So yesterday I went to the Fedex office in Port Vila to pick up my monthly document delivery from a certain USA company (Settle LLC, if you've heard of them)

I made a few extra unscheduled stops, so I was going to get to the Fedex place after 5pm on a Friday afternoon.

Most places I was used to in Australia, if you are one minute past their closing time, especially on a Friday, it's "too bad, so sad" as you are waved away from behind their locked glass doors.

From the car I phoned ahead to ask whether there was any possibility I could call after hours for my envelope. I was asked how long past 5 o'clock I would be, and I said "Not sure, but up to 20 minutes past."

The reply came in an instant: "OK, no worries, I will wait for you"

As I drove I reflected that the travel restrictions have cut the number of commercial flights into the country and made sea-freight deliveries difficult as well. So this company along with other freight forwarders has been put into major mahem over the last year and a half.

You never know what you are going to get... Their arrivals ar so sporadic that their depot is either jammed to the roof with parcels or almost bereft of them.

When I arrived it was a "major mahem" day, but the lady was able to locate my envelope quickly and hand it to me with a big smile, even after trying all day to deal with several days of work in one.

Friendly "after hours" service that she did not HAVE to do, a big smile when she must have been exhausted... that is typical of the kind of cooperation you get here in Vanuatu.

Lance in (friendly) Vanuatu

p.s. Think this might be an isolated case?  While I was at Fedex I had a phone call from the place I had been previously saying I had inadvertently left my credit card behind.  And THEY TOO said they would wait for me to come and retrieve it, even though by then it was more than half an hour after THEIR closing time!

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