I placed an order on hallmark.com
to have a bouquet of flowers delivered to my loved on Valentine's day. An order which, after much deliberation between first flowers and then what to say in the message, was placed well in advance of the special day no less. And so I placed my order for a bouquet of red roses and white calla lillies.
However, it seems that the best of my intentions were thwarted. The flowers did not arrive at the office until well after we were both back home. They were delivered in the office the next afternoon, the stalks of the calla lillies dried and partially crushed, the leaves of the roses wilted to the point of falling off.
Now, I certainly can't blame the mail room for not delivering them until the afternoon. They didn't know the contents, and don't normally make their delivery rounds until the afternoon anyway. That places the issue with hallmark.com and FedEx. I'm sure that Hallmark packed them properly, and with enough dry ice to keep the flowers fresh for the journey. However, FedEx shows that the package arrived at the area's main distribution center at 11:31 PM on the 13th. It departed from there at 6:12 AM on the 14th to it's final destination, less than thirty miles away. It arrived at it's destination at 7:21 PM that evening! Over thirteen hours! I know that freight and package delivery is full of little things that can go wrong, but I find this to be highly unnacceptible. I do not understand how something so simple, which would normally have been delivered by 10 AM, did not make it to it's destination until 7:21 at night, long after normal business hours!
Of course, to add to the further frustration of this, I have now spent over an hour on hold with Hallmark's customer care number waiting to talk to a representative before getting fed up and hanging up. I can only listen to the same classical music loop for so long.
I'll be sending more flowers in the future, but I'll be thinking twice before I order from hallmark.com if I have to have it arrive on time since I don't have a choice with who the shipper is.
I cared enough to send the very best, but it seems that FedEx didn't care enough to send it in time.
