Losing Our Cool

One of the things Tim insisted on when we moved into our new house was a wine cellar.  He planned and plotted for where it would go, how many bottles it would hold, the type of cooling unit it would have, etc.etc.etc.

Then it became my problem. (Although in fairness, I have drunk my share of the wine.)  Guys arriving to put in the shelving, lighting, countertops, trim?  No problem.  Ann will be there between the hours of 6am and 10pm.  Three days in a row for sixteen weeks?  Sure.  She's totally free.  Yep.  No danger of her having a life.

And guess who transported each and every bottle of wine, all 824 thousillion of them?  And who had to categorize and shelve them?  And who had to listen to complaints because they didn't know what to do with some of them and created new categories like:  "Wine Ann Doesn't Know" or "Labels Written in Languages Ann Can't Read" or "Bottles Ann is Sick of Shelving, So They Go...Here"?

But my favorite part of our new cellar was when the cooling unit stopped working.  (For those keeping score, that's : two-year old house--broken hot water heater, broken shower, broken cooler vs us--going broke fixing broken appliances.

Now, who do you call for a broken cooler?  An electrician?  Nope.  It's beneath them said the 4000 I called.  Small appliance repair person?  Who is the manufacturer, they wanted to know.  Nope.  Don't/won't deal with them said the 8000 I called.  Heating/cooling people?  Nope.  Wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole, said the 20,000 I called.  Plumber?  Carpenter?  Builder?  Butcher?  Baker?  Candle-stick Maker?  I was running out of service people!

Then it dawned on me.  Go to a wine store and ask who they use.  Great idea.  Except it wasn't.  I have never seen people so stymied by a question before.  Huh?  What?  Who?

Who. Do. You. Use. When. You. Need. Repairs?  Maybe I had confused them by assuming they knew where they worked and what a cooling unit was. 

"What kind of wine do you have?" they wanted to know.

Does it matter?  Will you recommend someone different if I say red vs. white wine?  Well, red is usually more full-bodied and earthy, so you should call this number...

Back to square one.

I looked up the unit on the internet and found a number in California which I called.

"Sorry," said the guy who answered, "all of our people are at lunch, so you'll have to call back in two hours.  Oh, and we leave at 4 our time."

Ooops.  My bad.  I'll call back during the one hour a day that your 'people' actually work!

When I finally reached them, they basically told me there was no-one I could call.  There were no authorized dealers, distributors, repair people, etc outside of the place I was calling.  However, all was not lost.  I could run a diagnostic, they would send me the part and I could fix it myself.

Congratulations!  You've taken customer service to a whole new level.  Maybe after I've repaired the cooler, I could rebuild the transmission in my car, put a new roof on the house and then, for my encore, perform some elective surgery on myself.

Unfortunately, they were pretty firm on this whole do-it-yourself thing, so I ordered the part, which they said would arrive in a few days. 

"It's easy.  You just take parts A thru X, line up the doo-hickeys, unclip the thing-a-ma-jigs, power up the whats-its and attach the wotcha-ma-call-its,"  the guy offered encouragingly....four times.

Yeah.  You can tell me four thousand times, but since you haven't even mailed the part out yet, YOU"RE NOT HELPING!!!

True to their word, the part arrived in a few days.  forty-eight to be precise.  With a diagram, but no actual directions.

Gamely, we tried to install the new control panel ourselves.  It was sort of like playing Operation.  Blindfolded.  With both hands tied behind your back.  While treading water.

Seriously, the panel and wires were tucked into such a small, dark, inaccessible place, it was near impossible.  Actually, it was impossible. 

We threw ourselves on our builder's mercy and he got an electrician to come out and try installing this 'easy' panel.  And try.  And try.  And try.

Finally though, success!  The unit started humming along, blowing nice cool air.  Until an hour after the electrician left.  Then it broke down once more.

I'm now looking into ice delivery. 

So We Had A Bad Day...Or Two...Or Four

Friday morning, we woke up to no hot water...again.  So I went down to the basement and tried everything to get the heater working.  I unplugged, plugged, pressed buttons and flipped switches.  I flipped the machine off.  No hot water.  Not one drop.

Faced with the prospect of a cold shower on a hair wash day,  I panicked and called the plumber who informed me that he could maybe squeeze me in on Tuesday.

Tuesday?!  As in five days away?  As in five days of cold showers?  As in washing my hands in cold water after I've cleaned up after the dog for five days?  Oh, and perhaps we can just lick our dishes and pots and pans clean for the next five days.  Thanks, but I'll try somebody else.

Two hours, twenty gazillion googles and a dozen phone calls later, I got someone to come out...between 12 and 4.  Fine.  Except they didn't come until 5.  Fine.  Except they couldn't figure out what was wrong with the heater, but they did get it working again.  Fine.  Except they knew it wouldn't last, so they'd have to come back...Tuesday.  Really? 

Was this some kind of plumbing conspiracy?  You don't know what's wrong with it today, but you'll know Tuesday?  Was the solution going to magically come to them over the three-day weekend?  Would it come to them in a dream, or perhaps they could visit a fortune-teller or call the psychic hot line.  And how do you temporarily fix something when you don't even know what's wrong with it?

As if suggesting Tuesday wasn't pushing it far enough, (I guess my body language was making my feelings a bit unclear.  Folded arms, scowl, bared teeth and lows growls emitting from my throat must have indicated I was happy with the way things were going.), the guy started talking to me about different kinds of heaters and how the Super-Duper-Jiffy-Heater worked better than ours.

Wow.  So let me get this straight.  You are standing in my kitchen, a room equipped with knives--sharp knives--and trying to sell me a new heater instead of fixing mine which is less than two years old?  One of us here must be stupid or have a death wish.  Did you miss the part when I explained that I had had a cold shower this morning and it was a hair wash day?  Do you think that put me in the happy zone?

And following your logic, if you can't fix something, just replace it?  I'm glad you're not my mechanic, because when my car breaks down, I suppose you would recommend just leaving it on the side of the road and buying new.  And thank goodness you weren't my husband's surgeon last month when he had broken disks in his back.  I am guessing your solution would have been to just get a new guy.  "Sorry about your husband, but here's an application for Match.com."

Restraining myself (I didn't have enough hot water at that point to do a good job cleaning blood off the walls), I sent him on his way and called someone else who said they could come...Tuesday.  Okay, so it was a conspiracy, but at least we had a temporary fix, and besides, as it turned out, we were leaving the next day and coming back Monday, so it would all work out.

Or not.  Saturday morning...no hot water... again.  Definitely a conspiracy going on here.

Biting the bullet (cursing, yelling and pounding on the heater didn't seem to be working), we shivered through cold showers and comforted ourselves with the thought that we could take a nice hot shower at the hotel before meeting colleagues of Tim's for dinner.

Arriving at the hotel at 3:30, we found that our room wasn't ready yet.  Twenty minutes, they promised.  Fine.  Thirty minutes later, they assured us that our room was their  top priority and housekeeping was in there even as we were speaking.  Fine.  One hour later, we were still wandering, homeless and showerless around the lobby.  Now it was not so fine.

So did you lie about housekeeping being in there or do you just have the sloooowest peeeeople ooon the plaaaanet woooorking for youuuu?  Perhaps they are using a tweezer to clean the carpet and a toothbrush for the bathroom?  Did they have to take the bedding down to the river and beat it on the rocks to clean it?

But the best part of the wait was not being able to go anywhere but the lobby because it was 4000 degrees outside, and between the puppy and Tim still recovering from back surgery, we were pretty much stuck. To say it wasn't pretty would be like saying Medusa was a supermodel. 

One the one side, I had a sixteen week old puppy who thought we had moved into a great big, new home with lots and lots of cool friends for her to meet and greet.  And those friends got her soooo very excited that she peed...a lot...many times...but not outside.  Oh no, the heat must have addled her fuzzy little brain because she decided the grassy area wasn't really up to her standards, and she much preferred the nice tile in the lobby as her potty spot.  Guess who got to clean it up?  Yippee.  My new favorite way to spend a Saturday.

On the other side was Tim, who thought that somehow he was unhappier about the state of affairs than I was.  Hmmm.  Let's compare.  You've been talking to people about food and wine, swapping notes on restaurants and beaches, and I've been scrubbing the floors with paper towels and Nature's Miracle while simultaneously trying to keep the puppy from jumping and nibbling on everyone and anyone who comes within ten feet of her, looks her way, or looks like they might possibly even be thinking of looking her way.

Oh, and the little trip to the shopping arcade off the lobby where you looked at the merchandise?  Yeah.  I was pretty occupied trying to explain to six pounds of wiggly fur that Gucci shoes and Louis Vuitton bags were not must-have chewable accessories for a dog.

Finally, we did get into our room, but without time for a hot shower before we had to leave for dinner.  However, I consoled myself with the fact that tomorrow would be a better day.  Until the next day when I smashed my head on a glass table and gave myself a giant goose-egg on my forehead, and we came home to no hot water...again.  And the showerhead in our bathroom stopped working...completely.

Oh yeah, a conspiracy is totally at work here.

A Fractured Fairy Tale

I shouldn't have done it. I knew it would end badly. But I let myself by seduced by the dream. I let myself be blinded by the fairy dust. I bought my washer and dryer at Home Depot.

The avalanche of paperwork alone should have rung a warning bell in my head. Any sane person would have recognized it as a portent of bad things to come, but not me. I was too busy looking at the twenty percent off signs and being dazzled by their talk of rebates and quick delivery. I allowed myself to forget the past and dared to believe the glass slipper would fit this time.

Pick a day, any day, the salesman enticed me. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Think of us as your fairy Godmother. We will wave our wand and make all your delivery dreams come true.

Giddily, I wallowed in the heady sensation of being all-powerful. I enjoyed the heady rush the freedom of choice gave me. My prince had come and he was wearing an orange vest. I picked Thursday.

On Wednesday afternoon, I got the call. My brand new washer and dryer would be delivered the next day. I was exstatic, I was euphoric, I was doomed to disappointment.

Thursday came, but there was no knock on the door, no ringing of the bell, no jangle of the phone heralding the much anticipated arrival of my new appliances. There was only the distant sound of a clock striking midnight.

Still not quite wanting to believe my coach had turned back into a pumpkin, I called Home Depot.

Oh, yes, they assured me, the order was done.

Done? You mean like my dream of you people actually getting something right for once?

They seemed surprised by hostility, and quickly shifted the blame to the manufacturer. Really, they stressed, we have nothing to do with the whole shipping and delivery process. The manufacturer sends it to a warehouse and a local delivery firm takes it from there. Honest. We just sell the stuff.

I could feel my coachman turning back into a big, fat rat with beady eyes and twitching whiskers.

So you sell stuff you don't have, promise delivery dates you can't control to unsuspecting customers and have no real way of tracking it beyond the date of purchase. Does that about sum it up? How about cancelling an order and giving a full refund? Is that something you can do?

I was quickly transferred to the shipping company where the dream continued to fade.

It wasn't their fault, they protested. They had nothing to do with the sale or delivery. They were just the manufacturer. They had tons of washers and dryers, all ready to go. They didn't need to track orders because that was not their job. It must have been the delivery service.

The four white horses once again became squeeky, little mice.

The shipping company proved to be no better at accepting responsibility than the other two. It couldn't be them, they said. They would never promise delivery and then not deliver.

When I pointed out that my caller ID proved otherwise, they fell back on the tried and true escuse that all rodents use: our computer is down, so I can't access your information.

Yeah, right. And the ugly stepsisters are posing for the cover of Sports Illustrated.

After much haggling and promising and threatening, I was assured my appliances would be delivered this Friday, but I'm not holding my breath.

Instead, I'm hunting for a certain queen who can whip up a few poisoned apples.

Faster and Easier? Don't Make Me Laugh

If computers are supposed to make shopping for items faster and easier, why does it take longer and make (my) life harder?

First case in point, buying a refrigerator.

Knowing which one I wanted, I hopped online, checked out a few places for the best price and ordered one. One. I got two. I sent one back. No problem, I was told, it was a simple computer mistake on their part and would not show up on my bill. It showed up on my bill.

I got online and tried to fix it, only to find that you can't fix it online. I called the place and spoke to a live person who had to hop on the computer and fix it, but first they had to find out where the problem was. This necessitated a copious amount of tapping and clicking and opening files and entering and reentering much information(wow, something worse than listening to twenty minutes of muzak), but finally, just when I was wishing I had decided to go with a cooler and coldpak, they thought they had solved the problem --a computer glitch(no, really? I was shocked!).

Of course, the computer wouldn't let them fix it at the moment, but I was assured that they would contact the credit card company and I would see a credit on my next bill. Oh yes, have your computer call my computer. That should solve everything.

Next up, buying a washer and dryer. Fool me once...

This time I decided to actually go into the store and purchase them in person. That would definitely be faster and easier. Besides, I had looked at them online to compare features and prices, but that was not a satisfactory substitute for actually slamming the doors and pushing all the shiny new buttons. And I really wanted to know what the actual difference was between 3.7 cubic feet and 4.0 cubic feet of space inside a round drum (as far as I can tell, it is about $200).


Did I say faster and easier? Not if there is a computer involved. First, the salesman had to log on, which seemed to require more passwords and codes than the entry gates to Fort Knox. Then, he had to check the availability of the items (more codes and passwords), the delivery location to see what the delivery fee would be (a complicated process which required a book as well as the computer), the available dates for delivery ( we consulted his calender, my calender, called the contractor and performed six hundred forty-two more key strokes), and, as if that wasn't enough, the dates of the autumnal equinox, the next full moon and the delivery driver's birthday to see if Jupiter was in line with Mars in the house of his rising sun.

Once all of this was entered, we could then get down to the actual information gathering: name, billing address, phone numbers (day, night, cell, work, childhood home, first apartment), e-mail addresses(mine, Tim's, my parents', brother and sister's, in laws), delivery address, name of person accepting delivery and his favorite color, accessibility to condo unit (apparently, they will deliver to the third floor without an elevator, but the fourth is pushing it just one step too far--what is that word you are mouthing?? Hernia???), credit card number, expiration date, security code, name of grade school I attended, first pet, best friend and shoe size.

Oh, but we weren't done yet. All of this information had to be previewed, tabulated, approved, printed out, reviewed and signed off on. This required much further diligent tapping of keys, jiggling of the mouse, an avalanche of computer printouts, and much stapling, folding and sealing. Pricewaterhouse doesn't go to this much trouble to tabulate the Oscar results!

Finally, after receiving a twenty-minute lecture on how to fill out the rebate forms (the instructions only took about two minutes, but they were repeated ten times to make sure I understood--hmmm, I wonder if it was the dazed look in my eyes or the slack jaw that gave me away?), I was on my way...to buy some furniture.

I didn't think it was possible, but this was an even more painful experience than the previous two. Some of the furniture was in stock at the actual store, some was in stock, but not on the premises, and some was catalogue and internet only, but they could do it on the store computer for me. And, as if that wasn't bad enough, it couldn't all be placed as one order. (Yeah, multiple computer glitches!!!)

To give the salesman credit, he tried his best to compensate for the inconvenience by working two computers at once. It was mesmerizing to watch, with a click click here and a tap tap there. Here a click, there a tap, everywhere a clicktap.

And there was even audience participation. It was credit card in, then credit card out(of the wallet), the discount card in, then the discount card out, the card with the address for delivery in, then the card with the address for delivery out. We turned ourselves around, repeated the whole process three more times, and that's what it was all about.

At last it was done though, and I was on my way. If I had known it would be that involved and taken that long, I would have packed a lunch and left a forwarding address.

Ah, but the saga doesn't end here. I returned home to get the confirmation e-mails from the store, only to find there were not two bedside tables listed, but one. One.

Maybe I could trade in the extra refrigerator for the other one.