Letter

[ailbhe]

Sent through a haze of rage to the people who sent my lovely flooring. I don't think contacting CityLink will be useful in any way, based on past experience.

Hi,

My 30sqm of orange flooring was delivered today by a friendly and helpful courier -- but it was too heavy for him to manage alone and CityLink sent it on a lorry with only one person. Neither my builder nor my partner were able to lift it either; it's a two-ablebodied-people job. The driver did get it into the house with my help and a trolley (almost broke the trolley) but I was surprised neither of us was hurt in the process.

It is now obstructing my hallway until we have two ablebodied people to move it into a room (probably the fitter and my partner). It would be nice if you could investigate other couriers who make sure exceptionally heavy deliveries are appropriately handled. I'd be happy to pay a little extra to know that the courier wasn't an abusive employer.

Ailbhe Leamy

Seriously, he was a nice man, and he tried, but it was a completely unreasonable thing to ask. He even said "where do you want it?" and would probably have tried to get it further into the house, but it was not safe.

Comments

[ellipunk.livejournal.com]

I used to work as a courier many moons ago. I often had extremely heavy boxes or extremely numerous boxes but I just had to get on with it unless the receiver helped out.

[ailbhe]

Yes, apparently usually there's someone ablebodied to take delivery. This was a 2m roll of flooring, though, tall and round and slippy and weighing about 70kg.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Well said.

[juliet]

We had this too when part of our kitchen (two very very heavy worktops, 60 or 80kg each I think?) was delivered -- except the delivery chap said that they should have told us that someone needed to be around to assist him. They hadn't done, obviously. I was 7 months pregnant at the time and helped him rather than have to get it redelivered. It was just about within my capabilities and I was very careful, but afterwards I freaked out a bit about whether it had been a big mistake and spent a preventative couple of hours resting. Never occurred to me to complain at the time but clearly I should have done, so well done you.

Am glad the flooring is lovely!

[ailbhe]

The product co apparently pay a premium for delivery because their stiff needs at least two people and some lifting equipment, so they're a bit miffed.

[flybabydizzy.livejournal.com]

When son Gareth was working as an agency driver he often struggled without a drivers mate with items that were too heavy. Saturday deliveries for Ikea were the worst - kitchen and bedroom fitments, usually. He had unrealistic time schedules to keep, too. In the end he turned down work with them, as he was concerned about hurting his back.