I bought a refrigerator from Sears. I did it on-line, being the modern sort who hasn’t the time to waste to wander around Sears. Instead my girlfriend and I actually measured
the dimensions of the refrigerator we wanted, selected the modern stainless steel look, and voila, got a refrigerator delivered to the house at a rather hefty price. This, seemingly, is all good.
We move forward 11 months, and suddenly the temperature gage reads 57 degrees. Fine for fall weather, bad for milk and eggs. As we have a sufficient amount of time left on our warranty, which was the standard kind, not the extra 249 dollar kind, we called whoever it is we called, and they arrived and supposedly fixed the fridge. Not so fast. Two weeks later, the fridge interior is a balmy 64. We put this refrigerator full of groceries on the deck because it is winter. At least we did so for the food we could salvage. The other half of the food went into the garbage again. This is a rather expensive endeavor as we have eight living in our house as we have three kids of mine and two of my girlfriend, and my girlfriend sister living here. We call again. The repairman returns and informs us we need a new computer panel. This makes sense to us, as we have the combined mechanical acumen of a palm tree—that’s not completely true. My girlfriend has been known to utilize a power tool to hang a shelf or curtain rods, but refrigerator computer boards are definitely beyond her ken. I, on the other hand, have injured myself in the few attempts at power tool usage, and now steer clear of most things that require electricity and move rapidly.
The repairman orders the computer part and asks us to call him once the part arrives in the mail. The part arrives after a few days. We call. We make an appointment for him to replace the part. Three days later he replaces the part. This series of non-events takes a week and a half. In the meantime, the freezer portion of the fridge has also died, and we have to throw out easily over a hundred dollars worth of meat and cook the rest, despite the fact we won’t have refrigeration for another 24 hours or so. This is because a refrigerator that cools oddly needs time to warm up. We eat too well that night, despite cholesterol issues.
But as of that next day the refrigerator works—for three weeks. Then it dies. We call, again. They come back, again. This time the mechanic tells us we need a new refrigerator altogether. The old one, which is less than a year old, is bad. “But,” Mr. Mechanical says with sunlight shooting out of his head, “you are covered by warranty.”
We are given various slips of paper which require translation for human interpretation, but we dutifully dial the numbers we are told to dial and speak to the people we are switched over to. Eventually, we are instructed to go to the Sears at the White Plains galleria-- the place, we steadfastly avoided in the first place. There we are to tell the salesman to give us a new refrigerator. We are told, however, that there is a possibility that the store will not recognized our claim for a new fridge, as we bought the appliance on-line and not from the store itself, thus, the store might or might not not honor our rebate.
Now, I wish to inject an element of reality, and the truth is, Jill, my girlfriend, has been putting up with the above nonsense, and I’ve been scooting off to work and wiping my brow in relief.
Until now.
Now, I am told by Jill to go to the Sears in the White Plains galleria and get the new refrigerator which has been selected by her and someone on the other end of an 800 phone number as due replacement for our downed appliance. I am told to do so or there will be a question of firearms and rage, and I nod my head and head off to White Plains.
Parking is only mildly painful. The galleria, more so. I dislike malls. Crowds aren’t wonderful either, but I wend my way through the food court, passing fast food smells wafting through the vast octagonal high school lunch cafeteria disguised as a modern consumer nirvana. Sears is on the far side, and I make it into their doors only after avoiding the persistent women who insist for the entire length of that hallway that I need a massage in one of their modern massage chairs. After I make it through that gauntlet and step inside Sears, I immediately ask for kitchen appliances. A smiling woman sends me to the third floor. On the third floor, where there is no item larger than a shoe, someone from the janitorial staff tells me I’m on the wrong floor. I retreat to the second floor, where there is someone with a name badge. He directs me to the first floor. Eventually, I wind up about eleven steps away from the smiling woman who sent me upstairs in the first place. Had I looked around upon entering the store I probably could have spotted my destination without difficulty.
My salesman’s name is Ahbar. It says so on his white, plastic name badge. He continually asks my phone number, and I give him all the numbers that come to mind. It is not until I miraculously remember Jill’s cell phone number that his computer recognizes my consumer existence. Unfortunately, the computer does not recognize my now-deceased refrigerator model number. He clicks repeatedly on his store computer but the CBLR string of letters of our dead refrigerator doesn’t appear anywhere on his computer screen, and he thus has no way of knowing the value of our old refrigerator which needs replacing. He calls an 800 number. He experiences a taste of what we have experience, and after 38 minutes of being switched from one disembodied voice to another, he asks me to talk to the voice. I do. I am instructed to speak to a manager, but the managers are unavailable, as they are all in an organizational meeting in a room I cannot nor am I allowed to see. Ahbar is not sure I can get a new refrigerator, because I didn’t buy the refrigerator from this Sears store in the White Plains galleria. I explain it was an on-line purchase and the on-line disembodied voice name Keith K. told me to come here. Ahbar leaves to find a manager.
Another sad-faced man, who waits for Ahbar to be done with me, stands next to the Kitchen Aid appliance he was planning on buying. He has an exasperated look on his face. I walk over to him and tell him what I have gone through. Ahbar returns with a small, bespectacled man with “Juan” on his name badge. Juan runs a plastic card with a magnetic stripe through a slot attached to the store computer. Ahbar asks me again what refrigerator I want. I tell him that my girlfriend and the voice at on-line purchasing have selected an Amana. He tells me I originally had a GE. I need to wait while he speaks to the manager again.
Juan reappears. Without speaking again, he runs his striped card through the slot again. He leaves. Ahbar clicks on the Amana refrigerator. He stares at the screen for about six minutes. He looks frustrated. He calls a phone number and talks in a hushed voice. He hangs up. He clicks the computer some more. I have been in the Sears store in the White Plains galleria for 1 hour and 45 minutes. The Kitchen Aid appliance consumer who has waited for, what seems to him, forever, leaves. He gestures to Ahbar that he will be in touch, but I am certain he’ll never shop at Sears again. I rejoice in my part in that decision.
Finally, I am told, that although the Amana is almost the same value as the dead GE, I need to pay an extra $100 to get the same icemaker the GE once possessed. I have a gift card valued at $225. (Relevant aside: I have this $225 gift card because when we bought the original GE refrigerator, Sears delivered the wrong color. The second time, the door opened the wrong way. Finally we received a stainless steel one which opened the correct way, but it had a noticeable dent in the front. We called a bunch of 800 numbers and they sent us these shiny blue cards.) Ahbar slides the blue card through the slot. I am to receive an icemaker. I am told I can leave. The refrigerator will arrive in 13 days. “13 day?” I ask, incredulous. “I have eight people to feed, and you want me to wait thirteen days?”
Ahbar gives me an 800 number to call with my complaint. I get to my car in the parking lot. My cell phone rings. It is Jill. She wants to know what happened. I tell her. “13 days?” she yells. “Let me talk to the head manager.” I tell her I don’t know the name of the head manager. She gives me instructions to find out the names and numbers of just about every Sears employee who has ever held a managerial post. I tell her I will find out who the store manager is. She is not quite satisfied, but I explain I am feeling a tad blurred by the experience, but I will gather as many numbers as is possible.
I call directory assistance and get the number of the store. That number yields a number for the head of the store, but when I call that number, I am thwarted. All the managers are still in an organizational meeting, and the head manager will call me once he gets out. I leave my phone number, the number of people who eat food from a refrigerator at my house, the number of times I have had a repairman come to fix the refrigerator, the number of days it will be before I am to enjoy the use of another refrigerator, the number of times I have called various 800 and non-800 numbers to get some form of assistance from Sears, and the number of minutes (broken up into hours and minutes) I spent in his store trying to get a refrigerator that works into my kitchen at home. I hang up.
I get home, and Jill is not happy. She begins calling Sears’ National Customer Relations number. She talks to a man who seems competent and sympathetic. He dials the store, but after 40 minutes, he cannot get any more answer than we did as to why we must wait 13 days. He left his number for the store manager to call. He explains all this to Jill when he calls her back, but he informs her, he is being promoted the following day, and the person who is taking his place can be reach at—and he gives Jill an 800 number. He also gives Jill a Sears case number: #1282067.
Jill calls the 800 number. She is asked her telephone number, but this time they decide they want the house number and not the cell number. She gives it to them. They tell her to call these numbers. She runs out of patience, calls me on my cell phone, explains her new tendency toward violence and mayhem, explains why, and tells me to call various 800 numbers. I do. One number gets me to a man who is very nice, but he is in the repair department, not the delivery department. He apologizes and gives me the distributor’s number. I call the distributor. He is not in, but I leave a message. An unknown number of days pass as the above takes place. When it comes to Sears, I can no longer keep track of time. It is now Tuesday. The refrigerator is to come on Sunday. Jill and I wait. The food remains on the deck. The weather has been rather warm this winter. We eat out a lot. We are still waiting for our refrigerator from Sears. While waiting, we talk about this experience in terms of numbers. The number of days we have wasted waiting for repairmen, the number of hours spent on the phone, the number of refrigerators-full of groceries we have thrown away from spoilage, the number of times we’ve called one another to talk about the Sears situation.
We are both angry. Jill is disappointed. She says she once trusted the name “Sears.” I don’t remember ever holding any company name in such high regard. I suspect conspiracy. I remember reading about a major automobile manufacturer doing an actuarial study of the cost of putting in airbags versus the cost of paying off lawsuits filed by relatives of those who died in car accidents whose deaths would have been prevented by airbags. I imagine Sears has a similar; less nefarious study filed away somewhere. They have calculated the relative value of not replacing various non-functional appliances versus the cost of lost customers plus telephone operators’ wages, and the ledger states they can make more money giving people the run-around. They know we are a passive lot. We don’t have the time to fight these silly little fights. That’s why we buy their products on-line in the first place.
the dimensions of the refrigerator we wanted, selected the modern stainless steel look, and voila, got a refrigerator delivered to the house at a rather hefty price. This, seemingly, is all good.
We move forward 11 months, and suddenly the temperature gage reads 57 degrees. Fine for fall weather, bad for milk and eggs. As we have a sufficient amount of time left on our warranty, which was the standard kind, not the extra 249 dollar kind, we called whoever it is we called, and they arrived and supposedly fixed the fridge. Not so fast. Two weeks later, the fridge interior is a balmy 64. We put this refrigerator full of groceries on the deck because it is winter. At least we did so for the food we could salvage. The other half of the food went into the garbage again. This is a rather expensive endeavor as we have eight living in our house as we have three kids of mine and two of my girlfriend, and my girlfriend sister living here. We call again. The repairman returns and informs us we need a new computer panel. This makes sense to us, as we have the combined mechanical acumen of a palm tree—that’s not completely true. My girlfriend has been known to utilize a power tool to hang a shelf or curtain rods, but refrigerator computer boards are definitely beyond her ken. I, on the other hand, have injured myself in the few attempts at power tool usage, and now steer clear of most things that require electricity and move rapidly.
The repairman orders the computer part and asks us to call him once the part arrives in the mail. The part arrives after a few days. We call. We make an appointment for him to replace the part. Three days later he replaces the part. This series of non-events takes a week and a half. In the meantime, the freezer portion of the fridge has also died, and we have to throw out easily over a hundred dollars worth of meat and cook the rest, despite the fact we won’t have refrigeration for another 24 hours or so. This is because a refrigerator that cools oddly needs time to warm up. We eat too well that night, despite cholesterol issues.
But as of that next day the refrigerator works—for three weeks. Then it dies. We call, again. They come back, again. This time the mechanic tells us we need a new refrigerator altogether. The old one, which is less than a year old, is bad. “But,” Mr. Mechanical says with sunlight shooting out of his head, “you are covered by warranty.”
We are given various slips of paper which require translation for human interpretation, but we dutifully dial the numbers we are told to dial and speak to the people we are switched over to. Eventually, we are instructed to go to the Sears at the White Plains galleria-- the place, we steadfastly avoided in the first place. There we are to tell the salesman to give us a new refrigerator. We are told, however, that there is a possibility that the store will not recognized our claim for a new fridge, as we bought the appliance on-line and not from the store itself, thus, the store might or might not not honor our rebate.
Now, I wish to inject an element of reality, and the truth is, Jill, my girlfriend, has been putting up with the above nonsense, and I’ve been scooting off to work and wiping my brow in relief.
Until now.
Now, I am told by Jill to go to the Sears in the White Plains galleria and get the new refrigerator which has been selected by her and someone on the other end of an 800 phone number as due replacement for our downed appliance. I am told to do so or there will be a question of firearms and rage, and I nod my head and head off to White Plains.
Parking is only mildly painful. The galleria, more so. I dislike malls. Crowds aren’t wonderful either, but I wend my way through the food court, passing fast food smells wafting through the vast octagonal high school lunch cafeteria disguised as a modern consumer nirvana. Sears is on the far side, and I make it into their doors only after avoiding the persistent women who insist for the entire length of that hallway that I need a massage in one of their modern massage chairs. After I make it through that gauntlet and step inside Sears, I immediately ask for kitchen appliances. A smiling woman sends me to the third floor. On the third floor, where there is no item larger than a shoe, someone from the janitorial staff tells me I’m on the wrong floor. I retreat to the second floor, where there is someone with a name badge. He directs me to the first floor. Eventually, I wind up about eleven steps away from the smiling woman who sent me upstairs in the first place. Had I looked around upon entering the store I probably could have spotted my destination without difficulty.
My salesman’s name is Ahbar. It says so on his white, plastic name badge. He continually asks my phone number, and I give him all the numbers that come to mind. It is not until I miraculously remember Jill’s cell phone number that his computer recognizes my consumer existence. Unfortunately, the computer does not recognize my now-deceased refrigerator model number. He clicks repeatedly on his store computer but the CBLR string of letters of our dead refrigerator doesn’t appear anywhere on his computer screen, and he thus has no way of knowing the value of our old refrigerator which needs replacing. He calls an 800 number. He experiences a taste of what we have experience, and after 38 minutes of being switched from one disembodied voice to another, he asks me to talk to the voice. I do. I am instructed to speak to a manager, but the managers are unavailable, as they are all in an organizational meeting in a room I cannot nor am I allowed to see. Ahbar is not sure I can get a new refrigerator, because I didn’t buy the refrigerator from this Sears store in the White Plains galleria. I explain it was an on-line purchase and the on-line disembodied voice name Keith K. told me to come here. Ahbar leaves to find a manager.
Another sad-faced man, who waits for Ahbar to be done with me, stands next to the Kitchen Aid appliance he was planning on buying. He has an exasperated look on his face. I walk over to him and tell him what I have gone through. Ahbar returns with a small, bespectacled man with “Juan” on his name badge. Juan runs a plastic card with a magnetic stripe through a slot attached to the store computer. Ahbar asks me again what refrigerator I want. I tell him that my girlfriend and the voice at on-line purchasing have selected an Amana. He tells me I originally had a GE. I need to wait while he speaks to the manager again.
Juan reappears. Without speaking again, he runs his striped card through the slot again. He leaves. Ahbar clicks on the Amana refrigerator. He stares at the screen for about six minutes. He looks frustrated. He calls a phone number and talks in a hushed voice. He hangs up. He clicks the computer some more. I have been in the Sears store in the White Plains galleria for 1 hour and 45 minutes. The Kitchen Aid appliance consumer who has waited for, what seems to him, forever, leaves. He gestures to Ahbar that he will be in touch, but I am certain he’ll never shop at Sears again. I rejoice in my part in that decision.
Finally, I am told, that although the Amana is almost the same value as the dead GE, I need to pay an extra $100 to get the same icemaker the GE once possessed. I have a gift card valued at $225. (Relevant aside: I have this $225 gift card because when we bought the original GE refrigerator, Sears delivered the wrong color. The second time, the door opened the wrong way. Finally we received a stainless steel one which opened the correct way, but it had a noticeable dent in the front. We called a bunch of 800 numbers and they sent us these shiny blue cards.) Ahbar slides the blue card through the slot. I am to receive an icemaker. I am told I can leave. The refrigerator will arrive in 13 days. “13 day?” I ask, incredulous. “I have eight people to feed, and you want me to wait thirteen days?”
Ahbar gives me an 800 number to call with my complaint. I get to my car in the parking lot. My cell phone rings. It is Jill. She wants to know what happened. I tell her. “13 days?” she yells. “Let me talk to the head manager.” I tell her I don’t know the name of the head manager. She gives me instructions to find out the names and numbers of just about every Sears employee who has ever held a managerial post. I tell her I will find out who the store manager is. She is not quite satisfied, but I explain I am feeling a tad blurred by the experience, but I will gather as many numbers as is possible.
I call directory assistance and get the number of the store. That number yields a number for the head of the store, but when I call that number, I am thwarted. All the managers are still in an organizational meeting, and the head manager will call me once he gets out. I leave my phone number, the number of people who eat food from a refrigerator at my house, the number of times I have had a repairman come to fix the refrigerator, the number of days it will be before I am to enjoy the use of another refrigerator, the number of times I have called various 800 and non-800 numbers to get some form of assistance from Sears, and the number of minutes (broken up into hours and minutes) I spent in his store trying to get a refrigerator that works into my kitchen at home. I hang up.
I get home, and Jill is not happy. She begins calling Sears’ National Customer Relations number. She talks to a man who seems competent and sympathetic. He dials the store, but after 40 minutes, he cannot get any more answer than we did as to why we must wait 13 days. He left his number for the store manager to call. He explains all this to Jill when he calls her back, but he informs her, he is being promoted the following day, and the person who is taking his place can be reach at—and he gives Jill an 800 number. He also gives Jill a Sears case number: #1282067.
Jill calls the 800 number. She is asked her telephone number, but this time they decide they want the house number and not the cell number. She gives it to them. They tell her to call these numbers. She runs out of patience, calls me on my cell phone, explains her new tendency toward violence and mayhem, explains why, and tells me to call various 800 numbers. I do. One number gets me to a man who is very nice, but he is in the repair department, not the delivery department. He apologizes and gives me the distributor’s number. I call the distributor. He is not in, but I leave a message. An unknown number of days pass as the above takes place. When it comes to Sears, I can no longer keep track of time. It is now Tuesday. The refrigerator is to come on Sunday. Jill and I wait. The food remains on the deck. The weather has been rather warm this winter. We eat out a lot. We are still waiting for our refrigerator from Sears. While waiting, we talk about this experience in terms of numbers. The number of days we have wasted waiting for repairmen, the number of hours spent on the phone, the number of refrigerators-full of groceries we have thrown away from spoilage, the number of times we’ve called one another to talk about the Sears situation.
We are both angry. Jill is disappointed. She says she once trusted the name “Sears.” I don’t remember ever holding any company name in such high regard. I suspect conspiracy. I remember reading about a major automobile manufacturer doing an actuarial study of the cost of putting in airbags versus the cost of paying off lawsuits filed by relatives of those who died in car accidents whose deaths would have been prevented by airbags. I imagine Sears has a similar; less nefarious study filed away somewhere. They have calculated the relative value of not replacing various non-functional appliances versus the cost of lost customers plus telephone operators’ wages, and the ledger states they can make more money giving people the run-around. They know we are a passive lot. We don’t have the time to fight these silly little fights. That’s why we buy their products on-line in the first place.
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