Vendor Frustration!!!

[Ray]

This is NOT a follow up to my post about “handling problem orders”, but I did follow my own advice.

There are “supply chain issues” still, thanks to the pandemic, and then there are colossal screw-ups, and several have happened at once.

• Got in some jars for K-Lite. Different from usual, but the others were unavailable. When using them, I found them difficult to seal properly, so I have had to warn people to keep them in a ziplock in the fridge between uses. Meanwhile…
• My supplier finally got the right ones in, so I ordered them before going on vacation. They were not delivered until this Wednesday, but - oops - I was not sent 140 32-oz jars, I was sent 140 one-gallon milk jugs! That’s 4, very large boxes that I have no room to store, and with summer rains, they couldn’t sit outside. They sent me labels so I could drop them off at the local FedEx shipping place, which I did. Meanwhile…
• They overnighted me the correct ones. Nope. “Overnight” would have been yesterday, but they are scheduled to be delivered today. And…
• Despite arranging so I could take the boxes to ship them, they also scheduled a pickup that “had to be before 3 pm”, so my local FedEx driver (a great guy) had to disrupt his route to pick up packages that were not there.
• What I didn’t mention about the K Lite jars is that the supplier was back-ordered on lids, so I had to find another source, which I did, and I ordered a case of 624- that ought to hold me for a while. Except….
• When they were delivered yesterday, they were with the wrong liner, so were of no use. New ones - correct ones? - will hopefully arrive Monday. Meanwhile…
• While on vacation, I ordered some Acephate, Liquid Copper Fungicide, and Thiomyl, figuring they’d be on my doorstep when I returned. Nope. When I inquired, I was told, “l’m sorry. Didn’t I let you know we didn’t have them all at one facility, so I was waiting to consolidate them before shipping?” I told them to go ahead and ship from where ever they were in stock (they have 3 locations in NC, and one in FL.) Then…
• The Acephate was delivered yesterday (I have a back order for a customer), but instead of 12 x 1# bags, they shipped 2 x 10# bags.
• The liquid copper arrived later, but still no Thiomyl.
• I just received an email telling me the FL location had the Thiomyl and correct size of Acephate, and did I want it shipped from there? (I merely replied “yes”, even though I wanted to ask “what part of ‘wherever it’s in stock’ doesn’t include FL?”.)