No good deed goes unpunished! We went out two years ago and paid a ridiculously large sum for a super-efficient, fancy-pants, eco-friendly refrigerator, to do our part at being environmentally/socially responsible. Great idea, right?
Oh no, my friends, we would have done so much better to just buy a standard one, and donate the difference to some eco-cleanup project. Three months ago, the thing started blinking it’s control-panel lights at us. We searched through all the documentation, and found no mention of such behavior. Two weeks later, we came home to find about $300 worth of defrosted and rotten frozen-goods we’d just purchased at BJ’s. Fortunately, we had purchased the extended service warranty. Nothing to worry about, right?
Well, kinda… The service guy was there within a week, and told us we needed a new motherboard, which he replaced two days later. After replacing it , he watched the machine for a half-hour, and said it wasn’t the motherboard after all, but rather a “constriction in the freezer side refrigeration line”, which would require a return visit and lots of plumbing. He left, and the freezer promptly began working just fine. I reported this to the repair service, and they said “Great, it must have just taken longer than we expected to cool down. Saves us a trip!” Two weeks later, there went another $200 worth of frozen food. So out came the repair guy, to replace loads of plumbing, right?
Heavens, no! This time, you see, we were told that since we had an installed refrigerator, they wouldn’t come out unless we had a professional remove it from its installation. The only problem? IT ISN’T AN INSTALLED REFRIGERATOR! It just stands there in the corner of our kitchen, no cabinetry, no finishing. It took a week of arguing, and photographs of me pulling it away from the wall and rotating it 180 degrees, to get them to come out. Finally, it was fixed.
End of story, right?
You know better! No, of course, six weeks later, you guessed it, right after buying hundreds of dollars worth of frozen food in preparation for a party, it stopped freezing things again! This time, we demanded they replace it. After weeks of arguing, Lowes agreed to give us store credit for the original price we paid, since that model was no longer in production. Finally, some progress! So off we went to Lowes, to find a new fridge, where we discovered all models in the same size/functionality range now cost at least $400 more than the original one had. We decided, in the interest of “just being done with it”, to just grit our teeth, pay the extra, and buy one. We plunked down the cash, made delivery arrangements, and went home.
Finally done, right?
Hah, fooled you! Four days later, Sabrina called me at work, to say “They won’t put it in the kitchen.” “What?” “The refrigerator. They won’t take the old one out, and they won’t move the new one in, because of the kitchen island!” So there it sat in our dining room, waiting once again while we battled the forces of insanity. Apparently, the same two delivery guys (Sabrina remembered them) who had, two years earlier, just lifted the fridge right over the island and put it where it was, now refused to pull it back out and lift in the new one, despite a) us already having done the work of disassembly for them and b) the new one being slightly smaller and significantly lighter than the old one. If we wanted it put in, we’d have to do it ourselves, or hire a crew.
Over the next two weeks, I yelled at supervisors. I yelled at department managers. I yelled at the store manager. I yelled at the extended warrantee people. It became sort of a hobby. I made it a game, to see how late I could make people for their lunch breaks, or whether I could fill their voice-mailboxes completely while they were away. I got to know people by voice. Finally, one afternoon, just when I was starting to think I might have a harassment suit filed against me, the store manager broke down. In the most frail, almost teary voice, he sighed, confirmed my home address, and said “We’ll have a someone out there on Friday. Please stop calling.”
And they did it! Three gentlemen showed up, took away the old fridge, assembled the new one, and put it in our kitchen. So it was finally over, right?
So far, so good…..
