Friday, June 6, 2008

Attitude Problem

I've had quite a bit of attitude this week at work. In addition to the emotional rollercoaster I've been on this month, I think I'm just tired of people's shit and I've been calling them on it. My main argument this week has been with one of my suppliers. Basically, he's an asshole and he thinks the same about me. He royally screwed up an order of mine and then screwed up the reorder. I was thrilled as you can probably imagine. He told me it was kharma because I'm such a bad person. WTF?!?

After letting him know that I have many suppliers and have great relationships with all of them and that I want us to get passed this and salvage a working relationship, he has only ignored me. Can you get anymore childish? So, until I hear back from him and have his support again, I will refrain from selling his stuff. It's really stupid, but I feel like it's the only way to get his attention - hit him in the pocketbook.

My other issue has been with people bitching about freight charges. Does anyone watch the news? When you buy 5000 pounds worth of stone and it's coming from NJ, it might be a little expensive. Right now, it takes about $1400 to fill up a semi with gas. Fleets are cutting back the number of trucks out there, so fewer trucks mean higher prices. Makes sense to me.

I had an order yesterday and the freight was $1800. Sounds high, and it is, but we get a discount on our freight charges and we pass that along. It's over 70% in savings. I ran the same freight quote without signing into our account and it came back somewhere around $5500. So, yes, freight is crazy expensive right now, but Jesus...don't get mad at me about it.

After 3 complaints on freight charges yesterday alone I decided to do the above research and passed it on to everyone at work. We needed a response to what's become the most frequently asked question.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I guess people don't realize how heavy stone is when stacked on a pallet. A friend of mine told me how much he paid for freight and I was astounded until he pointed out how much it weighed.

(Most people don't know freight charges are based on weight, not so much size.)