Why do I NEVER learn???? I made such an idiot out of myself yesterday -- to people I don't even know, will probably never meet, and had absolutely NO influence over anyway!!! The story.......
Morgan graduates from college on the 27th of May. She's a member of Phi Theta Kappa, the honor society of community colleges. I knew that in years past, the kids in this group were given a special stole to wear with their graduation gowns; Morgan thought it was going to be kind of cool that she would get to be all decked out for her graduation! The college held a special graduate recognition day on the 6th, to pick up their gowns, graduation announcements, have pictures taken, etc. We found out that the college has STOPPED loaning out the stoles and now tells the students that if they want to wear them, they'll need to order them directly from Phi Theta Kappa. Sigh....... one more expense right now........
Of course, this "announcement" was type-written on a piece of paper no bigger than 3" high and was buried amongst all the other paperwork they sent home that day -- so we didn't discover this wonderful new change of plans until the 10th. We tried to order the needed item on the Phi Theta Kappa website, but it just would not let us log on and order. We ended up calling the organization, being put on hold for about 15 minutes, and passed around a bit until the order was finally taken care of. We were told that the shipping could take up to 10 business days, and I wasn't too concerned; if it shipped fairly quickly, that would still arrive with a few days to spare. Besides, the "rush shipping" fee was THIRTY-FIVE DOLLARS!! There was absolutely NO WAY I wanted to pay that much -- that was more than the cost of TWO stoles!! So we declined the rush shipping; we were told that we would received a confirmation e-mail when the item was shipped; we paid with my debit card; and we were finally done.
However -- Tuesday: no confirmation e-mail; no bank charge to my debit card......
Wednesday: no confirmation e-mail; no bank charge to my debit card......
Thursday: no confirmation e-mail; no bank charge to my debit card.......
Uh-oh........ this was NOT looking good. By late afternoon, I decided it was time to call the kind folks at Phi Theta Kappa and give them a not-so-nice piece of my mind! I called, only to have the call answered by an automated voice that repeated the same line, over and over and over again, about every 30 seconds -- for TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES!! Then........ click, click, click -- and the phone call was disconnected....... RAGE!!!
I went back to their website, found the "contact us" link and fired off a pretty pointed e-mail of everything they'd done (or not done!) to aggravate me for the last 3 1/2 days, proof-read it (just to make sure it let them know I was REALLY mad!!), and hit the "send" button, confident that this consumer complaint would make everybody hop and take care of the situation!! I sat at my computer, stared out the window, and thought about how "incompetent" some people can be....... This seemed to me like such a simple thing for them to take care of -- why were they making it so difficult for poor ME???
And so then, of course, what happens? No more than 15 minutes later, the UPS truck pulled up to my front door -- containing the package I was so desperately concerned about!! No confirmation e-mail; still no charge to my debit card (that showed up Friday!!); but there was the stole that was causing me so much grief!!
After watching my daughter open her package and seeing her parade around the house in her "finery", I went BACK to my computer and composed my "eating crow" e-mail!! Oops..... sorry........ I kinda jumped the gun....... I kinda over-reacted......... sorry, you guys did a great job after all........... yikes, I'm an idiot......
I wonder if I'll EVER learn that my impatience will not get these types of things done any faster????
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