A TALE OF TWO HAYLEYS

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Well; actually it was the most ordinary (and slightly mediocre) of times. Yesterday morning was nothing special, actually. I am on an irritatingly large cocktail of medication, and am not at my best in the morning. It takes several cups of coffee for me to wake up, but because I have so much to do, I don't do what I should do, and sit down and sip the coffee and eat my cereal before I actually do any work.

I checked the status of our latest books on amazon.co.uk and got immediately angry when I read that both opf them are marked "Usually dispatched within 1 to 2 months", and I immediately sped an email off to Hayley, our custromer representative at LightningSource, complaining, as this was a problem that I thought had been fixed.

She wrote back immediately:

"I really don't know, I would suggest contacting the suppliers perhaps?"

This got me more than slightly irritated. She is my supplier (or at least their representative), so I wrote back a terse email, and received yet another polite missive telling me that she didn't know what to do.

I was just about to pick up the telephone and give the company a piece of my mind for emplkoying someone who had so idea what she was talking about, when I realised something awful!

It was the wrong Hayley! In my early morning medicated blur I had been emailing (and just about to berate) Hayley Stevens, researcher and rather friendly sceptic with whom I have always been on friendly terms. I immediately emailed her to apologise, and emailed a fare less terse communic\tion to the other Hayley, who replied:

"There has been a data feed issue between LS and amazon.co.uk which we are currently in the process of resolving. we are hoping that the problem will be resolved at the latter end of this week which means that the correct data information will begin to cascade through (this can take a couple of weeks)

The Ingram, Lightning Source and Amazon teams are working together to find a resolution as quickly as possible. All parties are aware of the seriousness of this situation and to this end, every effort is being made to find a solution as soon as possible".

So, hopefully the book problem will be sorted at the end of the week, and as far as the delightful Ms S is concerned, once again I cannot apologise enough. I am sure there is a moral here somewhere for me, but I have only just got up and am still rather bleary, and cannot work out what it is...