A stressful day with a moment of Zen at the end.

[gridlore]

Got in this morning only to learn that I'm doing the West Bay run. I loathe West Bay. As much as I love San Francisco, I hate driving that route, moreso now that it has expanded to cover northern San Mateo County. But they call it work for a reason, so off I went.

To say I was frazzled is an understatement. I didn't know where half the stops were, was living on the GPS, and a good number of the stops were marked for early AM delivery. Add into this I was going into the teeth of the morning rush hour rather than driving counter-commute. Thankfully, I only had a couple of stops in San Francisco proper.

There was one head-desk moment. I got to one stop with two pieces of 20' and one piece of 10' strut for a customer. Understand that since this change in plans about routes was a last minute thing, and I had a ton of stops, I didn't really examine the invoices that carefully. But as I pull up, I look and see that the first four line items on this five-line invoice concern the materials used and labor to cut this 50' of into 32" lengths. Line three was the labor charge. Which was amusing, as no labor had been done. Thank Halford they had a sense of humor. I suggested this was our new "DIY" kit. The customer stated she already had done it herself - she called us and placed the order.

Needless to say, I was fielding calls about this all day. It was in fact a failure by everyone.

• The shop for not getting and processing the order.


• The crew that sets up the next-day deliveries for not noticing that we hadn't got a pallet of cut P1001 from 7th St.


• The crew that loaded the truck for not double checking the invoice closely.


• Me for not reading the invoice when checking the load.

Plenty of fail to go around on this one.

But after all the fail and screaming and frustration, I got to my last stop in Moss Beach (not to be confused with Moss Landing.) Small contractor is building a new set of stairs down to the beach. The scenic, beautiful beach.



Sent this picture to kshandra. She hates me now. Showed it to the owner, he asked if we really pay me to do this. I'd never driven that stretch of Highway 1 before, lots of really cool beaches, and some awesomely decrepit coastal defense bunkers.

Comments

[lisa-marli.livejournal.com]

Moss Beach is where Jennie lives. Now you know why. ;) If it weren't so @#$%^&^! expensive, I'd run away to Moss Beach easily.

[grimmwire.livejournal.com]

'The hundreds of curling miles of cliffs and sand, palm trees, breakers and sunsets are described in the Guide as "boffo. A good one."'
-- Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish