Back-Talk To The Future!

I work as a manager for a logistics company. There is a really weird dynamic here. The customers and drivers will talk down to you and treat you like crap if you don’t step up and stand up for yourself, so you have to respond a little more aggressively to people without stepping over the line. Sarcasm works really well in a lot of situations.

Yesterday, we were assigned to deliver a load. We do not schedule the deliveries; we just pick up the loads and deliver because the customer schedules the deliveries. The load we were assigned somehow had an appointment time for the day before, though we were given it a day later. Obviously, the receiver rejected the load because we “missed delivery.”

We have to call the customer to get it all straightened out.

Customer: “Oh, so you botched the delivery, I see? Useless as always!”

Me: “I don’t think we did. We picked it up yesterday and the receiver states they have an appointment time for the day before, but we were assigned the load yesterday.”

Customer: “How is that my problem? You messed up; you need to fix it!”

Me: “So… with all due respect, this is our fault? You gave us a load yesterday that had to be delivered the day before yesterday.”

Customer: *Rather smugly* “Yes!”

Me: “Okay… let me get out the ole’ Flux Capacitor and call Doc Brown and work some magic here…”

Customer: “Wait… No! That’s that time travel movie! What’s that got to do with delivering this load?!”

Me: “Well… as we got the load yesterday… which was Wednesday and the bill says it must be delivered on Tuesday…”

Customer: “We don’t make mistakes! Standby for us to correct this mistake!”

Me: *Head-desk*