I Hate Stumps!!

I wouldn't hate planning the Employee Banquet so much if I could just get everything done my way. Having to rely on the COMPLETELY INCOMPETENT BOOBS at Stumps Party (in business since 1926!) is seriously enough to make my head spin. Allow me to share my experience:

• April 5th: I order the personalized invitations and request 2-day shipping. I figure with an RSVP by May 1st, this will be plenty of time to receive them and send them to guests. I am then notified that my order will ship on April 12th. I call Customer Service to inquire about the reason it will take 8 frickin days to ship my invitations, and I'm told "because they are personalized, we need to print them and we can't speed up that process. They will ship the 12th, and because you ordered 2-day shipping, you'll get them on the 14th." Fair enough.
• April 12: I receive an email from Stumps saying that the paper used for my invitations isn't in stock, so the new shipping date is April 18th. WTF. Cute that they didn't tell me this before, considering this is now 8 days after placing my order. They tell me this on the day it's supposed to leave their warehouse. I believe the email said something like, "Your order will ship April 18th and will arrive April 20th." So I call Customer Service yet again and I say, "Nooo, you will overnight them to me considering this is all your fault you STUPID ASSES." Ok, I didn't say that last part but I wanted to. They agreed to overnight it on their dime and I proceeded to wait for the new ship date as patiently as possible.
• April 18th: At 3pm I notice these invitations still haven't shipped and I start to get worried. I call Customer Service and they assure me that they have until 7pm to ship all orders, and her computer is showing that "it should go out today." Well it should have gone out two effing weeks ago, but I'm not one to hold grudges. 
• April 19th, 8am: check my order status for the invitations. Didn't ship. Mother of God, they didn't ship. I need these damn invitations because "RSVP by May 1st" isn't allowing our guests much time to reply and we're going to look like idiots if these people get their invitations late. I call Customer Service and ask them why. The woman I am talking to can't provide me with a reason as to why they didn't ship, just that "her computer is showing that they should have gone out yesterday." I know they should have gone out yesterday, that's why I'm calling you, you imbecile. She assures me that she will send an email to the barbarians in the warehouse and tell them to ship it to me ASAP, and "she is there until 3:30 and will keep a close eye on it throughout the day."
• April 19th, 12pm: I call again and ask them if they have heard anything. She says she has not, but she will send another email to the warehouse. I say, "Can't you just call the warehouse instead of sending them an email? Or physically move your body down to the warehouse and watch them put it on the truck?" Her answer is no, she can only send emails.
• April 19th, 1:30pm: I call Customer Service and request to speak to a manager. The rep I was talking to paused for a full five seconds before asking, ".......is there a problem?" I explained the entire situation to her and said, "I know it's not your fault so I really don't want to scream at you. That is why I want to speak to someone above you because I know the Customer Service Representatives are not at the top of the food chain at a party planning company." She did not give me a manager, and instead told me, "My computer is showing your invitations should ship today." 
• April 19th, 3pm: I receive a call from Customer Service telling me the reason it hadn't shipped was because the paper had been on backorder. For that matter, that paper is still on backorder, meaning my invitations haven't even printed yet. I say, "Just so we're clear, I was told on the 12th that the paper was on backorder and I was given a new shipping date, the 18th. That was yesterday. So I guess they gave me a new shipping date completely pulled out of thin air, because I assumed the new date was given based on the fact that the paper would be in stock by then. And now it's the 19th and the only reason I was even informed of this is because I have spent my entire day hounding you." She just apologized and thanked me for not yelling at her. I asked her where they were located. She said they were based in Indiana. I told her I was just curious, but I was really asking because I wanted to see how difficult it would be to drive there and either 1) pick the invitations up myself, or 2) attack all Stumps employees. Instead I just cancelled the order.

This has literally driven me clinically insane. Dealing with these people is like pulling your teeth out one by one with a pair of rusty pliers. And it hasn't ended with the invitations, not by a long shot. I still had ANOTHER pending order with these people, that was set to ship April 22nd. Here's how the rest of the week panned out for me:

• April 20th: I call Customer Service and tell them that my online order status for the invitations still says "In the Warehouse" when it should say "Cancelled." She assures me they are cancelled and the credit card hasn't been charged. "It just takes a while for the online status to update."
• April 21st: I call Customer Service and say, "I had a lot of issues with an order that was eventually cancelled completely, so I am worried that my other order set to ship tomorrow will not go smoothly. I just want to make sure nothing is on backorder and everything is still sent to ship." She assures me nothing is on backorder and everything will be fine.
• April 22nd: I get an email from Stumps saying my order was shipped and they give me a UPS tracking number. HOT DAMN!! I scroll down to continue reading the email and, hold the phone, only half the order was shipped. What a plot twist. I saw this coming a mile away, did I not? I call them and say, "I see that my order was shipped, but only half of it. Where is the other half?" And at first the woman didn't even know what I was talking about because her computer wasn't showing it had been shipped. Once she figured her shit out she said, "Well sometimes even if it's the same order, we send them in more than one shipment." That made some semblance of sense, considering these were two completely different items I had just happened to order at the same time, so I accepted this rationale. She assured me that they have until 7pm to send all items for the day, and most of the time they go out around that time. Very well.

Today is April 23rd and I am at home, on a Saturday, and shouldn't be thinking about what the people at Stumps Party in Indiana are doing. Lo and behold, I check my work email and there is nothing in my inbox to signify that the other half of my order was sent. I check my order status on their website and there is nothing there to signify my order was sent. I. Have. Had It. I rattled off an email (after trying to call them but they don't work Saturdays) and here is what I said:

The other half of that order, W1425250-0101, was supposed to ship 4/22 and it did not. I have talked to you all approximately 20 times regarding this other half of the other and all anyone tells me is, "It should go out on 4/22." I don't understand why it is so difficult for you all to ship things on time, because this is not the first issue I've had with you, but if that arch does not arrive on Tuesday 4/26 like it is supposed to I am requesting it be overnighted and my shipping cost be fully refunded. It is really not that difficult to send packages on time, especially considering "you have been in business since 1926," so I want a reason it was not shipped.

I am sorry for being so rude, but I really have had to call Stumps five times a day wondering why things haven't shipped and inquiring about the status of my orders. With my other party invitations order, I was told after hounding your poor Customer Service reps a million times that they hadn't even been printed yet two days after they were supposed to be shipped. This is unacceptable and I want the other half of this current order shipped NOW, considering they were supposed to be shipped yesterday and weren't. WHY don't things ship on time with Stumps?!

She wrote me back saying something along the lines of, "Sorry your order didn't ship on time. We trust our warehouse to ship things on the dates they are due but that doesn't always happen. I'll get this shipped to you 4/25." I swear on everything good and holy in this world, I will be plotting all weekend how to unleash the gates on Hell on these people if 4/26 rolls around and I don't have a confirmation email saying my order shipped. The Banquet is not until May 12th so I have some time to get this other part of the order in, but I hate waiting until the last minute. This Banquet is a big deal and I am spearheading it and if something goes wrong it comes down on me and I look like a big fart. If my name is on something it will be done well and I don't care how many Customer Service representatives I need to harass.

In case you're wondering, we found cheaper and better looking invitations elsewhere, so most have already been mailed to guests. That much is at least taken care of. Luckily, everything else is falling into place quite well: decorations are purchased, food is secure, band is booked, etc. etc. All I'm waiting on is this damn order and then all that will be left is decorating the day before. Maybe buy some balloons and stuff like that. I really enjoy this type of stuff but I can't imagine being a full-time party planner because having to rely on other people to get the job done is infuriating! I'm too Type A for this - I'm a firm believer in, "If you want something done right you need to do it yourself." Well I can't do this myself, I need to rely on the livestock working at Stumps Party, so I am going to stress until the Banquet is OVER and went down without a hitch. 


IN THE MEANTIME! We have another little shindig to plan that occurs a mere 2 days before the Banquet: the Spring Fling. I have stressed far less over this, considering it's only 3 hours long and occurs on the lawn right outside the hospital, but I've still had to secure a moon bounce rental and make sure everyone on the Activities Committee is doing their part to get things like crafts for the kids, a face painter, and goodie bags for them to take home. Thank God I have a dependable group of people helping me on this (if any of them were completely worthless I'd tell them to quit and go work for Stumps). So thank you, God, for my coworkers who I can rely on!