Okay, so here's the continuation (and hopefully near end) of the Home DeepPoo Saga...
Tuesday, August 8th: I call Home Depot at 10am and ask for a manager to cancel the installation order and demand a full refund. This time, I speak to a guy named Franco. I go down the entire list of events with him. He said he was sorry but that short of giving me 10% off of the installation, there wasn’t really anything he could do.
I said that’s fine, and just to credit me the full amount for the installation fee. I also told him that I was planning to contact the Consumer Protection Agency, that I had emailed my Home Depot experience out to 164 people and had already published it online in my public blog, and that I had already composed a letter chronicling my experiences with this particular store to the Vice President of the Home Depot Headquarters in Atlanta, GA. Oh, and I casually added that we were taking all of our future home improvement business – which will be considerable - elsewhere.
These last little bits apparently got his attention. He said to wait, not to call any other stores yet, and that he would see what he could do about getting me a free installation. I told him I would wait until noon to hear from him, but that I would start calling other people if I didn't hear back from him by then.
Franco calls back in less than 20 minutes, which given my experience waiting for this blasted store to call me, is nice. He offers to give us 10% off of the garage door opener and free installation. This sounds great, but then he says that Mark The Installer may not call tonight or even tomorrow.
This is unacceptable to me. I give Franco the ultimatum that if Mark does not call tonight to schedule the installation, that I was returning the garage door opener tomorrow morning and taking my business elsewhere. Lo and behold, Mark The Installer calls within the hour and schedules the installation!! Astounding given that up until this point he was completely unreachable during the day because he was "out in the field" and never had his schedule.
The moral of this story is that sometimes you have to be a complete bitch to get some people to do anything.
Friday, August 11th: Mark The Installer actually arrives early to install our garage door! He does a great job and it works wonderfully and has been since he installed it. We were able to move my car back into the garage before we left on our weekend away so our neighbor who was housesitting didn't have to do it.
Thursday, August 17th: David notices that on our credit card statement, Home DeepPoo has not refunded the "measuring fee" which they were never supposed to have charged us in the first place, and though they have refunded the installation fee, they have not credited us the 10% off of the garage door opener itself. I am planning to call them today to demand they follow through on these promises as well.
Thanks to all of you who wrote with your advice. I appreciate it. I got at least 15 emails from you telling me that I should have gone with Sears. I don't know why I didn't think of this before; there's a Sears right around the corner from me and they're known for their excellent customer service. We also have a Lowe's that we used to install our hardwood floor laminates and they were great. I really enjoyed hearing from you - thanks!! :)
Ciao,
XO Darcy
Monday, August 21, 2006
Help me, doc! I have Blogarrhea!!
Yes, apparently someone on my (perhaps not so rigorously screened) "friends and family" email list has told others in my orbit that I have "Blogarrhea"!
Of course the person who used what s/he probably thinks is such a witty term did not talk to me directly about his/her distaste for what s/he apparently thinks is "TMI" with regard to my blog, because where would be the drama in that? It's much more fun to gossip about it to other people, don't you know! Plus, it makes it so much more pleasant for your judgee when she ends up hearing it through the rumor mill rather than directly from you.
The thing that's hilarious here is that since I started this blog (last year) I have been averaging 2 to 3 blog entries a month. This is not a lot, folks. I have friends who blog close to every day. What, then, would their afflictions be? Sblogtaneous combustion? Blogchitis? Irritable Blogwel Syndrome?
Here's the deal, folks. I know not everyone on this email list is necessarily interested in my blog, or even actually reads my emails. But that's not why I write to you. I write because it's a small but significant way of staying connected, a way of communicating to you what is going on in my world. To tell you the truth, my favorite part of writing emails and blog posts isn't the actual writing but the feedback. I love hearing from you, hearing about your lives, getting your advice. Your emails, comments and responses just make my day.
To tell you the godshonest truth, I get a lot of emails that I could do without. I'd just rather delete them than go around insulting the person who sent them to me.
Whenever we get an email from someone, particularly an original email written by the sender, it means that person is thinking of us and wants to stay connected with us. Rather than sending out forwards with millions of undeleted headers with bouncing animated smilies and doggies wagging their tails telling me "You're my friend so forward this back to me so I'll know I'm your friend too" (god I hate those) or 100 reasons why the 10 Commandments and the American Flag should be mandatorily tattooed on the insides of everyone's eyelids, I would rather - I know, it's crazy - compose my own writings. So sue me.
Anyway, I have learned a hard but necessary lesson this summer, and I want to thank the insensitive and judgmental people who taught it to me. Gossip and mean comments are hurtful, and I finally realized that in my lifelong attempt to avoid them, I have wasted inordinate amounts of energy trying to be even more perfect, more fabulous and more outstanding in order to hopefully distract people from judging me. But it's never going to work. Believe me, I've tried every possible scheme for it. My performances in certain social situations have been so brilliant I deserve several Academy Awards.
What I learned this summer is this. There will always be people in the world who only see your faults. It doesn't matter how many auditions I win, how nice and funny and well-dressed I try to be, how many solo performances and concerts I land, how many achievements or contributions I make in this world. There will always be those who will judge us, say mean things about us - and never, of course, to our faces, because they know that what they're saying about you is hurtful. (This proves that they know damn well that what they're saying is inexcusable.)
I have also learned that these hurtful comments are much more of a reflection of the people saying them than on the people they slam. What you have to do is to develop your own sense of worth and realize that you have no need for their approval. (This is easier said than done, but if you want to stay on this side of the insane asylum fence, you'd better learn it.)
Most importantly, you must speak up when someone says something mean or insulting to you instead of making excuses for them. We teach people how to treat us. If we make excuses for people's bad behavior, they will learn that they can use you as their doormat.
For those of you who don't like my emails and would rather be taken off the list, here's a thought - have the cahones to actually write me and tell me yourself you want off, or just delete them. Please. I know that's not the most entertaining or dramatic route, but there you go.
For nearly everyone else on this list, your support, email feedback, and friendships have been tremendous - - thank you. You are true friends.
And I'm not going to stop writing. Sorry, Gossip Monkey.
Gossip Monkey. Heh. I like that. :)
Darcy
Of course the person who used what s/he probably thinks is such a witty term did not talk to me directly about his/her distaste for what s/he apparently thinks is "TMI" with regard to my blog, because where would be the drama in that? It's much more fun to gossip about it to other people, don't you know! Plus, it makes it so much more pleasant for your judgee when she ends up hearing it through the rumor mill rather than directly from you.
The thing that's hilarious here is that since I started this blog (last year) I have been averaging 2 to 3 blog entries a month. This is not a lot, folks. I have friends who blog close to every day. What, then, would their afflictions be? Sblogtaneous combustion? Blogchitis? Irritable Blogwel Syndrome?
Here's the deal, folks. I know not everyone on this email list is necessarily interested in my blog, or even actually reads my emails. But that's not why I write to you. I write because it's a small but significant way of staying connected, a way of communicating to you what is going on in my world. To tell you the truth, my favorite part of writing emails and blog posts isn't the actual writing but the feedback. I love hearing from you, hearing about your lives, getting your advice. Your emails, comments and responses just make my day.
To tell you the godshonest truth, I get a lot of emails that I could do without. I'd just rather delete them than go around insulting the person who sent them to me.
Whenever we get an email from someone, particularly an original email written by the sender, it means that person is thinking of us and wants to stay connected with us. Rather than sending out forwards with millions of undeleted headers with bouncing animated smilies and doggies wagging their tails telling me "You're my friend so forward this back to me so I'll know I'm your friend too" (god I hate those) or 100 reasons why the 10 Commandments and the American Flag should be mandatorily tattooed on the insides of everyone's eyelids, I would rather - I know, it's crazy - compose my own writings. So sue me.
Anyway, I have learned a hard but necessary lesson this summer, and I want to thank the insensitive and judgmental people who taught it to me. Gossip and mean comments are hurtful, and I finally realized that in my lifelong attempt to avoid them, I have wasted inordinate amounts of energy trying to be even more perfect, more fabulous and more outstanding in order to hopefully distract people from judging me. But it's never going to work. Believe me, I've tried every possible scheme for it. My performances in certain social situations have been so brilliant I deserve several Academy Awards.
What I learned this summer is this. There will always be people in the world who only see your faults. It doesn't matter how many auditions I win, how nice and funny and well-dressed I try to be, how many solo performances and concerts I land, how many achievements or contributions I make in this world. There will always be those who will judge us, say mean things about us - and never, of course, to our faces, because they know that what they're saying about you is hurtful. (This proves that they know damn well that what they're saying is inexcusable.)
I have also learned that these hurtful comments are much more of a reflection of the people saying them than on the people they slam. What you have to do is to develop your own sense of worth and realize that you have no need for their approval. (This is easier said than done, but if you want to stay on this side of the insane asylum fence, you'd better learn it.)
Most importantly, you must speak up when someone says something mean or insulting to you instead of making excuses for them. We teach people how to treat us. If we make excuses for people's bad behavior, they will learn that they can use you as their doormat.
For those of you who don't like my emails and would rather be taken off the list, here's a thought - have the cahones to actually write me and tell me yourself you want off, or just delete them. Please. I know that's not the most entertaining or dramatic route, but there you go.
For nearly everyone else on this list, your support, email feedback, and friendships have been tremendous - - thank you. You are true friends.
And I'm not going to stop writing. Sorry, Gossip Monkey.
Gossip Monkey. Heh. I like that. :)
Darcy
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Chronology: July 20th-August 5th
So much has happened since we got back from our marathon trip out east.
For those of you who are interested, here's the rundown...
July 20th: Had a much needed 2 hour session with my massage therapist. It was pure bliss. She uses hot stones, this luscious peach scented oil, and fabulous relaxing music.
From there, went to Home Depot to purchase a new garage door opener. Old one died before we left on the trip. Took over an hour for the morons working there to figure out what the hell was going on; went through about 3 guys that said "oh, well, that's not my department, I'll find you someone who can help you tho". Finally found some guy in window installation who insisted that I pay for a "measuring deposit" before I could even schedule or pay for the installation. I kept asking, "but why do you need to measure my garage door when the opener I just bought is not adjustable?" But I had already been there for over an hour and wanted to get the hell out of there so I just did what they said.
July 21st: Some guy from Home Depot calls to let me know that the installer would be calling to schedule the installation. I am thrilled. I know opening a garage door manually isn't the worst thing on the planet but it is a drag.
July 23rd: David and I go to Festa Italiana. It is a blast. David eats Italian sausage while I opt for the eggplant sticks with marinara. It is incredible food and we are both enjoying ourselves immensely. We also split an order of "sfingi" which is fried dough. It is not that exciting and we don't finish it. But we have fun walking everywhere. We ride the little cable cars (sort of like a ski lift) that float you over the grounds slowly. It is so much fun. Even though I'm only 1/4 Italian, I am proud of my heritage. Bella!
July 25th: Attacked the sun room with a vengeance. Since we moved last August, it's sort of been the receptacle for all of the boxes and things we didn't know what else to do with. Hauled out Goodwill donation boxes, recycled other boxes, vacuumed the carpet, installed an automatic door closer on the screen door, installed braces for the glass shelves that kept falling off the wall before, and assembled the small new bookshelf I had gotten for my art supplies and books. Unpacked all of the art supplies that had survived and threw the old unusable ones out. It now looks beautiful out there, like a nice Florida sun room, plants and all. Now all I have to do is put my easel together and I can start drawing and painting...
July 26th: It's my Mom's birthday! David and I call and give a singing and playing (me on the horn) telegram to who we think is my mom. It turns out to be my sister the whole time, who is laughing. We then reenact the whole thing for my mom and she loves it. We wish her a happy birthday; we are, after all, very glad she was born. She reports that she loves the gifts we sent.
Later in the evening, David goes out to the garage to take a bike ride and we notice that our bike has been stolen right out of our garage. It probably happened when we left the garage door open during the day, which we normally wouldn't do if we had a functional automatic garage door opener. We were too trusting, thinking we live in such a safe and unpretentious neighborhood. We file a police report. The guy is very nice and files it as a theft because for burglary you have to have entry. Since the door was left open, there was no entry.
July 27th: I still have not heard anything from Home Depot, so I am irritated (especially since I blame our not closing the garage door on the fact that we don't have the opener installed yet) and call them. This time I ask to speak to a manager. I talk to a guy named Dave. I tell him about the bike and this is getting ridiculous. He tells me that I need to speak to Greg the Expediter who can tell me why no one has called me to schedule an installation. He says that Greg is not picking up his phone but that he will call me tomorrow morning.
July 28th: Greg does not call. No one calls. But I am too busy practicing and teaching all day to do anything about it, so it has to wait until next week.
July 30th: MSO performs Carmina Burana at Germanfest on the Milwaukee Summerfest grounds. The rehearsal and performance go very well. I get to play Principal since both Barnewitz and Krystof are out of town. I have a ball. (The more people kvetch about Carmina being profane and secular, the more I like it.) There is a reception after the performance where there is much German food and beer. I am not really a fan of German food since it is mostly starch and meat and is generally monochromatically brown as a cuisine, and I don't feel like drinking beer so I have diet Pepsi instead. David drinks beer so I drive home.
August 1st: After successfully escaping them for nearly 36 years, I go to my very first Tupperware Party. Nancy, my fabulous next door neighbor and kitty/plant sitter, is hosting it. I usually despise all-female parties of any kind since they tend to regress toward the infantile and ridiculous with all the games and such, but agree to go since Nancy will get more free stuff if I go. I also want to support her since she's been so good to us and our kitties, and figure I could use some social time.
The presentation itself does, indeed, regress to the infantile, with cutsie little games, the host passing out raffle tickets to anyone who asked her a question, getting us to fill out of index cards, "can I get a woo HOO from you ladies??", "just think of them [the breathing ventilators on the veggie/fruit storage units] like little belly buttons, 'kay?" and "those of you who roll an even number on your nerf dice get an even better prize if you have me over to have a party at your house!"
Despite the childhood birthday party mentality, I end up meeting a lot of really nice women from my own neighborhood, and spend a good amount of time socializing with Nancy's fabulous daughter, Wendy, who I adore and discover is a kindred Tori Amos fan. She's even been to see her live, and we discuss the possibility of going to concerts together. I even order a salad spinner, because Tupperware stuff (despite the patronizing presentation) is of really great quality. I had a really cheap salad spinner once and ended up flinging baby spinach all over my kitchen ceiling at a very high velocity. It was not a happy moment. I am looking forward to getting my quality salad spinner and keeping my salad in one central location.
August 2nd: I call Home Depot because I have not heard boo from Greg the Expediter, who is turning out to not be very Expeditious at all. I am irate and ask to speak to a manager. This time I speak to Shannon, who actually conferences me into the call she puts into the installer, and lets me listen to her leaving a message for him asking why I hadn't heard anything from them.
An hour later Mark, the installer, calls, and says that he never received the order from Home Depot in the first place, (I am seething at this point) and that that was why he never called. He says he is "out in the field" and doesn't have his book with him and that he will call later to schedule.
Later Mark calls and says, "are you aware you didn't pay for the installation?" I say, yes, I'm aware, I tried to convince the Home Depot buffoons to accept full payment but they insisted that they needed to "measure" first. He says that this is all wrong and that I need to pay for the installation before I can schedule the install. At this point I wish that I had just bitten the bullet and figured out how to install the garage door opener myself. I had thought that paying someone else to do it would have saved me aggravation, but clearly this was not turning out to be the case.
August 3rd: I call Home Depot first thing in the morning. I ask to speak to a manager. This time his name is Sean. Sean says that he's referring the case to Hank, who is in charge of installs. He says that he will call back as soon as he calls all my information up on the computer and will set it up to receive my payment for the full install. I wait by the phone for an hour. I call back and Sean says that he was working with other customers, puts me on hold, and tells me that he's going to transfer me to Hank.
I am on hold for 15 minutes.
I am seeing red at this point and my blood is boiling. I hang up and call back, shaking with rage, and tell Sean that he is going to fix this right now, that he's not going to put me on hold again, that he should be handling this problem of a customer being blown off for 2 weeks due to their mistakes and not passing it off to another idiot who doesn't know what he's doing. Sean is taken aback and says that Hank had been having problems with his phone. I repeat to Sean that no, he was going to fix it directly himself.
Sean finally gets it into his thick skull that I'm going to be harassing him all day until he fixes this, and tries unsuccessfully to take my credit card payment for the full installation over the phone. He calls back and says that the system is frozen and that it won't let him do anything about it until tomorrow. I refuse to accept this and tell him to run another payment today and to cancel the previous one. He marvels at this idea and says, "why didn't I think of that?" I bite my tongue to keep myself from saying, "because if excrement were brains, you'd have to fry yours in onions just to make them stink?"
After a harried morning dealing with Home Depot's cretinous idiots, I get in my CRV and drive to Watertown, which is about an hour west of Mke. to visit my good friend Monica from CIM, who just moved there for a full time church organist job. She and I have a great time. I had made Baba Ganouj (basically the same as hummus except you use roasted eggplant instead of the chick peas) which I brought along with flatbread, and brought her bagloads of parsely and basil from our garden. We make asparagus risotto and a romaine salad (which thankfully does not wind up on the ceiling) and have a great time chatting and catching up. Monica is a fabulous friend. We watch a hilarious video of Margaret Cho.
From Monica's, I call Mark the Installer to schedule the install. I specifically tell him to call me on my cell phone because I am visiting Monica in Watertown in the afternoon. Despite this, he ends up calling David at home instead and says he'll call me sometime next week to schedule the installation. As of today (8/6) we still do not have a garage door installation scheduled.
August 4th: I call Mark the Installer who finally picks up the phone. He says he is on vacation and that he won't be able to schedule anything until he gets back on Saturday, the 5th. I tell him to just mark me down for his earliest availability and to call to let me know when he'll be coming. He says he'll call Saturday.
August 5th: David and I go to the Wisconsin State Fair. We talk on the way there and I reveal to David that I have never been to a State or County Fair that involved agriculture, at least not to my knowledge or memory. We have a great time. We see lots and lots of cows, pigs, bunnies and chickens. We saw a pig race, where potbellied pigs and goats raced around the track for a treat. It was hilarious. The best one was the rookie pigs who hadn't raced much before. There was one pig who got confused who kept turning around and racing halfway back around the track and then hightailing it back in the other direction, kicking up sawdust as he went. The highlight of the pig race was when they raced 4 ducks. Watching the ducks waddle at full speed, some of them flapping their wings as they stood up tall running, was just sidesplitting. Ducks are funny.
We also saw a very long cooking show of some stainless steel kitchenware that was ridiculously expensive, but got free paring knives for answering the host's questions correctly and won a carving knife from a raffle out of it. It was a load of fun walking around to all of the kiosks of the different wares being sold. We saw cheese graters, pet hair removers, fabric softener balls (fabric softener sheets cause dryer fires, you know...who knew? I still use them...). Amazing.
Later we get home and check our answering maching. Mark the Installer has not called to give us an installation time. My friend Kari told me that I should contact the Consumer Protection Agency to tell them about Home Depot's jerking me around on this. I am going to.
August 6th: So there, now you're all caught up with the past 3 weeks-ish. Hope you all are having a great time and that you're enjoying your summer and staying cool.
And may your garage door openers whiz easily in a good working condition. If they don't, do not under any circumstances hire Home Depot to do it.
XO Love,
Darcy
For those of you who are interested, here's the rundown...
July 20th: Had a much needed 2 hour session with my massage therapist. It was pure bliss. She uses hot stones, this luscious peach scented oil, and fabulous relaxing music.
From there, went to Home Depot to purchase a new garage door opener. Old one died before we left on the trip. Took over an hour for the morons working there to figure out what the hell was going on; went through about 3 guys that said "oh, well, that's not my department, I'll find you someone who can help you tho". Finally found some guy in window installation who insisted that I pay for a "measuring deposit" before I could even schedule or pay for the installation. I kept asking, "but why do you need to measure my garage door when the opener I just bought is not adjustable?" But I had already been there for over an hour and wanted to get the hell out of there so I just did what they said.
July 21st: Some guy from Home Depot calls to let me know that the installer would be calling to schedule the installation. I am thrilled. I know opening a garage door manually isn't the worst thing on the planet but it is a drag.
July 23rd: David and I go to Festa Italiana. It is a blast. David eats Italian sausage while I opt for the eggplant sticks with marinara. It is incredible food and we are both enjoying ourselves immensely. We also split an order of "sfingi" which is fried dough. It is not that exciting and we don't finish it. But we have fun walking everywhere. We ride the little cable cars (sort of like a ski lift) that float you over the grounds slowly. It is so much fun. Even though I'm only 1/4 Italian, I am proud of my heritage. Bella!
July 25th: Attacked the sun room with a vengeance. Since we moved last August, it's sort of been the receptacle for all of the boxes and things we didn't know what else to do with. Hauled out Goodwill donation boxes, recycled other boxes, vacuumed the carpet, installed an automatic door closer on the screen door, installed braces for the glass shelves that kept falling off the wall before, and assembled the small new bookshelf I had gotten for my art supplies and books. Unpacked all of the art supplies that had survived and threw the old unusable ones out. It now looks beautiful out there, like a nice Florida sun room, plants and all. Now all I have to do is put my easel together and I can start drawing and painting...
July 26th: It's my Mom's birthday! David and I call and give a singing and playing (me on the horn) telegram to who we think is my mom. It turns out to be my sister the whole time, who is laughing. We then reenact the whole thing for my mom and she loves it. We wish her a happy birthday; we are, after all, very glad she was born. She reports that she loves the gifts we sent.
Later in the evening, David goes out to the garage to take a bike ride and we notice that our bike has been stolen right out of our garage. It probably happened when we left the garage door open during the day, which we normally wouldn't do if we had a functional automatic garage door opener. We were too trusting, thinking we live in such a safe and unpretentious neighborhood. We file a police report. The guy is very nice and files it as a theft because for burglary you have to have entry. Since the door was left open, there was no entry.
July 27th: I still have not heard anything from Home Depot, so I am irritated (especially since I blame our not closing the garage door on the fact that we don't have the opener installed yet) and call them. This time I ask to speak to a manager. I talk to a guy named Dave. I tell him about the bike and this is getting ridiculous. He tells me that I need to speak to Greg the Expediter who can tell me why no one has called me to schedule an installation. He says that Greg is not picking up his phone but that he will call me tomorrow morning.
July 28th: Greg does not call. No one calls. But I am too busy practicing and teaching all day to do anything about it, so it has to wait until next week.
July 30th: MSO performs Carmina Burana at Germanfest on the Milwaukee Summerfest grounds. The rehearsal and performance go very well. I get to play Principal since both Barnewitz and Krystof are out of town. I have a ball. (The more people kvetch about Carmina being profane and secular, the more I like it.) There is a reception after the performance where there is much German food and beer. I am not really a fan of German food since it is mostly starch and meat and is generally monochromatically brown as a cuisine, and I don't feel like drinking beer so I have diet Pepsi instead. David drinks beer so I drive home.
August 1st: After successfully escaping them for nearly 36 years, I go to my very first Tupperware Party. Nancy, my fabulous next door neighbor and kitty/plant sitter, is hosting it. I usually despise all-female parties of any kind since they tend to regress toward the infantile and ridiculous with all the games and such, but agree to go since Nancy will get more free stuff if I go. I also want to support her since she's been so good to us and our kitties, and figure I could use some social time.
The presentation itself does, indeed, regress to the infantile, with cutsie little games, the host passing out raffle tickets to anyone who asked her a question, getting us to fill out of index cards, "can I get a woo HOO from you ladies??", "just think of them [the breathing ventilators on the veggie/fruit storage units] like little belly buttons, 'kay?" and "those of you who roll an even number on your nerf dice get an even better prize if you have me over to have a party at your house!"
Despite the childhood birthday party mentality, I end up meeting a lot of really nice women from my own neighborhood, and spend a good amount of time socializing with Nancy's fabulous daughter, Wendy, who I adore and discover is a kindred Tori Amos fan. She's even been to see her live, and we discuss the possibility of going to concerts together. I even order a salad spinner, because Tupperware stuff (despite the patronizing presentation) is of really great quality. I had a really cheap salad spinner once and ended up flinging baby spinach all over my kitchen ceiling at a very high velocity. It was not a happy moment. I am looking forward to getting my quality salad spinner and keeping my salad in one central location.
August 2nd: I call Home Depot because I have not heard boo from Greg the Expediter, who is turning out to not be very Expeditious at all. I am irate and ask to speak to a manager. This time I speak to Shannon, who actually conferences me into the call she puts into the installer, and lets me listen to her leaving a message for him asking why I hadn't heard anything from them.
An hour later Mark, the installer, calls, and says that he never received the order from Home Depot in the first place, (I am seething at this point) and that that was why he never called. He says he is "out in the field" and doesn't have his book with him and that he will call later to schedule.
Later Mark calls and says, "are you aware you didn't pay for the installation?" I say, yes, I'm aware, I tried to convince the Home Depot buffoons to accept full payment but they insisted that they needed to "measure" first. He says that this is all wrong and that I need to pay for the installation before I can schedule the install. At this point I wish that I had just bitten the bullet and figured out how to install the garage door opener myself. I had thought that paying someone else to do it would have saved me aggravation, but clearly this was not turning out to be the case.
August 3rd: I call Home Depot first thing in the morning. I ask to speak to a manager. This time his name is Sean. Sean says that he's referring the case to Hank, who is in charge of installs. He says that he will call back as soon as he calls all my information up on the computer and will set it up to receive my payment for the full install. I wait by the phone for an hour. I call back and Sean says that he was working with other customers, puts me on hold, and tells me that he's going to transfer me to Hank.
I am on hold for 15 minutes.
I am seeing red at this point and my blood is boiling. I hang up and call back, shaking with rage, and tell Sean that he is going to fix this right now, that he's not going to put me on hold again, that he should be handling this problem of a customer being blown off for 2 weeks due to their mistakes and not passing it off to another idiot who doesn't know what he's doing. Sean is taken aback and says that Hank had been having problems with his phone. I repeat to Sean that no, he was going to fix it directly himself.
Sean finally gets it into his thick skull that I'm going to be harassing him all day until he fixes this, and tries unsuccessfully to take my credit card payment for the full installation over the phone. He calls back and says that the system is frozen and that it won't let him do anything about it until tomorrow. I refuse to accept this and tell him to run another payment today and to cancel the previous one. He marvels at this idea and says, "why didn't I think of that?" I bite my tongue to keep myself from saying, "because if excrement were brains, you'd have to fry yours in onions just to make them stink?"
After a harried morning dealing with Home Depot's cretinous idiots, I get in my CRV and drive to Watertown, which is about an hour west of Mke. to visit my good friend Monica from CIM, who just moved there for a full time church organist job. She and I have a great time. I had made Baba Ganouj (basically the same as hummus except you use roasted eggplant instead of the chick peas) which I brought along with flatbread, and brought her bagloads of parsely and basil from our garden. We make asparagus risotto and a romaine salad (which thankfully does not wind up on the ceiling) and have a great time chatting and catching up. Monica is a fabulous friend. We watch a hilarious video of Margaret Cho.
From Monica's, I call Mark the Installer to schedule the install. I specifically tell him to call me on my cell phone because I am visiting Monica in Watertown in the afternoon. Despite this, he ends up calling David at home instead and says he'll call me sometime next week to schedule the installation. As of today (8/6) we still do not have a garage door installation scheduled.
August 4th: I call Mark the Installer who finally picks up the phone. He says he is on vacation and that he won't be able to schedule anything until he gets back on Saturday, the 5th. I tell him to just mark me down for his earliest availability and to call to let me know when he'll be coming. He says he'll call Saturday.
August 5th: David and I go to the Wisconsin State Fair. We talk on the way there and I reveal to David that I have never been to a State or County Fair that involved agriculture, at least not to my knowledge or memory. We have a great time. We see lots and lots of cows, pigs, bunnies and chickens. We saw a pig race, where potbellied pigs and goats raced around the track for a treat. It was hilarious. The best one was the rookie pigs who hadn't raced much before. There was one pig who got confused who kept turning around and racing halfway back around the track and then hightailing it back in the other direction, kicking up sawdust as he went. The highlight of the pig race was when they raced 4 ducks. Watching the ducks waddle at full speed, some of them flapping their wings as they stood up tall running, was just sidesplitting. Ducks are funny.
We also saw a very long cooking show of some stainless steel kitchenware that was ridiculously expensive, but got free paring knives for answering the host's questions correctly and won a carving knife from a raffle out of it. It was a load of fun walking around to all of the kiosks of the different wares being sold. We saw cheese graters, pet hair removers, fabric softener balls (fabric softener sheets cause dryer fires, you know...who knew? I still use them...). Amazing.
Later we get home and check our answering maching. Mark the Installer has not called to give us an installation time. My friend Kari told me that I should contact the Consumer Protection Agency to tell them about Home Depot's jerking me around on this. I am going to.
August 6th: So there, now you're all caught up with the past 3 weeks-ish. Hope you all are having a great time and that you're enjoying your summer and staying cool.
And may your garage door openers whiz easily in a good working condition. If they don't, do not under any circumstances hire Home Depot to do it.
XO Love,
Darcy
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