On Saturday, we sent an express letter to Ireland, using the courier service provider of the German Postal Service: DHL. The lady at the counter alerted us that the letter was unlikely to arrive on Monday, but Tuesday would be fine for our purposes, so off it went.

What an amazingly crap choice. The letter has not arrived in Ireland today (Thursday) even, who knows whether it will make it tomorrow. Or next week. Or ever?

When we handed over a fair bit of money to aforementioned lady for their express services, we entered a contract with the courier. A sensible assumption would be that the contract requires the courier to deliver the letter as soon as possible, which is my understanding of “express”.

But in this world, nothing is sensible any longer. Somewhat related to the asymmetry of e-shops I previously identified, the terms and conditions of the courier make sure that they cannot be held liable for failure to fulfill their side of the contract.

The next time you walk up to the Deutsche Post/DHL counter, keep in mind that when you hand them money, you are purchasing a lower bound on delivery time: they assure you that they won’t deliver the express letter before the next business day. That’s it, nothing more, please move on. They don’t even ensure that any such letter will arrive. Ever. But you cannot hold them liable.

Maybe there is a reason why e.g. UPS charges almost three times the sum for express delivery of letters to Ireland: they actually get there in time. But then I check their conditions and see that they also interpret their delivery times as estimates of best effort, but no guarantees.

Since when does “consumer” mean “get ready to be screwed?” Why are we putting up with this?

I am now filing a complaint. I hope others in similar positions do the same.

I am also going to try an experiement: post another express letter and ask to see their terms and conditions before forking over the money. I have a vague feeling that they’ll fail to present them in an orderly fashion. Then I’ll call up a lawyer friend and sum up my belligerence, time available, and plausibility. And the likely outcome is that I’ll go to court against the Deutsche Post. You can count on me.

NP: The Pineapple Thief: Variations on a Dream

Remember the free laptop I got, which I wanted to sell and donate the proceeds to a Chinese charity?

Well, I finally managed to get off my butt and contact interested buyers and it looks like I’ll be able to get rid of it for around 1000€ (if you would pay more, let me know).

Now I am looking for a Chinese organisation that is dedicated to protecting the environment in China. It should be small and effective such that the money can be put to good use.

If you have any idea or even better, direct contacts to an organisation, please get in touch with me. I found a list of NGOs in China lists a number of NGOs in China I will consider, but having a direct contact would be better, especially to help me figure out how to get the money there.

Also, if you know of forums or people who could help, please point them to this post.

NP: Amorphis: Far from the Sun

Update: I have enquired contact information for this group of students. Obviously, if you know those people or are involved with them, let me know.

Every now and then I must get in touch with a company whose client I am. With that I mean that the company has my record in their customer database and that I can log in to their webpages with the associated account.

Since companies generally don’t consider their clients’ comfort, they’ll usually make you click about a dozen times through mazes of silly questions until you reach a HTML form you can use to send your message on the way. If you take a wrong turn anywhere in the maze, you’ll be dropped into a list of frequently asked questions and have to start from scratch your quest for the contact form.

I understand the motivation, which is to shield the understaffed customer support department from just those frequently asked questions. However, never has my issue been adequatly answered in those shielding documents.

For instance, with Lufthansa, I’ve had to request ticket changes because they had screwed up (and not my travel agent), or request replacement member cards.

And in the Case of Cablecom, I’ve been trying for months to hear their statement on why my 3500/350 kbps cable connection only ever delivers around 1500/250 (as established in a long-term trial over almost seven weeks), and to get them to stop sending several pages of advertisements about the same products with each and every invoice I get.

In none of these cases could I find any useful information online, so I had to embark on the painful journey to the contact form, formulate my request into a tiny text box that would often not even be able to show start and end of a single sentence without scrolling (this is German after all), nor respect line breaks, and then hit the “send” key with a drop of sweat on my forehead because you never know what kind of crack the CGI on the other hand had smoked just a minute ago.

What pisses me off most of all is, however, that in the two cases of Lufthansa and Cablecom (this list is not exhaustive, I’m sure, Sunrise is another offender), you have to login to your customer account in order to be able to fill out the contact form, where they ask you for all your contact details again. I don’t understand why they want gender, birthdate, postal address, phone number, email address and whatever else for a simple support request — one means of contact so they can get their answer to you should be enough. But what I surely don’t understand is why they can’t just use your login cookie to retrieve all those data from their data store.

It sure seems like they’re not really in control of their own infrastructure. And this list is not exhaustive.

NP: Dredg: Live at the Fillmore

Update: Lufthansa is a special bunch of geniuses. I just filed a complaint on their website, taking ages to navigate through their menus only to be sure to select the right reason for my complaint, only to receive a reply:

“We cannot give you any information because we are the technical support group for the Lufthansa.com website.”

HTML forms and form elements are cheap, so why not put some extra hassle on your customers and ask a million questions only so you can then ignore them?

For the next two weeks, I am proud owner of a dog. Or well, at least care taker:

Zeno, that’s his name, is absolutely convinced that he is the centre of the universe, the “l’ombelico del mundo”, as Jovanotti would sing. So it’s very incomprehensible to him if I do anything but play with him and he follows me even to the toilet to make sure I don’t miss a chance.

Apart from having learnt to type single-handedly now (the other hand petting him), what’s really amusing is his never-ending, asymptotic quest for perfect comfort. Enter the sequence at any point:

1. if not being petted, walk up to martin

2. strike paw against whatever body part is available.

3. if martin does not react, bite into his thigh, lightly.

4. repeat 1-3 until martin reacts and starts petting.

5. slowly start to lie down, thereby leaving martin’s circle of reach

6. wait a second so as to not arouse suspicion

7. stand up, continue at 1.

I find this extremely reminiscent of control theory or a crap PID controller. You’d think dogs are intelligent until you witness the 20th iteration. I am not exaggerating. And I still love that dog.

NP: Gazpacho: When Earth Lets Go

Thanks, pixie, you made my day:

Now if only I could shower all by myself, I’d try it immediately. Or rather: I can shower alright, but still need someone to wrap my casted arms in plastic.

And believe me, showering through plastic bags is really unsatisfying. Eleven days to go. Then those bloody things come off. I am looking forward that shower on 21 May even a bit more than I have at times craved the clean wetness during prolonged expeditions in the Alps or Asia. Now I am sure you didn’t need to know all that.

NP: Explosions in the Sky: The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place

Dear Lazyweb: I am on the look for a print shop that can print on translucent material in such a way that the colour can’t be rubbed off. It also must not cost an arm and a leg. Can anyone recommend such a company, preferably in Switzerland or Germany, but that’s not a requirement? Thanks!

NP: Opeth / Morningrise

Update: I am not looking for transparencies, nor do I want to print myself. I want thicker material that has a milky appearance to be used for flyers and business cards.

James:

“Beige is not a colour, beige it’ll become all on its own” (source unknown)

I am sorry, though.

NP: Barclay James Harvest / Gone to Earth

Pixie got my mind on pirates, which reminded me of the Yar and what must have been one of the best days of my life (yeah, that’s me pushing the vessel…). Nah, scratch that… those must have been the best months of my life to date. Elizabeth, Jeanne, Heather, Chuck, Chris, Wayne, Greg: if only…

NP: Kino / Picture

The Swiss postal service tried to deliver an express parcel yesterday at 12:50. Since I was not home but rather engaging in what many workers do around that time — eating lunch — I got a note instead, with instructions on how to obtain the delivery: I can collect it at the central post office, which is about 15 minutes by public transport from my place, or I can pay 10 Swiss Franks for a second delivery.

I decided to first find out who tried to send me such important stuff and called their number; no answer. My phone tried on auto-dial every few minutes all of yesterday afternoon and this morning; no dice.

Finally, just now, I got someone on the line, 22 hours after the delivery was made, and I found out that the delivery is not as express as the sender thought, so I asked the guy whether he couldn’t just make it regular, registered mail, which would come to 6 Franks.

He said he could not do that, he could only make a second delivery for 10 Franks.

Given that public transport and time would exceed those 10 Franks, I agreed and asked him to send someone this afternoon between 15:00 and 19:00 hours.

“Oh, I am sorry, but we cannot schedule deliveries; your parcel will be delivered within the next 24 hours.”

Unfortunately, since the parcel was sent by registered mail in the first place, it is also not possible for me to have it sent to e.g. the university office, or some other place where people are basically around throughout the day. Hence my only option is to make my way to the central post office to collect the parcel.

The private carriers may still be a little more expensive (though the difference is shrinking), but they seem a lot more competent: if a delivery cannot be made, the carrier returns the next day within a specified time window. If the delivery still cannot be made, you are asked to call in and arrange for a third delivery, or a pickup. No extra costs are incurred.

It’s high time that the private carriers finally deal with those companies who continue to rest on the laurels of their former monopolies. And this applies to other branches as well, e.g. telecommunications.

NP: Porcupine Tree / Voyage 34

Update: Cate tells me that not all private carriers are as good others, and I agree: DPD, for instance, will also not agree on a time of delivery.

And another benefit of the regular post office: unless it’s an express parcel, you can pick up the package at the nearest post office on the next day. With private carriers, pick up is usually outside of the city.

For express parcels, I can kind of understand why they keep them at the central office for pickups — it’s open most of the day until 22:00 hours at night, and even on Sundays. Still, I would have preferred to pick it up at a closer post office.

Here in Zürich, I miss Munich for numerous reasons; one of those is that I can’t just go to nb Computer for all my computer part needs. At that store, you get top quality stuff with excellent advice for competitive prices.

There is no comparable store in Zürich, only “discounters” without any chance of receiving advice or being able to look at/touch/try things before you buy them. While no sensible mind would purchase e.g. a harddrive at Media Markt, Interdiscount, or Rediffusion (no links, they’re not worth it), digitec looks more promising.

However, I am no longer their customer. Yesterday, a drive I had bought from them in February failed, so I tried to get information on the warranty exchange procedure. I have since sent 3 mails, filled out the contact form, and tried 14 times to call their (expensive) hotline, where I’d usually be kicked out after 10 minutes or so. At their branch, they told me I had to get in touch with customer service first.

This is not acceptable. Screw you, Digitec.

Another store, PCP.ch is a totally different story. Unlike Digitec, I cannot just walk to the store and pick up stuff I preordered online, I’d have to drive about 40 minutes. However, their product line is very attractive, the prices seem alright, and I’ve never had a problem getting in touch with them.

The current tendency in central Europe is “cheaper cheaper”, the commercials promoting stinginess all over the place. Obviously, as the margin decreases for the shops who are trying to keep up with the downward trend, they cannot engage in any fair dealing or obligingness any longer.

What people in Zürich do not seem to realise — and it surprises me, especially in Zürich — is that some folks, including myself, would be all too happy to pay a little more if in return we’d get reliable service.

I am not even going to ask for a shop like nb Computer, who manages to give reliable service and keeps the prices down at the same time. If your reputation is widely known to be exactly that, you can also earn a living.

NP: Emiliana Torrini / Love in the Time of Science

Update: Adrian replied with two pointers to stores I’ll have to check out. Thanks!