RANT

Is it too much to ask that people do their job properly? If my experiences from the last few months are any indication, it seems nobody does anything right or well anymore...

It started with my application for Alberta Health care. As a returning Albertan, I was eligible for Alberta Health care the day I returned to Alberta to stay. I sent my application in right away. I heard nothing after a month so I called to check on what the deal was. They had no record of my application. It was faxed and I had the confirmation that it had sent. Looks like it had been misplaced. They had no record of my application. So I faxed it again. Finally I received my Alberta Health care coverage 3 months after returning to Canada. In the meantime, I had paid out of pocket for a doctor's visit and an x-ray of my foot. I still have not been reimbursed for the doctor's visit. Unacceptable.

The delay of getting my Alberta Health care also meant that I was delayed in being able to apply for a health/dental benefit plan. In order to apply for a benefit plan, you need to have provincial health care coverage. Finally, when I had received my Alberta Health care coverage, I faxed in a request for the health/dental benefit plan application that is available for substitute teachers. Again, it took multiple faxes to get any results. I finally got the application about a month after initially requesting it. Since the benefits can only kick in on the 1st of the month, their delay meant that I wouldn't be able to get benefits until December 1 rather than what should have been easily November 1. I finally got the approval letter for the benefit plan on Friday. However, they have put me on the wrong benefit plan!! Now I have the hassle of trying to get that remedied. Frustrating.

Okay, the above examples pertain to government. Maybe private enterprise does better? After all, they are about serving the customer right? That's how they make money.

I ordered a new laptop in the summer. There was only one delivery option.. courier by Fedex. The delivery arrived when nobody was home. Instead of leaving a delivery notice, they left the cardboard box containing the laptop on the front step!! Outside, there for everyone to see (and take if they felt like it) and possibly to get rained on. In fact, it was an overcast day, rain was in the forecast, and it did rain less than an hour after I returned home to find the box on the front step. I sent an e-mail to the company that I purchased the laptop from, but didn't even get a "sorry for your bad experience". I have noticed that they no longer use Fedex for their shipping. Instead they use UPS. I still won't ever buy from them again.

I recently ordered a camera and accessories online. This time I had several delivery options... the postal service, Fedex or UPS. Given my previous experience, I chose UPS. When I arrived home after work this past Tuesday, there was a delivery notice on the door. Relieved that they hadn't left the box out in the snow, I decided to call to arrange to pick up the package since nobody would be home to receive it over the next couple days. I called the local cell number left on the delivery notice. There was no answer, so I left a message to call me. I hadn't heard anything by the next day so I called again. Still no answer, I left another message. Same thing the next day. Two days had gone by and not only was there no phone call, there had been no other attempt to deliver my package. There was no school on Friday, so I called again in the morning. Still no answer. This time I left an angry message. Totally fed up with not getting a phone call back from this local person, I decided to call the 1-800 UPS number. They said they would contact the local person and get her to call me. Finally some results! The local person did call, and delivered my package Friday afternoon. Now was that so difficult?

They say that there is no such thing as customer service in England. Especially compared to North America. I beg to differ. I had two problems as a customer in England. The first was on a liveaboard dive trip to the Red Sea. About 2/3 of the people on the boat got sick. Upon returning home, an e-mail was sent to the company (they were an English company). They said that there had been a problem with the water purifier on the boat which MAY have been the reason we got sick. An apology letter and a credit for £300 for a future trip was sent in the mail immediately and arrived in a matter of days. I used the credit the following Christmas to travel with them again. I ran into another problem on this trip, this time with British Airways. They had overbooked the flight to Sharm El Sheikh and I got bumped. There was about 8 of us that got bumped to the next day's flight. BA put us up in a hotel across the street from the airport, paid for lunch, dinner and breakfast the next day and put us in first class on the next day's flight. They also gave us the choice of BA credit for about £600 or around £300 cash. I took the credit.. that was way more than the mere £350 I had paid for the trip (after using my £300 credit)! Now that is what I call making the situation right. The part that worried me though was the boat I was supposed to catch in Egypt! I was catching a liveaboard... how was I going to do that if I was arriving a day late? The company that operates the liveaboards called to Egypt and arranged everything. Myself and another guy who had also been bumped from the flight were picked up at the airport and escorted to the port where we were picked up and brought to the liveaboard by zodiac. The liveaboard returned to the port area just to get the two of us. They even held off dinner until we got there. That is customer service.