I Try. I Really Do.

I try to post something really interesting at least once a week.

This week?

I'm gonna bitch.

I ordered 100 books for my book signing this weekend. 10 copies of each of my 8 books in Public Domain Super Heroes, plus some copies of my three day novels and my first classic reprint.

48 got delivered.

 

52 of them are in a warehouse somewhere, the box damaged and undeliverable.

Seriously. 

Keep in mind, Amazon 'author copies' are about $3.50 or so each, plus shipping AND they take 10 days to get, regardless of how many I need. 

Now, in the last century, this would have been one phone call to the provider once I was notified of the situation. I would have explained my situation, the CSR would have put me on hold, called the warehouse in question and someone there would have tracked down the box. Most likely, 80% or more of the books are fine. The box probably got dropped and split open, but I'd know inside of an hour. If it was salvageable, they would repack the box with what wasn't damaged and send it to me.

I know this because at one time or another, I have held every job in that chain and done something very similar for a customer on multiple occasions. 

Today?

4 calls, no solution. I had to spend $400 on full price  ($15 plus express shipping) retail replacements in order to get them here in time and that's only about half of the order I am missing, and as much as I can afford. I can't show up to a book signing with a handful of copies. I might not sell a thing, but it would be far worse to sell out with only a few books and wonder what might have been.

They call them 'Customer Service Representatives" but what they really are is "Script Reading Humans With No Power To Actually Help".

Our modern, automated world is wonderful.

Until it isn't.