Courier Conumdrum

Today was a frustrating day. I’m writing this after the fact so I’ll try and account for all of the events that culminated in a ruined evening. Firstly I had a call where I was given some disappointing news. Then there was a meeting to review what we learned in that meeting. More negative and overwhelming stuff. Then we had a townhall meeting that I actually got to use my recliner for. That was a plus, first time I’ve used it since I fixed it over the weekend. I had a disappointing lunch and then a few more calls in the afternoon. The later meeting was super negative, probably the most hope sucking call of the last 3 years. I can’t share what was discussed but there are things happening company wide that are really discouraging. The wind was nearly all removed from sails at this point. I was feeling pretty low. I decided to try and record chapter 21 of the book I’ve been recording chapters of. I’ve mentioned it before, it’s far more difficult than you think. Anyways, I thought working on finishing that would cheer me up. My voice was hoarse and gravelly and I couldn’t get the accents right, moreso than usual. There was a lot of annoying background noise as well. When I reviewed the recording I knew that it was easily the worst that I’ve done. I may have to re-do it later but for now it’s in the queue to be published. While I was doing that, I put my phone on Do Not Disturb. One of the rare times I’ve every used that function. Of course I missed several calls, texts and emails. I was outside business hours so I didn’t feel bad for missing the calls. It was the subject matter that was difficult to deal with. My last shipment to one customer had not arrived. There was something wrong with FedEx. I looked up the tracking number and it was saying the shipment was in Arkansas. That is not on the way from Iowa to Southern Ontario. I called FedEx before calling the customer back. They told me that there was a customs delay. I asked why. They told me the paperwork said three pieces but they only consider it two because two skids were piled on top of each other. The worst part is that it had been in this state for three days. During those days, the tracking number was showing that it was somewhere else. I started asking questions about this and got nothing. I called the customer and shared what I’d learned. They were in the process of uncovering the same information. I was frustrated, they were very frustrated. There wasn’t much I could do, we’d done everything right on our end, someone was just being a goofus. They asked me if they could pick it up, I had no idea, I don’t work for FedEx. I told them I’d do what I can but my options were limited, I’d done my part. FedEx says maybe Monday it will show up. Over a week from when it left our plant. Unacceptable. This ate well into my evening and ruined me for doing anything. I have been rolling around in bed, stressed, for an hour. I hope I can get to sleep soon.