A grotesque situation of post-modern techno-bureaucracy unfolds live, before your very eyes!

On Wednesday I ordered from Apple a wonderful new iMac 27″ Retina machine. Naughtily expensive, but VERY nice. I was told to expect it on the following day via UK Mail, “but if for some reason it doesn’t arrive, you’ll get it on Friday”.

Friday afternoon appears. No iMac.

I call Apple to find out what’s happening. It is then noticed that for no explicable reason the billing note has a completely wrong postcode (Basingstoke, of all places) for me. Apple call UK Mail to get the right information to them so that it can be delivered on Saturday. I take part in a three-way telephone conversation with UK Mail conveying to them the correct postcode.

Nothing happens on Saturday. I call UK Mail. The right postcode is ‘not on our system’. “We can’t change it. Only Apple can do that”. I point out that it must have been obvious as soon as they looked at delivering the order that the postcode and address were inconsistent. “Yes, but only Apple can change what’s on our system for the order, and they haven’t done so”.

This morning (Monday) I have had some more surreal exchanges with Apple and UK Mail. The correct postcode as of nearly noon on Monday is STILL not on UK Mail’s ‘systems’ and the expected delivery information is completely wrong:

Booking Information

Booked: 11/03/2015

Collected: 11/03/2015

Expected delivery date: 13/03/2015

16th March 2015 08:10 Delayed
12th March 2015 16:49 Please Call
12th March 2015 06:55 Out For Delivery
12th March 2015 05:20 At Delivery Location
11th March 2015 23:11 Collected
11th March 2015 21:05 Booked/Awaiting Collection

Help! The machines have taken over.

It transpires that mere human intervention to carry out the momentous task of deleting one wrong postcode and inserting the correct one IS NO LONGER POSSIBLE. Why not?

Apple (it turns out) send out their orders via Syncreon:

syncreon strives to be an agile logistics company, specializing in the optimization of the supply chain for its customers.

syncreon provides its customers with tailored, innovative and scalable solutions which reduce their costs and increase their competitiveness.

syncreon focuses on sustainable, profitable long-term growth while continually providing great opportunities to its people and truly best-in-class services to its customers.

Challenge the status quo and bring new ideas into the open. Think outside the box. Provide our people with a clear understanding of our goals and objectives.

Be open, candid and truthful. Never pursue a political agenda but simply explore best solutions. Integrity and respect for individuals are part of a candid culture.

Eliminate complexity from ideas/processes and break them down to their simplest elements.

HAHAHA

Verily, Syncreon in their best agile candid best-solution mode are unable (say Apple unhappily) to change a postcode and convey that information promptly to UK Mail. It ‘takes time’!

UK Mail meanwhile are unable to change anything on the order for ‘data protection’ reasons. The hapless UK Mail call centre person is unable to say what those reasons are, even though they can see that the ‘data’ they are protecting are wrong!

There’s more! Even though they know that they have the wrong address, they can’t call Apple to sort it out!

OK, I’ll go to the UK Mail depot in Swindon and collect the iMac myself!

“That’s not possible, as your ID won’t match the details on the order”.

“But I’ll have all the information you can possibly want to verify who I am and to link me to that order!”

“Sorry, data protection.”

The UK mail person won’t tell me her surname. But she says that she’ll pass my protest on to ‘Escalation’ who will call me straight back. They haven’t done so, of course. (Now see below)

Even under the best available scenario now, the UK Mail ‘systems’ apparently will not get the original iMac to me before Wednesday (or so they said), ie a full week after I ordered it and even though it has been obvious to them since Thursday morning last week that the postcode and address were awry.

In sheer exasperation I have ordered a new iMac this morning ‘for delivery tomorrow’. I will send back the first one if it ever gets to me and (I hope) get my money refunded. Apple no doubt will be preparing a generous compensation arrangement, insofar as the cruel basic mistake seems to have occurred somewhere in their ‘systems’.

In short, I’ll (maybe) fleetingly have two wonderful iMac 27″ Retina machines, which, as I have two elegant if fading retinas myself, will give a nice stereo-vision effect.

Anyone remember the days when you could pick up a phone and sort something out in a few moments?

The arrival of all these ‘systems’ means that mostly things like this work staggeringly well, but when they go wrong no-one can grab the problem and take responsibility for sorting it out. The extent of the madness/delay and existential non-responsibility that ensues in correcting a simple mistake is startling.

It’s not even that no-one at UK Mail (and for all I know Syncreon too) will take responsibility for sorting this out fast and linking their action to actually getting my new iMac delivered. It’s that no-one seems to know HOW to do that, even if they might want to. 

+ + STOP PRESS + +

Just as I was poised to press Publish, UK Mail Escalation have called! “The correct postcode is now on the system, and the original consignment will be with you tomorrow. NO, we have no record of any other delivery to that address. It’s up to Apple to deal with any compensation…”

I’ll let you know when I start blogging from whichever iMac (if any) reaches me first…