EXPLOSIVE STUPIDITY (23 february 2008)
Suppose you take a suit to the drycleaners. Of course, they want you to pay in advance.
A week later you return to collect your suit. "Sorry, but we haven't got it any more," is what you're told.
"Well, I still have a receipt, don't I?" you may remark.
Not with these drycleaners ...
Well, to be strictly honest, it was not a dry-claning shop in this case. But something had been brought in, which was not returned. And I had to pay for that as well ...
* * *
As self-appointed curator of the het Overtom Chess Computer Museum, I recently bought eight chess computers from a British fellow collector. He packed the computers carefully and took the parcel to the post office.
Three weeks later it had not arrived yet. We may safely assume the computers will never be part of the museum.
The Dutch post company calls itself TNT (if your Dutch is up to it, you may read this weblog about them). When I sent them an email, a certain mr Ypma referred me to the Royal Mail -- although the tracking system of the Royal Mail clearly indicated that it was TNT who had lost the parcel.
When I replied to mr Ypma that it was in fact TNT who had lost the parcel, my message was bounced.
What a wonderful service delivered by a bunch of morons who once were a proud Dutch company, but which is now an organization that makes one ashamed to be Dutch! And for getting rid of eight chess computers I have to pay 50 Euros!
An ironical detail is that this amount includes VAT ( Value Added Tax). In other words: even losing computers adds to their value ...
Honesty compels me to add the following:
After more than three weeks, the parcel was returned to sender.
It appeared that it was not TNT, to whom Royal Mail had passed the parcel on, but a bunch of idiots who call themselves GLS (Goofy, Late and Slow?). As you can see below, they had done their best to paste all sorts of stickers on it.
The address on the parcel was 100% OK, but GLS claimed a parcel could only be delivered if it was provided with the telephone number of the addressee. For only then would they be able to call the addressee before delivery.
Apart from the fact this is a blatant lie (I have received several parcels from GLS without any telephone numbers and have never been called by them), I would think it is not such a huge effort to consult a telephone directory if you really want to know.
Long ago, all the mail in the Netherlands was delivered by an organization called PTT. The champions of liberalization and privatization made us believe that everything would become better if market mechanisms were allowed to do their work.
The sad results cannot only be beheld here, but also in the chaos in the Amsterdam taxi world and in many other fields where decent regulation was thought to be mere luxury.
