I ended up with over 250 photos to develop, which given our risibly slow upload speed of 0.04mbps (thanks BT!) I didn't fancy doing over the internet.
A fortnight ago I visited the local branch mid afternoon and was surprised to find the manager locking up. "I'm just going out to get some photocopying done" he said unapologetically. Little was I to know this was my "CAUTION! Crappy service ahead!" warning sign. Anyway, I killed 15 minutes, went back in with in my SD card, they downloaded it all, I paid (more than I would have on line) and told me it'd be ready Wednesday.
Tuesday I got a phone call to say the download had failed and I needed to come in to repeat the process. I don't live near the shop - I live 8 miles away - so I made a special journey the next day, to find the shop inexplicably shut. I later learned it's the shop manager's regular day off and the area manager failed to find someone to cover that week.
I made Trip 3 a week ago and again found it temporarily closed for photocopying, but waited around (no sorry!) and downloaded them all again.
I collected the photos this morning. Unfortunately, they're not mine. The manager's first reaction when I phoned him (a number I now know from memory) was "Oh. Can you bring them back in?"
It's been left like this: the central processing place for Max Spielmann "think" they've found my order and they "should" be in on Tuesday. I'm not holding my breath.
The mother of all snotty letters is being formulated. If nothing else they owe me 5x 16 mile round trips worth of diesel.
