German Efficiency?
Sep. 13th, 2006 09:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lady_kareliaThere was a time when Germans were known for their efficiency. Even I remember those days, and I'm not quite ancient yet. But wtf happened, I wonder.
I spent about, oh, a good five weeks trying to find some moving company to ship our belongings (admittedly a "small" lot since we didn't include any electric stuff) from here to the US. No luck at all. Dorkboy started looking for a company last week Thursday, and by Thursday evening, I had paid the deposit and had a date of the pick-up, today. So, today, I woke up early because the time-span was between 8am and 5pm that the German company, a partner of the English one, would come to pick up our belongings. I didn't exactly expect anyone to turn up at 8am, but with Germans, you never know, so I was ready by 7.55 just in case. We waited. And waited. And waited. Come 3pm, I phoned the English shipping company asking them to confirm that someone would turn up today to pick up our belongings. Yes, I was told, definitely today, by 5pm. 5pm arrived and went. At 5.15pm I phoned them again, and they gave me the reference and tel. no. for their Germish partners. So I phoned them. First of all, I was told not 8-5, but 8-20:00 hours. Okay, I could live with that, but I was a tad edgy by then, ya know? So, the nice lady on the phone agreed that she'd check with their local agent and have them phone me back. At 6pm I got a phone call, telling me they didn't know anything about it and what the fuck was I talking about. I thought WTF??? I told them, gave them the reference numbers etc. They finallly woke up, telling me someone came around early afternoon but couldn't find my name on the bell. So I asked why they didn't phone me. Oh, they didn't have a phone number. So, how did they have my phone number now? Uh. Um. Erm. Yeah. Okay. Can they pick it up today, pretty please? Because if I don't get to England tomorrow, I'll die. Oh, no, we can't do that. Working hours are over.
In the end, I offered a bribe of €30 if they could pick it up today, I'd wait up no matter what time. Half an hour, they arrived.
I'm not impressed, but at least our belongings are on their way, and we're now free to return to the UK. *sigh*
I spent about, oh, a good five weeks trying to find some moving company to ship our belongings (admittedly a "small" lot since we didn't include any electric stuff) from here to the US. No luck at all. Dorkboy started looking for a company last week Thursday, and by Thursday evening, I had paid the deposit and had a date of the pick-up, today. So, today, I woke up early because the time-span was between 8am and 5pm that the German company, a partner of the English one, would come to pick up our belongings. I didn't exactly expect anyone to turn up at 8am, but with Germans, you never know, so I was ready by 7.55 just in case. We waited. And waited. And waited. Come 3pm, I phoned the English shipping company asking them to confirm that someone would turn up today to pick up our belongings. Yes, I was told, definitely today, by 5pm. 5pm arrived and went. At 5.15pm I phoned them again, and they gave me the reference and tel. no. for their Germish partners. So I phoned them. First of all, I was told not 8-5, but 8-20:00 hours. Okay, I could live with that, but I was a tad edgy by then, ya know? So, the nice lady on the phone agreed that she'd check with their local agent and have them phone me back. At 6pm I got a phone call, telling me they didn't know anything about it and what the fuck was I talking about. I thought WTF??? I told them, gave them the reference numbers etc. They finallly woke up, telling me someone came around early afternoon but couldn't find my name on the bell. So I asked why they didn't phone me. Oh, they didn't have a phone number. So, how did they have my phone number now? Uh. Um. Erm. Yeah. Okay. Can they pick it up today, pretty please? Because if I don't get to England tomorrow, I'll die. Oh, no, we can't do that. Working hours are over.
In the end, I offered a bribe of €30 if they could pick it up today, I'd wait up no matter what time. Half an hour, they arrived.
I'm not impressed, but at least our belongings are on their way, and we're now free to return to the UK. *sigh*
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Date: 2006-09-13 08:08 pm (UTC)It's a long-term move. Maybe not permanent, but surely long-term. London because we're residents of the UK and when Dorkboy's company applied for the visa, our place of residence was London. We *could* have changed the embassy of our choice to Berlin or Frankfurt, but that would've taken another three months. And somehow, I don't think the sponsoring company would have taken kindly to that wait.
Aside of all that, I'm actually looking forward to saying good-bye to England. I have both wonderful and awful memories of England, but I'll always be fond of London. So, spending our last few weeks of Europe in London suits me just fine. I might even get to see Phantom again in the West End. :-)