@LisaSTL wrote:
ceasesmith, you are missing the point. The guidelines did not instruct you to call to make an appointment. You said they did not even address the issue you encountered. The failure was on the client and MSC.
I'm with Lisa on this. I'm tired of guidelines that nobody from the client or MSC has bothered to look at objectively and ask, "What if?" There should have been some sort of contingency plan in the guidelines--a note stating that an appointment might be necessary and what to do if that happened, or a limit on how long you were to wait, or something. Nobody can reasonably be expected to sit and wait ad infinitum, or to make an appointment to go back the next day and incur another four-hour round trip. You should be paid at least a partial fee, or given a generous bonus on the re-scheduled shop. I hope they do right by you. It's not your fault!
(I'm also "with" other shoppers here who have experienced similar situations. Yours is proof that, yes, sometimes guidelines don't cover what to do if you can't have an interaction with someone.)
On a related note, I went to do a shop a couple of months ago, and the store was closed. It had been open the last time I'd driven by it, and the shop guidelines didn't require a phone call first. It was about a half-hour round trip, and I hadn't scheduled any other jobs around it. The instructions had no place to report a closed location. I took the photos of the vacant storefront and the empty parking lot and e-mailed the scheduler. Apparently neither the client or the MSC had allowed for a closed store. I asked for something to cover my time and mileage, and was paid the full fee. Now, there's an MSC that went above and beyond... I don't know if they got paid by the client or not, but I felt like they did a really stand-up thing. I hope your MSC does something good for you, Cease. You deserve it!
I learn something new every day, but not everyday!
I've learned to never trust spell-check or my phone's auto-fill feature.