The boot saga
I am trying to buy new boots. I have been trying to buy new boots for a couple of years now, so it's fortunate that my old boots are still going, but they won't go on forever, and the problem is becoming increasingly urgent.
I have other pairs of boots, and indeed of shoes, but my preferred method of keeping my feet warm and dry and not stabbed with sharp things is to cover them with a pair of fourteen-hole DMs with zips (ideally purple ones, but at this point that's looking over-optimistic). So I keep an eye on the ongoing changes to the DM range, with the intention of buying some when ones I like come up. Last year, I bought a pair of black ones with corset-style lacing up the back. They were lovely, but after a week of wear, they were going inside the heel. That was OK, if I replaced them I could get an insole and it would be fine, but in the week I'd had them they had become unavailable, so I swapped for another pair. These were grey, with pretty cut-out bits, but when they arrived the cut out bits looked flimsy, and there was a weird texture effect over part of the boot that was invisible online and looked rubbish in person, so I sent them back.
This week, I found another pair I liked, so I ordered them, and have just got home to a failed delivery card from a courier I haven't encountered before, which tells me that they'll try again on the next working day, and that if they haven't heard from me within three days of the first delivery (notice they don't say three working days, although I hope that's what they mean) they will return them to the sender. The card also offers me the option to pay either two or four times as much as my original delivery fee to change to a designated half-day or Saturday delivery; I am also allowed to collect them from the depot. So I call them to find out where the depot is, and it's twenty miles away.
I call the people I bought the boots from to shout at them about this, but their office hours finished half an hour before I got home.
I am unwilling to drive 20 miles to collect the boots I've paid a delivery fee for; I am unwilling to pay a bunch more money for a Saturday delivery, and even if I wanted to stay in and wait for the next working day delivery, it's now too late to tell my boss that's what I'm doing, and "I have to wait in for my boots" probably isn't covered under our domestic emergency leave. I can rearrange my delivery to another within my postcode, which would be great if I felt like insisting my neighbours stay in all day to wait for my delivery, but I don't. I can't rearrange to, say, my office.
It baffles me that this is such a problem. Even before the internet, mail order was common, and it must have increased enormously in the last ten years, and most people work, so why is it so hard to get something delivered? Why don't online shops state the terms of their courier when you order, so you can choose your delivery address or make appropriate remarks in the 'other information' box? Why don't we have some standard system for safe deliveries to empty houses? Or at the least, why can't everyone I order things from use the damned Post Office, which has a depot half a mile from my house? (Although that place is a whole nother rant, as anyone who's ever used it knows.)
So I've no idea if this pair of boots will even reach me, let alone turn out to be The Right Boots. On Monday, I'll call the retailer and shout at them until they let me change the delivery address to my office, and hope that when the boots arrive they're worth it.
And in the meantime, if you see a pair of 14-hole purple DMs with zips, in a size 6 or 6.5, buy them for me? I'll pay you back.
I have other pairs of boots, and indeed of shoes, but my preferred method of keeping my feet warm and dry and not stabbed with sharp things is to cover them with a pair of fourteen-hole DMs with zips (ideally purple ones, but at this point that's looking over-optimistic). So I keep an eye on the ongoing changes to the DM range, with the intention of buying some when ones I like come up. Last year, I bought a pair of black ones with corset-style lacing up the back. They were lovely, but after a week of wear, they were going inside the heel. That was OK, if I replaced them I could get an insole and it would be fine, but in the week I'd had them they had become unavailable, so I swapped for another pair. These were grey, with pretty cut-out bits, but when they arrived the cut out bits looked flimsy, and there was a weird texture effect over part of the boot that was invisible online and looked rubbish in person, so I sent them back.
This week, I found another pair I liked, so I ordered them, and have just got home to a failed delivery card from a courier I haven't encountered before, which tells me that they'll try again on the next working day, and that if they haven't heard from me within three days of the first delivery (notice they don't say three working days, although I hope that's what they mean) they will return them to the sender. The card also offers me the option to pay either two or four times as much as my original delivery fee to change to a designated half-day or Saturday delivery; I am also allowed to collect them from the depot. So I call them to find out where the depot is, and it's twenty miles away.
I call the people I bought the boots from to shout at them about this, but their office hours finished half an hour before I got home.
I am unwilling to drive 20 miles to collect the boots I've paid a delivery fee for; I am unwilling to pay a bunch more money for a Saturday delivery, and even if I wanted to stay in and wait for the next working day delivery, it's now too late to tell my boss that's what I'm doing, and "I have to wait in for my boots" probably isn't covered under our domestic emergency leave. I can rearrange my delivery to another within my postcode, which would be great if I felt like insisting my neighbours stay in all day to wait for my delivery, but I don't. I can't rearrange to, say, my office.
It baffles me that this is such a problem. Even before the internet, mail order was common, and it must have increased enormously in the last ten years, and most people work, so why is it so hard to get something delivered? Why don't online shops state the terms of their courier when you order, so you can choose your delivery address or make appropriate remarks in the 'other information' box? Why don't we have some standard system for safe deliveries to empty houses? Or at the least, why can't everyone I order things from use the damned Post Office, which has a depot half a mile from my house? (Although that place is a whole nother rant, as anyone who's ever used it knows.)
So I've no idea if this pair of boots will even reach me, let alone turn out to be The Right Boots. On Monday, I'll call the retailer and shout at them until they let me change the delivery address to my office, and hope that when the boots arrive they're worth it.
And in the meantime, if you see a pair of 14-hole purple DMs with zips, in a size 6 or 6.5, buy them for me? I'll pay you back.