I must have been lucky because our Hermes guy at the previous house was by far the best delivery driver we had. The one at the new house is not bad either.
I worked in the online side of a large US retail company and DHL was always without question the number one reason for complaints. From thier unhelpful shipping updates to packages simply not moving and the god forsaken hub they have in Germany (I think. It's been awhile) they are just simply horrible.
At least with UPS and the others you could figure out what was going on. DHL was just a black hole of shipping info and packages.
When I'm bored at work I sometimes look in the email inbox that for some reason I have access to and it's full of back and forth conversations with DHL trying to find packages they've lost.
And every email ends with we "will be back with you by no later than 4:00 p.m. on Friday". To a message sent on Monday. Yeah, thanks for that DHL really putting the pedal to the metal on that one aren't you.
I had a package delivered from DHL yesterday and the sender made it sign delivery and DHL sent me so many text messages trying to get me to authorise them to not get a signature.
No, sod off DHL I actually want my package. So you will be requiring my signature.
And you know what, they actually managed to find the doorbell and everything.
I have so many stories of DHL being a shitty company. Once I sent a box full of docking stations labelled fragile with premium freight. After arrival, only two of the 21 docking stations were undamaged.
Even this week I had books delivered by DHL to my home. They just fucking slid it under the gate and left it in the open. One book was actually packed in plastic, so had it rained, it wouldn't have gotten wet. Of course that didn't matter since the package was ripped. Luckily it didn't rain (was predicted though).
I hate them with a passion and will gladly pay extra so I don't have to deal with them. They are at the absolute top of shitty companies.
Here in Germany they just take it to the depot for you to pick it up yourself, mark it as "not deliverable" and send you that yellow paper per post 3 days later.
Ah, that is unfortunate on multiple levels. I would suggest next time you are away try and find out which courier they used and ask for a hold at the address from the courier. Who knows if they'll respect that though, you know how they are.
Who orders stuff when they're away from two weeks. Can't blame these guys for not keeping track of people being on holiday when they've got to do 30 packages per hour.