Lessons i learn from incompetency!
It’s been 4 weeks since my boss and family left for holidays, and left some follow-ups for me to do. One of those included liasing with a freight forwarder company for delivery of a container to our premises. Piece of cake i said to myself.
I was completely wrong!!! There were some problems inherent to it. Firstly when i phoned the company, i was told there were some outstanding demurrage charges with we did not pay, and in this context they could not deliver unless these charges are cleared. Surprises kept on coming when i further learned that the container had been in Mauritius since 36 days!!!! I was dazzled!! Why did he keep matter pending for so long? God knows. To avoid the sword from cutting my head, i smsed the boss, having in mind also that now i will ruining his holidays! Eye for an eye!!!
He replied to me two days later, urging me to contact Mrs ‘X’ telling her that we badly need the parts etc. Failing to get a positive response, the boss decided to bypass the forwarder company and use another one instead. i transmitted the message to Mrs ‘X’. The latter replied that bill has already been processed and they were waiting payment for clearing. Needless to say, i forwarded the msg to my boss. He phoned me later on and pressed me to reply to the company verbatim, that he did not ask them to pass the bill and it is up to them to ‘demerder’ because we wanted the documents back. There was no further correspondence until my boss called me and informed me that he managed to talk to Mrs ‘X’ and that they will do needful for clearing of goods. Two weeks had already elapsed since the bill and the outstanding charges. When i phoned to enquire abt status i was told that original bill of lading was missing and that it was still with supplier. I phoned the latter and he told me that he will check. Two days after christmas and still not reply. I decided to ‘harass’ the supplier until i get a reply. He said he had sent the docs on Friday. When he faxed the AWB to me, i noticed that he sent the docs on Saturday. Needless to say, the docs reached Mauritius on Monday 31st December and we got the docs on the 3rd January 2008. The container reached our premises three days ago.
Boss reached Mauritius two days ago and asked for a feedback. I told him that container was delivered day before. He said he is very unhappy with the service provided by the company and would be meeting them as soon as he gets an updated statement. To him, demurrage was incurred because the company failed to handle an order. I was barely listening to him. Am glad he came back because the file was handled by him and returned to him. One burden less on my shoulders.