Some stress

When I hadn't heard anything about a package I was expecting two days ago, I looked into it myself. This is how FedEx works: they don't tell you they fucked up; they let you figure it out on your own. I came to find that my package was stuck in transit due to a "Shipping Exception", saying that there was missing international paperwork and to call Customer Service. I call customer service to get a lady who tells me that I need to call the Customs Department at a different number. I call that number to be told to wait on hold 'til the next representative can get to me. No one answers, not even an automated system to put me on hold. I call back three times before a very nice lady answers and then puts me on hold. A few muzak bars later and she informs me that the Customs folk have gone on strike and there is nothing to be done. I ask tell them I am leaving Greece tomorrow and to please just send the package back to the sender. She says okay in that way that means "yeah, yeah... I'll get to it". I ask if she needs any information or my name or anything like that and she says, "You can tell me your name, if you like" as in: "You can if you want, but no matter to me".

I get off the phone and the wheels start turning. What if the Customs strike affects my travel plans outta here? That would be the suck. I'm already writing off any chance at getting my VAT refund back at the airport because who knows if the strike is going to affect that. I do some digging to find that the strike should last three days (ending the day i go to Crete) and, oh yeah, a bomb went off in central Athens at a JP Morgan financial center. "Huh," I think. "That can't be good". So we call the American Embassy in hopes of finding out just what the fuck is going on with travel and if it's at all safe for us to be in Greece. The nice Greek lady tells us.... nothing. She says there's no way to know how the strike will affect travel and we should just show up at the airport and see what happens.

So that's what we're doing. Waiting to see what happens.

Now my wife is ribbing me for being sooooooo "in love" with Greece, especially in my last couple blogs. I'm laughing because it's funny. And true. I could be panicked about getting the hell out of this country and wondering whether or not I should step outside to get to the post office to ship all my crap back home but, really... what can I do? I'm somewhere else right now and that means that shit is going to happen. And it will probably cost me some money (like being charged for the driver who waited for us at the airport until 1 a.m. when my flight in here was delayed overnight). But so what? What does panicking do? I can't control anything that happens out here. And I can't regret what I didn't have any control over to begin with so....

What the hell, right?

Still, I totally think FedEx is fucked, no matter what country it is. Good to know some things are dumb on a global scale.


-d@n