When I heard which courier company was making the delivery, I knew something would go terribly wrong. Last time they were meant to be delibvering to my Bedminster hovel, when I finally managed to locate the errant package at a Bathroom-tile warehouse a half-mile away. For no discernable reason.
So, just because we've taken every precaution to make sure the incredibly expensive boxes full of Commerical Suicides and Alex's own Defective Comics turn up in time to sell, it doesn't mean that I had much hope that we'd actually recieve them. We throw down the money for guaranteed pre-lunch delivery. Knowing that people have trouble locating my masonette, due to it being above an empty shop, I attach my phone-number and inist that they call me if they can't find the place.
And then we sit back and wait. At 10:30 the bell sends me running to the door to discover that it's actually another delivery which went awry: the Router to allow Jane to get online. It's the second one Amazon have had to send out. Grateful, but still antsy, I return to the wait.
Phone rings at 11. It's the dispatcher from the company, saying that the driver can't find the actual building, and wanted to know where it is. I tell them to go around the corner, and sit back.
Time passes. Neurotic energy is funneled into increasingly baroque web-postings, including the the 1500 words of nonsense about post-punk down the page.
It's now 2, and I decide to check up on where the bastard thing is. I call the printer, who tell me they'll phone the courier to check on its process. They do so, phone back and tell me that the guy had left the area before the dispatcher phoned him back, so he's going to make a second delivery later in the afternoon.
More time passes. I've gone past the point where it's possible to turn the nervousness into anything other than sweat.
I phone back the printer at 4, getting the parcel number and the actual depot number. At this point, I've been hammering WHERE! IS! THE! PARCEL! in increasingly large font size to all my online IM friends for the majority fo the day. People, being lovely, are occasionally messaging me, asking if it's there yet. They mean well, but it's a torturous drip-drip-drip on my head.
Wired, with details in hand, I phone the depot. Chat to a woman who says she'll phone the guy to check up. She says that the notes say that he'd go back at the end of the day "If he has time". I stress how this really isn't on. I need to get them to the con by six, so we can actually set them up. I say that I'm willing to go anywhere in the city to get hold of the bastard things rather than them be delayed. She says she'll phone up the guy, and get a meeting place if he isn't going to delivery soon.
I wait. At 4:50, knowing they phone people will probably fuck off home at 5, I call again. I'm so tightly strung now that you could use me to garotte someone, which is exactly what'll happen if I don't actually get those bastard books. I stay on hold while she calls the driver. She returns to say that he was apparently waiting at a place for 45 minutes for me to turn up there. Of course, the original woman never actually phoned me back to tell me any of this. I finally get the actual driver's number, calling him up.
His next drop off is in an industrial site outside Bristol at 5:30. I, resisting the urge to ask why he didn't just phone the fucking number as he was meant to this morning since he *has* spent the last 45 minutes doing nothing due to the incompetence of his swotchoard, shower (having spent the entire day stinking, worried that I'd miss a call or door-bell ring if I have a proper wash) and run to the local taxi firm. He drives me out into the middle of nowhere, before having another series of quick-exchange phone-calls with the Delivery van to get us all to the next identical-looking bit of layby.
Eventually, we meet, lob the nine boxes of comics in the back of the taxi, and drive to Bristol Meads Station, just in enough time to lob them into the con to be sold in the mornings.
I then get awesomely drunk. Because it's the only sensible thing to do.
The name of the courier company is being witheld from the story until we find out whether we can get a refund or not. And if any of you with Paypal want a copy, the ordering system for CS3 is up at the site.
In short: Bastards.
Kieron - 5/16/2005 03:25:00 PM
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Surely you have to be able to get a refund... otherwise what's the guarantee part of the guaranteed pre-lunch delivery for?
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It all sounds thoroughly awful. How many copies did you sell in the end, and where was the Con located?
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Sold enough to make a dent in it. We printed 200 instead of the 150 I thought we were, so it was highly unlikely we'd sell out. We sold pretty much what we did last time, which was pretty good going considering the increased price.
And it was in Bristol, luckily.
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Thanks for the infos! Gl with the sales. Perhaps you could upload a scan or two of the comic, for us comic uninitiates?
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