[Misc] Anyone know anyone senior at TNT (a long shot, I realise)

[Official Old Man]

In defence of the courier.
They get around 100 plus deliveries every day. Find address, find house/flat number, post package or ring bell (these days it's dump package, ring bell, run).
They don't have time to read instructions, call a number, look for a concierge in another block.
But that said, they are under stress because these companies send them out on very tight schedules. The driver was sent back to you at 7pm. Expect he started at 7am that morning with his usual 100+ parcels to sort and load.
No, whilst the driver should take a bit of stick I blame 95% the companies who pay peanuts to their staff but expect them to carry out impossible schedules.

 

[B-right-on]

A good outcome in the end, unfortunately the calibre of driver will typically be poor based on the remuneration

Nail. Head.

Have a mate who went for a DPD drivers job pretty much the only English person in the depot (mostly Eastern EU: Polish, Romanian etc..).

Job was based on xx per hour. Then he found out that you get deducted for 'renting' the vans, van running costs and so on. To the point the 'actual' earnings was less than Nat Min Wage on a p/hr basis. He was shocked at the amount of deductions.

Plus with the GPS they were run heavily on making all the round so any 'complicated' deliveries were just taken back.

Result is a thoroughly demoralised work force who don't give a sh1t about your non delivery.

He lasted a couple of weeks.

 

[Weststander]

Good News! The passport turned up at about 7pm yesterday. So all worked out in the end.

However, it is literally beyond stupid how many hours has been wasted on this, and how much stress it has caused*, when a simple act (ie, the delivery driver calling my daughter's mobile when he got to the bock of flats) was all that was needed for perfect service. On four separate occasions, on different days, someone from TNT drove to the block of flats and then gave up because they couldn't access the building - notwithstanding the fact (and we checked with TNT) that her mobile number was included with the delivery details. And notwithstanding the fact that there is a concierge (24/7) at the development (there are three blocks together - the central one has a concierge service that operates for all three).

In the end, out of sheer desperation, I managed to track someone down via LinkedIn....as it happens, he was nothing to do with the part of the business that was trying to make the delivery. Plus, he was on holiday. Plus it was a Saturday afternoon. Plus, he had no idea who I was. But he responded, got an understanding of the issue, emailed seven different people within the relevant part of TNT, and one of them then contacted me. As a result, the driver was tracked down in East London, asked to return to the flats, given DETAILED instructions to call my daughter on her mobile when he got there, and HEY PRESTO - a successful delivery.


*Of course, in the grand scheme of things it's not the most pressing issue - our family holiday would have been delayed, we would have lost some money on a few things (although hopefully flights could have been re-arranged at little cost). The hassle would have been painful. But it wasn't life or death.

Phew!

Have a great holiday.

We had a similar experience last Nov/Dec, as the days ticked by, it got quite stressful. But due to the Passport Office themselves.

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

Nail. Head.

Have a mate who went for a DPD drivers job pretty much the only English person in the depot (mostly Eastern EU: Polish, Romanian etc..).

Job was based on xx per hour. Then he found out that you get deducted for 'renting' the vans, van running costs and so on. To the point the 'actual' earnings was less than Nat Min Wage on a p/hr basis. He was shocked at the amount of deductions.

Plus with the GPS they were run heavily on making all the round so any 'complicated' deliveries were just taken back.

Result is a thoroughly demoralised work force who don't give a sh1t about your non delivery.

He lasted a couple of weeks.

Exactly there is absolutely no incentive to go above and beyond or even the decency to ring ahead to increase delivery likelihood, when your own job is on the line.

I’ve had DPD alert me to a a parcel being delivered with a photo of a different front door. I managed to stop him leaving the development and was met with “well it’s down there” (1/4 mile away)

I told him well you need to go and get it and delivery it properly then, which he didn’t like but he did with an amount of grunting