Peace, love, happiness and Mr Delivery

In those heady early days when I first envisaged blogging, I imagined every post filled with wisdom, carefully crafted to add only the best, most beautiful, most constructive to the world of words.

Instead, I find I don’t write about 9 out of 10 topics I want to write about, because writing of the kind of quality I’d like takes energy, time, and I’ve got too many other pressing issues, like watching cricket or taking out the trash.

Instead, I find that the Tony Leon aspect of my personality comes easily to the fore, that I can become a whiny bastard with little to no effort at all. There’s no shortage of raw material – so many entities I come across provide abysmal service. Telkom, FNB, Nedbank – a quick search through my blog archived will find an ample supply of complaints. I really don’t want to, but it just comes out.

So, on to today.

Come 18h00 I was feeling a little peckish, so I logged onto the Mr Delivery site to place an order. 1 grapetizer, 1 paneer tikka, 1 dal makhani. Quick and easy. I’ve had the dal makhani many times before, and it’s something I can rely on. 18h15 the order was placed with the Rondebosch branch, and I prepared to wait for 19h15, the promised delivery time.

It’s now 21h10… you’re expecting me to say it hasn’t arrived yet, aren’t you? Well, no. 19h25 the goods arrived at around, not too late, and not too much of a problem as this is what usually happens.

I noticed that the grapetizer wasn’t with the order, so I didn’t pay for it, and the driver left.

The paneer tikka was fine. However, upon opening the sealed packet I saw that the dal makhani, which is supposed to come with basmati rice, came with chips. I immediately phoned the branch, and they said they’d call the driver.

20 minutes later I’d heard nothing, so I phoned again, and was put on hold. Somebody finally got back, asking me my credit card number. Obviously a mixup, so I said I was waiting for a response about my order, and started explaining, before realising the person wasn’t there any longer, and hadn’t even said ‘please hold’ or anything, just left the phone.

So I held a while longer. I heard muttering in the background, then the phone was cut off.

I phoned back, got through to somebody, and explained the issue. They said they’d speak to their manager and call back in 5 minutes.

10 minutes later they called back, to tell me the manager had phoned the restaurant and said the dal makhani comes with chips, which is absolute nonsense as I’ve had the item many times before, and the restaurant doesn’t even offer chips on the menu – it’s an Indian restaurant. I asked to speak to the manager. The person told me I couldn’t, as the manager was very busy, and could I call back in 10 minutes.

I said no, I wanted the manager to call me back. I waited… and waited… By 20h35, 2 hours and 20 minutes after I placed the order, no one had called back.

So I wrote an email to head office. Emails not being the best way to get a quick response, I also phoned head office and explained the story. They said they’d phone the branch and speak to the manager.

Head office obviously has more say than li’l ol me, as that got a response. About 20h45 I got a phone call, from the manager of the branch. He started by saying the paneer tikka comes with chips, not rice, he’d just spoken to the manager of the restaurant. Let’s just say I’m not convinced, but I may be wrong. Perhaps Out of India has a unique take on Indian food by offering something that looks like it comes from Steers with their traditional tandoor oven-baked paneer tikka. I told him it was the Dal Makahani I was actually worried about, and it comes with rice, and that I’d ordered it numerous times before. The manager then said that the website was wrong, he’d complained numerous times but it was still broken. I then told him the paper menu also says that all curry meals come with rice or naan. He said no, that’s not the case. So the website, the paper menu, and my memory, are all broken.

The conversation ended with him telling me to mention him by name next time I order and he’ll sort me out.

Now maybe I misread everything, and was mislead by my memory. But somehow I’m still left feeling a little dissatisfied. I don’t think there’ll be a next time.

Tags: mr+delivery bad+service