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Published: December 20th 2005
So Monday was spent driving around Bangalore trying to ship packages home to my family in Chicago.
Who would have thought a task so easily accomplished in the States would cause me so much frustration. I had purchased some small items for my family and I had intended on shipping them back in time for Christmas. Getting the packages home was difficult in itself, but my problems began a week earlier when I tried to get gift wrapping for them. I actually had purchased most of the items within the first week of being here but finding wrapping paper was quite difficult.
I knew that Christmas was not as big of a holiday here as it is in the States, but I really didn't think about the stuff we take for granted when it comes to the holidays. All of the malls are decorated for the holiday but in a nice change of pace they only just began decorating at the start of December. I realize for all of you State-side this is a concept that seems foreign, I mean back home we begin decorating for Christmas around the fourth of July now don't we????
Well due to the delay in decorating, I was not too worried about finding wrapping paper, and it was only late last week when I still hadn't found any that I began to become concerned. I asked my friend here why I couldn't find any and his reply was: What do you need paper for, they take care of that at the stores. It was then I realized being in a "service oriented" country, people didn't wrap their own presents here, the stores do it for you while you watch. Of course there is no cost here (in the US I think it costs a few dollars to have a store do it for you). Unfortunately I had already purchased the items and did not have them wrapped, but I have since gotten almost all of my subsequent purchases wrapped. The socks I bought myself this weekend looked quite beautiful when I brought them home with christmas paper on them, and I enjoyed unwrapping them before I put them on. This did not solve my delima of how to wrapp the purchases I already had.
I decided to check out one of my favoire shoppes here "Landmark". This store has everything and it is quite classy. The store is in the Forum Mall and is on two floors. The first floor is a book store, and I have purchased a ton of books there for a fraction of the cost they would have been in the States. I found a Dan Brown book that I didn't even know existed. (Dan Brown wrote the Da Vinci Code) There is a middle floor (this is quite hard to explain as it is halfway between the first and second floor and kind of shoved off to the side) which has toys and such. The top floor carries everything else, from CD's, DVD's, clothing, housewares, stationary, etc. Think of what would happen if Nordstoms merged with Target, This place has the selection of Target but the class of Nordstorms.
So I checked out Landmark, and sure enough they had wrapping paper, but nothing for the holidays. I asked one of the 20,000 employee's who was extremely helpful, but the first question he asked me was "why do you want wrapping paper, here we can wrap your things for you" and he proceeded to grab the bag and they promptly wrapped my new Dan Brown book as well as a tablet of paper I had purchased. Unfortunaly, I was not sending the Dan Brown book or the tablet of paper back to the States, although I am sure my parents and sister would have loved to have received the book. I then tried to explain to him that I needed the paper to wrap gifts I had already purchased, he really couldn't understand why I had not gotten the items wrapped when I purchased them. As helpful as he was the concept of me wrapping my own gift was foreign to him. I eventually purchased some very expensive gift paper that was not christmas oriented but nice just the same.
Ok, one thing down, now I needed to buy tape and scissors. Well let me tell you, they do not sell scotch tape in India. I am convinced. I must have gone to 15 stores and every single place pointed to their own tape roll, when I asked if they had tape. I was getting a bit frustrated. I am thinking to myself, do these people actually think this American flew all the way to India just to take a survey of stores to see who had a roll of tape????
At this point I was at my wits end, I had some gifts, some very expensive wrapping paper, but no tape. The weekend had come, so I enlisted my friend from India, who immediatly took me to a "home" store. The store sold towels, shower curtians, etc. I immediatly said to him, but this is a bathroom store, and he looked at me like I was high and walked up to the clerk, asked for tape and she brought us to a case (I am not making this up) and in the case there were post-its, tape, scissors, etc. Yes how stupid of me, I was only looking in bookstores, stationary stores, department stores, etc. Why didn't I think to buy all of my office needs at Bed Bath and Beyond.
With Tape and Scissors in hand, I returned home and wrapped my gifts. My next task was to actually ship the packages home. I had been told by many people that the shipping companies do not like the box sealed before you ship it as they have to make sure you aren't sending something you shouldn't be (I have no idea what that would be). In my adventures, I had passed a big yellow DHL sign a number of times and I thought to myself thats where I will go. So yesterday, off to DHL I went. I arrived at the shop and was greeted by about 6 people. I was a little put off by such a small number of service staff, and that should have been my first clue that something was amiss. After explaining to all six people what I wanted to do, they finally got somebody from the back of the shop, who it turned out was a Physician. Apparantly, this wasn't actually a shop, but a doctor's office, and the six people were not staff, but patients waiting to be seen. So I asked the doctor, why did he have a DHL sign in front of his office and he told me he liked the way it looked (?!??!) Now mind you, the sign is maybe 4 feet wide and 3 feet tall, and one of those box signs that has lights in it. It is not just some painted sign, it is the real deal. I really have nothing else to say about that conversation because I feel a bit like I am in the twilight zone at this point. It did strike me that I have always liked the large Safeway sign on Market Street in San Francisco, so when I get back, i think I am going to buy one and put it in my front yard, just like this doctor.
Ok, well i decided to put this in the hands of my driver, I explained what I needed and he took me to a place called "blue dart" they are a courier service and ship packages. Outside there were about 20 employee's and inside there were another 15 or so. Ok we are off to a good start because the service staff to customer ratio is about right by India's standards. So I get up to the counter show him all of the presents and I explain what I need and he asks what I am shipping. I fight the urge to say drugs or bombs and tell him they are christmas gifts. He asks what specifically they are. I explain generally what they are, and he says "ok, let me see." Now I am angry. I spent the better part of the week running all over India looking for tape and wrapping paper and now I have to unwrap them??????????
So I open one and show it to him, thinking that will be enough, whcih of course it is not, and proceed to open almost all of them. He is satisified with the items, and tells me he will get somebody that can assist me. And here I thought he was helping me. So the next guy comes and we do the whole thing over. So the third guy comes and at this point I am a little pissed. I had told my driver I would be 5 minutes and about 1/2 hour has passed. By the foruth guy, when he asks what I am shipping I do say drugs just to see what his reaction is. There was none, and he didn't even ask to see the items. (Moral of the story, you can ship drugs but not christmas presents to the US from India) So now I have found somebody that can help me, so I think, but when I tell him where I am sending them, he tells me that they only ship within India. I notice the DHL packages all over the place, and ask what they are for, and he says they are incoming packages. I ask him where I should go, and he recommends a DHL store on Koromongala Road and gives me the address. So I give the address to my driver and off we go, and where do you think we end up? Back at the doctor's office. Apparantly I wasn't the only person that figured if you have a BIG DHL sign in front of your building you probably are DHL.
So now I am stuck, not knowing where to go, I enlist another of my friends in my shipping adventure. I had started this quest at 11 AM and it was now about 4PM, so I called Ashish from work, who kindly agreed to meet me at work and he would take me someplace to ship the packages. We drove to the other side of Bangalore, and went into the store, which had pictures of airplanes and packages (so I am thinking this is a good sign) and told the front desk clerk what we wanted. And again with the 20 questions, they wanted to know what the items were, and why I was sending them, then she wanted copies of the receipts. So Ashish gets involved and basically tells her to shut up and that I didn't need any of those things and that the package needed to be shipped. So she got the head guy, who came out and agreed to ship my package. So after filling out the forms, and spending about a 1/2 hour, he tells me the price. I will not say how much, but the cost of shippng was almost two times the cost of all of the items combined. Actually I think i could have flown the items back myself in Coach for less money. Then he proceeds to tell me it will take 6-8 weeks. I am furious, 6-8 weeks?? I leave in 3 weeks, I can just bring the stuff home myself and ship them from home for only a fraction of the price. Well Ashish apologizes and we head back to the office.
Well I have wasted an entire day trying to ship something, and by the time I get to work I am a bit frustrated. Another co-worker comes up to say hi and asks whats in the bag and I explain my day, so she says, why not just ship it from here?? Of course I feel like an idiot, as we ship things via DHL daily back to the states. So she gets the person in charge of shipping who doesn't even ask what I am sending, and they put it in a box and off it goes to Chicago. It also cost about the same as if I had shipped it from the states.
Oh, and my driver did not show up last night to pick me up from work at 3:30AM. When i called, they said they didn't know I needed a ride. I could wait an hour or two for them to send somebody or I could find my own way home. Ashish being the great guy that he is, offered to drive me home which is very much out of his way. But that is the kind of guy he is.
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Marti
non-member comment
Jesus H. Christ!
What an ordeal!!!