RS & Parcelforce

[Reentrant]

Adding salt to the cooking water reduces the loss of soluble cell contents (ie the flavour) by osmosis.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I would have thought the exact reverse, frankly.

[Reentrant]

Oops - you're right. I was thinking of reverse osmosis but that needs a driving force. There's other effects you get with hard v soft water and lid on/lid off with certain vegetables but I'll probably get that the wrong way round too.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Oddly extracting the water but *leaving the flavour behind*, might make a difference.

[Arfa Daily]

Yes, they are quite helpful when something goes wrong, but from time to time, you will get a phone call from your 'account manager' or whatever they call themselves, and they will ask if everything is ok and if there's anything that they can help you with. On several occasions, I have brought up the apparent disparities between shipping methods and size of packages and signatures and not knowing when a parcel is going to arrive and so on. But actually, all they want to hear is that everything is fine, and how well they are doing. You can see their eyes glazing over on the other end of the phone, and their finger hovering over the "call the next punter" button ... :-|

Arfa

[Arfa Daily]

OK. So here's today's one. Some more small parts ordered this time from Farnell (no other stockist option). Order placed yesterday morning, acknowledgement and dispatch verification emails received by early afternoon. Parts arrived this morning, 9:45 am, in a Jiffy bag, through my letter box without needing a signature, and delivered by .....

TA-RA !! Royal Mail

So these places can do it if they try. That use of Royal Mail was not as a result of any special request by me, but clearly someone, somewhere in their dispatch department, determined that it was a better option, in this case for this package, to use them over UPS. But all this actually serves to tell us, is that they still have a Royal Mail collection, and have not turned everything over to courier delivery despite how it appears, but that they actually have no logical or cohesive policy in place, as to which service gets used by default, for which packages.

Arfa

[PeterC]

Yes.

[Man at B&Q]

It's all to do with relative pricing structures of RM and courier, together with the value of the consignment. Rapid do it by size and weight. The limits used to be that if it was under 1kg in weight AND worth less than =A360 it went by first class post, otherwise by courier. These quantities may have changed.

MBQ

[Arfa Daily]

Yes indeedy. That would be the logical way to do it, and I'm sure that it was the way that Farnell did it not so many years back. Sadly, that is no longer the case with them. Most of the parts that I order are low value and low weight. usually transistors or chips for a specific job, and usually in normal 'standard' ordering quantities. Sometimes they come by Royal Mail, sometimes by Royal Mail Parcels, sometimes by UPS in a Jiffy bag, and sometimes in a box the size of your head packed with plastic balloons or polychips. You would have thought that in a fully computer controlled warehouse system, it would be a trivial task for the picking computer to make an order by order decision based on size, value, weight etc as to what method of packing and shipping is to be used as most appropriate and cost effective. It's very frustrating never knowing whether your half an ounce of transistors are going to arrive first thing the next morning with the postman, or anything up to 6pm the next day with a man in a big brown truck with a signing-for thingy in his hand ... I've actually been caught out by this a couple of times on urgent jobs, where I've assured the customer that if I order the parts now, I'll have them first thing in the morning, and their item should be ready for when they need it that afternoon. I know we shouldn't do it, but sometimes, we all do, trying to help someone out or do them a favour !

Arfa

[geoff]

In message , Arfa Daily writes

Fine - until it goes wrong

As I said, give me a direct line to a "buck stops here" person who can sort the problem straight away

Royal Mail can't do that

[Graeme]

In message , geoff writes

RM can, and do. However, a BIG fuss is required. OK, I realise that it should not be that way - you should not have to make a fuss to get to the person who can make things happen. However, that is life, sadly.

[geoff]

In message , Graeme writes

No they can't

The principle and practice diverge from the moment you dial

Actually getting through is the first sticking point - If you have time enough to wait until you finally get through (which I don't - it's taking up valuable contact time with the phone engaged), you end up with some bint on the other end of the phone who tells you that if it doesn't turn up in 30 days, fill in this form.

Sorry, I'd rather use a company with a more professional approach

[Graeme]

In message , geoff writes

Yes, they can. You give up too easily. Pointless phoning the national 'helpline', where, as you say, some bint will tell you to fill in a form. Phone the local depot and raise hell until the manager speaks to you. Get his name and number, for future reference.

[geoff]

In message , Graeme writes

Usually either engaged or not answered. When I've been down the local sorting office, I see them sitting around, the phone ringing, and nobody answering

excuse me, it's not a matter of giving up too easily, I'm not in the business of sitting on a phone waiting. All the time I spend tied up on the phone is time spent not answering customers

The post office just isn't up to the standard I need

[Claire]

We have company Blackberries . One went faulty and was exchnaged under warranty UPS were instructed to do a swap out. Their agency driver did not collect the broken phone.

Next UPS send a letter which is delayed for 3 weeks by RM as UPS did not put enough postage on and which we had to pay =A31.10 to receive. ( you might think someone who runs a business delivering post ought to know better!)

This letter states that they tried to collect three times which I suspect is a lie as we are in a business center with excelent reception who really care about us ( He meant the driver did not leave his van. Predictabily when I drilled down to what was on the logs these were unavailable)

They then go on to tell us that if we fail to contact them then they will treat this as theft and call the police ( this is the first letter they are sending bear in mind).

I have informed the phone network that these jokers after acting so incompetantly then treat the networks customers as dishonest and call them thieves . I shudder to think about subcontaractors behaving like this to my customers

I am struggling to understand why UPS did not write a polite letter asking us to call as they had been unable to contact us I suspect that after the phone call I made to the man who sent the letter he will do it properly next time Kind Regards

[stuart noble]

Horses for courses. If I were returning somebody's boiler pcb, I would do exactly as you do. However, if I were sending out memory sticks at a tenner a time I would use RM and run the risk of the odd one going astray.