New Realities of Shipping Luggage

So if you have been following this blog you know that I recently transferred to Vienna, Austria. Well before Vienna I had a few meetings in Zurich and as I was getting ready to board my plane to Vienna on Air Berlin when I was told that my luggage was too heavy to load at 77 lbs. After taking a taxi back to the office I was able to contact the local IBM logistics team who asked our local 3PL to handle the shipping. While this was great, the local 3PL, then outsourced the shipping to another 3PL. So instead of one neck to strangle now I have two, because the luggage is stuck in customs. Why? I wish I knew. The suitcase, simply contains my clothes and some computer speakers. So now I have been wearing the same suit, socks and shoes for the last 48 hours. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for outsourcing, when it works, But in this case I am just another frustrated customer being kicked back and forth between two 3PLs that can't give me a straight answer for the delay. What they need is someone to act as a watch tower to orchestrate all of this mess, so I get one answer, when I want it, by making one phone call. I could only imagine how many issues like this arise when you are shipping thousands of packages a day. The time it would take to call all of the relevant parties to find out what you already know, that you don't have the package, would be a full time job. It may not even be there fault for all I know, but some kind of answer would be nice.