23 May, 2011
I’ve been inside waiting for a phone call from the abattoir’s delivery driver to say the lorry was parked up on the other side of the valley and waiting for me to collect our boxes of butchered Berkshire pork.
The phone did ring, but it wasn’t the driver. It was my sales contact at the abattoir.
The truck now won’t be in our neck of the woods until gone 7pm tonight. We have customers coming to collect their pork late afternoon.
We’ve already put customers off once. The pork was to have been delivered last Thursday morning but the abattoir put it back until today.
Now I have to contact everyone again and tell them there will be another delay. There’s nothing we can do about it but it will reflect badly on us as we’re the ones passing the delay on to the customers.
Having put the phone down, I turned to the computer to email the Other Half about the new delay and found an email had just arrived from her.
One of the customers she’d found has cancelled her order for a quarter of a pig. I now have to find another customer. At short notice.
The joys of selling pork.
Glad i didn’t take the afternoon off
I’d prefer not to give customers the runaround but unless I buy a refrigerated van and collect the meat myself, I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do about the delays. The meat will be delivered at the abattoir’s convenience, their big customers come first, and we’ve run out of alternative abattoirs within a reasonable travelling distance.
I thought I’d made such neat arrangements, getting to and from work without a car and organising for a couple of people to come over this afternoon to collect their pork. I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.
The pork is here.
And we have a buyer for the quarter that was left over when the previous customer cancelled. Phew!
Well, that was a little mental. I met the truck just after 6pm, offloaded the pork onto our truck, raced back to the croft and started unloading at 6.30pm.
It was bang in the middle of evening chore time, but the chilled pork had to come first. All the boxes of half pigs have to be checked, one has to be split to make two quarter pigs, the Pedigree Certificates have to be slapped on the boxes, the weights put on the boxes, and the boxes put in the freezers.
Meanwhile, the first friend/customer had arrived and was waiting for her box. (It was fortunate she was able to make it today after all the delays as we wouldn’t have had space in the freezers for all the meat.)
While all this was going on, the boys were waiting for their dinner, the pigs were waiting for theirs, the chickens for theirs and the dog for his. Oh, and the OH and I needed to eat too.
Once the pork was done and the customer sent on her way, I did the chores at a run. And I can confidently say it’s not easy trying to run uphill into a 50-60mph wind while carrying two 15-20kg bucketloads of feed and water!
Back inside and time to cook a later dinner, which was finally served up at 8.55pm. Yes, 25 minutes after the boys’ bedtime.
We’ve just finished eating, I’m quickly updating this while I wait for the boys to do their teeth, and then I’ll race outside to finish the jobs.
It is fun. Really!
Anyone with half a brain knows it is not your fault and this kind of stuff just happens. Besides, I got to spend extra time with daughter number 2, and a cup of tea and a blether with the OH which I wouldn’t have had if it had been on time. So, as they say, it’s an ill wind that blows no good. Literally!
So, you’re admitting to having half a brain?
PS Edited our real names out of your post. We don’t use them on the blog.
why not hire a cooler van??
Because it will add to the cost. And if it adds to the cost, the price will have to go up. And the price has already risen by 28%. And many prospective customers already feel the price is too steep. Our customer base shrinks every time we have to pass on a rise in costs.
You have Mail
We have the same int he bike shop. Recently an older gent came and asked for a low frame bike that he could get on and off easily. Thing is, he was a big bloke and no ladies/unisex bike would fit. So we ordered (and financed) a huge ladies bike specially for him. Just as it arrived he called. All his friends had E-bikes, so he was cancelling his order and he’d go and look for an E-bike instead…
We are now waiting for a female giant…