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I've just recently sold a bass and used Parcelforce Express as they had generally been absolutely fine in the past. Booked the collection on Sunday for Monday collection from my work address. This is the safe option as I work in logistics, shipping etc. so we know all the drivers and couriers. No tracking or anything available despite a tracking number so getting a bit worried. Parcelforce turn up at 4.30pm and the driver says he's come to collect the parcel but can't actually take it as head office haven't bothered to print the shipping labels but he thought he'd turn up anyway 🙄 So I make a few phone calls and its picked up the following day and delivered today. Quite bizarre really.

I believe there have been manufacturing delays because Barefaced has moved the business to a different location. That's always going to slow things down.

I'd be all over that if it was a 2-string. GLWTS.

Rubber Ball - Bobby Vee

Caught putting it in my basket to check shipping cost and offered 10% off. Nice email chat with 'Wes' about weights and timescales. No council tax or water rates for the next two months. Birthday next month. Forgive me for I am weak.

Now routed out ready for pickups.

Two good ones this week. Refreshing our memories with Fortunate Sons on monday. Started finalising our full theatrical performance for Fractured Persona tonight - we have the 'script' and setlist, going through song by song and recording definitive live versions. About 40% sorted tonight, just a couple more off the original album we need to brush up on. And look how our rehearsal room treats us:

A splendid plan! On 24th January I'm playing at a Wassail and we're going to lug half of it along. I just need to choose which half!

Receiving email showing a new bass. ✔️ Remembering there's no council tax or water rates to pay for the next two months. ✔️ Being asked by my family what I want for my birthday at end of February. ✔️ Being cyber-spied eying up said bass and being offered 10%discount to tempt me. ✔️ Realising that all the above put together makes this practically a free bass. ✔️ Is that a trigger I hear being pulled? ✔️

For balance, I won a bass on Ebay auction late Sunday evening [after my bed time] (bit surprised no one else bid on it tbh as there were 40 plus watching it); paid first thing Monday morning, Monday early evening seller sent the tracking info and expressed hope it would ship Tuesday enclosing picture of package and label; it did get collected, tracking updated on collection and later that evening to show at hub, then this morning email saying delivery today and 12.07 the driver arrived and knocked on next door unit and, as Gary wasn't in, put it in his shed and dropped a note through the door to say in shed. I heard him knock so went round and asked, guitar box, this size ? Yes he confirmed, I said it's for me unit 7, he got the parcel back out of shed and sure enough my name and my Unit number on the label, so he handed it over, but also showed me his delivery app which clearly had the address as Unit 6 - now how does a scanned label correctly addressed end up creating an entry on a drop list with the wrong number on it, that shouldn't be possible, someone somewhere must have done a manual data entry, I guess when they were assigning the parcels to the subcontractor Polish driver who is actually covering half our district, because all the Parcelforce drivers who could left their employ over the last couple of years and they can't recruit new drivers on the new Ts&Cs they are offering now they are owned by some foreign billionaire. We've had 3 new PF drivers who all left inside a week in the last year, one of whom is now a Sainsbury delivery driver, which isn't a well paid job, but less hassle and stress than working for PF as he was happy to tell me last month when he delivered my beanz and muesli 🙃 We are lucky here, the posties do a great job and collect and deliver a lot of the smaller PF items, even though its more work for them for which they get diddly squat for and the Posties' depot is 25 miles from the PF one. It does show sometimes as the stuff collected doesn't always make the trunk run to the regional hub that night, but they do deliver everything they receive as soon as possible, often a day earlier than expected as they like to clear the decks each day as much as possible. Now we have a regular Evri driver again even they are pretty reliable, the problem with Evri seems to be collections from drop off shops (autogenerated manifests not actually checked against packages I reckon) and theft and kpi driven prioritisation at the central hub - in last year 4 packages lost or delayed by up to a month, in every case fine till supposedly at the hub. The one that arrived after a month had clearly been found on the naughty step at the drop off location a few weeks later. Parcel companies can all hit a KPI of 99.95+% daily, it's what they do with the 0.05% of a million packages that is the difference between them, and none excel with those, but some seem to take more responsibility than others.