You Work… FOR A WEBSITE.

I need some new pants, and because of the global health crisis, I want to buy them online instead of going to the shop I normally use. I’m a big guy, and the large brands don’t carry stuff in my size, so I Google around a bit. Finally, I find an online store that seems to be part of a regular shop several 100 km away that specializes in big sizes.

I find three pairs of pants quickly, but at the checkout, it becomes a bit difficult. They don’t accept Paypal. My options are an advance money transfer (which means almost no way to get my money back if the store stiffs me), a German thing called Nachnahme where you pay the delivery driver (which costs extra and is a huge hassle if you’re not at home or the driver doesn’t have change), or an invoice where you do a money transfer after your stuff arrives. I opt for the invoice.

One week later, no pants.

Almost two weeks later, I email them, and I get no response, so finally, I call them. The lady asks for my order details and looks up my order.

Employee: “Ah, yes. Didn’t you get our letter?” 

I check my inbox again. No email from them. I tell her that.

Employee: “No, not your email. We sent you a real letter — by post. Didn’t you get that? Did you give us the wrong address? You should have recognized it; it has our logo on the envelope and everything!”

Me: “I might have gotten the letter and thrown it out unopened because I mistook it for advertising. Why you didn’t just send an email?”

Employee: “Email is so complicated to use; we don’t do that here. Anyway, what we told you is that, as you’re a new customer, we won’t accept the invoice option.”

I politely told her to cancel my order. And I was tempted to tell her that, next time, she should just carve the response in a clay tablet and send that per Pony Express. But I guess she wouldn’t have understood the joke.