Fail.

So I was telling MaryAnn today at work that I figured out the reason why we are getting substandard service from some of our vendors these days - nobody has allowed me to talk to them. I told her I'm sick to death of us being the only people who actually give a crap out there anymore. And frankly, our vendors need to hear about it.

The other day one of the copy machines at the circus was acting up, taking paragraphs mid-page on every document and scrunching them into teeny tiny bold paragraphs. What with us being the number one title company on the planet, it doesn't look so good. So service was called and the same guy who always comes out came out and messed with it and spent a good amount of time in there and then he left. Shortly after he left I made a copy set of seller docs (small package) and the normal default setting made them all on short paper. Which, you know, they shouldn't have been on. And which, you know, has NEVER been the default setting. I swore a couple of times and recopied. Somewhere, another tree died.

This morning, still within 24 hours of the guy being there, I walked in to use the copy machine and sure enough, big box on the readout said CALL SERVICE. Because it was broken. It didn't work. Whatever it was he did to it, it surely wasn't copy machine repair. That kind of thing just pisses me off. It's not like he's a copy machine repairman and a podiatrist; he's JUST a copy machine repairman. He has one thing to do: fix the copy machine. If I failed fifty per cent of the time I would be out of a job.

We also have a new vendor, one that our industry relies on very heavily, especially my end of the industry. We'd used them in the past, maybe eight years ago, and they started sucking really bad and so we switched vendors and have been happily with this other company ever since. Sure they mess up sometimes, everybody does. But they were genuine and friendly and we knew them all and we in the trenches liked them pretty well. But apparently they were getting expensive, so we switched back to the people we used back in the day. Because of their sales manager, a blow hard who gave quite a sales pitch and landed our business again.

We've been back with them for about a week and a half, and I know I shouldn't be so quick to judge, but I'm severely disappointed with their service. The pitch and presentation Blow Hard gave to the entire company has turned out to be pretty much smoke and mirrors, because all of the things he said they would and could do they haven't been doing. Which pisses me off. Because what do you take us for? Perhaps it's just newbie quirks that need to be worked out. But I don't know. It's a pretty simple service, really. I mean, there isn't a lot to it. It's step one and step two and then you're pretty much done with the request. But they keep fucking it up and way too often when I'm around and Blow Hard comes in with cookies and thinks that's going to be all it takes to make us broads happy. Or rather, "his gals", as I am sure he refers to us, since that is what he had called his staff in the dog-and-pony show he put on convincing us we'd be happy with him.

Good God I hate that. Intellectually I run circles around you and your half-assed attempts at getting the job done. I am not your "gal". You cannot come in face-to-face and apologize, or ask me who I want fired as a result of the latest fuck up, or any other bullshit blow hard jackass attempt at making me happy. Because it won't work. You wanna know what'll make me happy, Buddy? How about doing what you get PAID to do? This one little simple service that you have been doing for years, and obviously not doing well or we wouldn't have canned your ass to begin with. Fucking step one and step two, poof, end of request. Because the way I understand it, that's all your company does. So why is it so tough to get straight? Sell me your services, cut your rates, make whoever made the decision to go with you again all impressed with your shpiel, but in the end, all I care about is you doing your job. Because, again, if I fucked up HALF as much as you guys have in flipping EIGHT DAYS I would be out on my ass living in a box. Fucker.

So yeah. I've been a little fired up about this.

All they need to do to fix this is let me talk to him. I am telling you I will get results.