back. We only have $9 cash total, but since our final destination will only be 3 blocks away, we figure this is plenty for cab fare. But then we got to 123 Comm Ave and discovered that the computer desk (accursed computer desk) is in a box 6 feet long/tall, and weighs approximately 150 pounds. Now I was wearing dress shoes with 2 1/2 inch heels, and neither I nor my boyfriend are particularly burly. However, we can’t just abandon the stuff there, we clearly can’t carry it, so our course is clear: we will not hail a cab, we must call and ask specially for a minivan cab in order to have any chance of getting the desk into the cab itself.
Thank OG that we got the nicest cabdriver in Boston. He helped us lift the boxes, he spent a good 10 minutes figuring out how to fit the desk into the van when it seemed it would not fit, and he didn’t turn the meter on AT ALL, because we would only be going a few blocks once we got loaded up. He just told us it was a $5 extra charge for calling specifically for the van. In short, he was the best part of the whole experience, and I wish I had taken down his cab # or some other identifying information, because in the end he just took our $9, even though we offered to run to an ATM and get more cash, and he clearly deserved $30-40 for the amount of labor and idling time he put in to helping us.
Once we were at 123 Beacon St, it was only a matter of opening the computer desk box and bringing the goods up in manageable loads (about 6 loads total including the monitor, etc.). Once we’d recovered from that oh so fun experience (hello, strange woman, what are you doing out on the sidewalk, in the dark, with an unassembled computer desk in an open box?), my boyfriend of course called Staples, whom we’d been cursing more and more greatly, and demanding (rhetorically) more and more compensation from every second. He and I both were expecting copious apologies and significant compensation of some sort. After all, they COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY FUCKED UP!!!
From the fact that I am ranting, perhaps you can guess what actually happened instead. The CSR accused my boyfriend of making it up (I don’t see how a driver could possibly make that serious a mistake), said “We’re sorry for the inconvenience” and, when he persisted in explaining how extraordinarily inconvenient it was to be subject to backbreaking toil because their delivery driver was incompetent, said “I don’t know what you want me to do, sir.” So my boyfriend replied, “I would like some compensation for the inconvenience and my time.” She told him she would start the process for a giftcheck, redeemable, of course, only at his next visit to Staples. For how much? Her supervisor will assess the situation and decide. Denominations start at $5, she noted helpfully.
Fuck you, Staples. I hope the incompetent delivery driver is fired, then repeatedly has his balls crushed by a 150 pound unassembled desk. I hope the unhelpful CSR someday finds herself blinded my orangutans, and that she meets no Good Samaritans, only fools who refuse to acknowledge that there is such a thing as blindness, or orangutans. Maybe they’ll be able to offer her a $5 gift certificate to the primate exhibit at the zoo, though.
On one level I think we should have just ignored our knowledge that the original shipment was at the wrong building and waited for the reshipment, or just told Staples and left it up to them to reclaim it, but it was my boyfriend’s stuff that he’d been looking forward to having, just a few blocks away, in danger of theft if we did not claim it quickly, and going to get it just seemed logical at the time.
My posts and especially my rants are always so long, but the whole experience sucked, from start to finish, and I just needed to get it off my chest. And hopefully make a point about Staples’ total idiocy and (so far) lack of adequate customer service. We’ll see, maybe the supervisor will have a clue, unlike the CSR.