Archive: Gripe

Over the lovely weekend:

• Caught up on about four hours of DVRed television.
• Tried out a Redbox rental kiosk for the first time.
• Saw Casino Royale. Liked it. Was totally worth the $1.06 rental fee.
• Realized that it was the first Bond flick I’d seen from beginning to end. Resolved to see Goldeneye at some point.
• Had delicious dinners of barbecue chicken with cornbread and broccoli mac and cheese gratin.
• Got a glimpse of why people enjoy watching hockey when high-definition television magically revealed the puck to me.
• Reorganized a closet to more efficiently store staples of paper products, candles, light bulbs, and other random household goods that are completely necessary in a moment of crisis.

This morning:

• Woke up at some ungodly hour of night with intense pain in my left eye, which was bloodshot and watering profusely. Staggered to the bathroom to get some eye drops.
• Woke up at the sound of my alarm with the same pain, plus a stuffy nose.
• Asked JG why he was walking so funny. Was concerned to hear that he had mysterious, intense pain in his hips and could barely walk, but he had to go into school today to give tests.
• Tried eye drops again, but the eye was terribly sensitive to light. Instant headache. Pushed glasses onto my face to walk Ted.
• Stepped out in the pouring rain and driving wind, which was only mitigated by the knowledge that I did not have to drive to work today.
• Passed my carpool partner’s car and saw that he had a flat tire. Left JG a voicemail to please not take my car because I would probably need to drive.
• Briefly considered throwing in the towel on being put-together today, but instead made a small effort in the hopes that it would make me feel better. It did, just slightly.
• Got a call from my carpool partner, Joe, about the flat tire. Cheerfully agreed to drive, gritting my teeth all the while.
• Took some allergy medicine and ibuprofen to stave off the attractive bloodshot eye and ensuing headache.
• Gritted my teeth again when Joe asked if we could stop for coffee, since he didn’t have time to make some at home, and even though I wouldn’t buy anything. Felt like a chauffeur while waiting in the parking lot of the coffee place.

I am now freezing in my office. My left eyelid is drooping, hag-like, and I must have taken the two dud pills from the ibuprofen bottle. Any eye make-up I applied is destined to run off into tissues from dabbing at my eye or smudge into my face. Five o’clock seems like a long time from now.

Monday, I want a do-over.

I finally received the Best Buy gift card on Thursday, after a hard-fought struggle with customer service. Although I didn’t have the card in time to give to my cousins, I sneakily gave them the gift card that my sister sent JG for his birthday (in the exact same amount) so that they would have something to open on Christmas Day. When the replacement card came in yesterday, I simply passed it on to JG.

During the whole debacle with Best Buy, it was nice knowing that I had a contingency plan, but I felt even better when I finished writing and proofing a scathing letter of feedback. I started off with the only positive comments I could offer (polite representatives and an intuitive phone system) before dishing out a timeline of my shopping experience and all of the factors that led me to the decision not to grace them with my business. I used every persuasive tactic in my toolbox, including this slam-bam conclusion:

It is with this experience in mind that I have decided not to patronize Best Buy in the future. I will not deal with a company that will not advocate for me when I am clearly not at fault. I will not deal with a company that does not have the means to accommodate a busy shopping period. I will not deal with a company that will ask its representatives to make promises about delivery times and supervisor calls that are unreasonable or not kept, or both. I will not deal with a company that is satisfied with providing mediocre — even inferior — customer service because there is a strong belief that losing an individual customer will not make a significant impact on the bottom line, despite a spoiled reputation. My interactions are an indicator of an unreliable vendor that no longer has the credibility to warrant my patronage. If I had received my gift card within the 7-10 business days, I might have bought other items from Best Buy. If I had even received a replacement gift card after the first phone call, I might have returned as a customer. However, my experience of frustrating phone calls, waiting on hold, and lack of follow-up by Best Buy staff has compelled me to take my business elsewhere.

By tomorrow, the letter will have been submitted to Best Buy’s online customer service, sent to their corporate headquarters, and e-mailed to IHateBestBuy.com. Even if my letter gets tossed into some corporate vat of paper, writing it out was cathartic for me, so I’m glad I did it. Situations like these make me glad I took those rhetoric classes in college. Booyah.

I do the vast majority of my Christmas shopping online for a handful of reasons:

1. Parking in crowded lots full of strollers, shopping carts, and oblivious pedestrians makes me want to tear my hair out.
2. I feel more comfortable with an online interface than a recent holiday-season retail hire.
3. I’d rather browse on a laptop than on my feet.
4. I can more easily track my spending and to-get items with my spreadsheet.
5. I get a thrill out of checking tracking numbers and shipping status. (“Out for delivery! YES!”)

However, I am sad to report that the online ordering process did not fare so well for me on one specific occasion. Behold, a timeline of my frustration:

Monday, November 26

• 11am: Stumped for gift ideas for my cousins, I order a $50 gift card from Best Buy so that they can buy accessories or games for their beloved Nintendo Wii.
• 12pm: I receive an e-mail that confirms my order.
• 1pm: I receive an e-mail that informs me that my order has been shipped with the postal service, so I should allow 7-10 business days before receipt. No problem.

Friday, December 7

• Ten business days have passed since my shipment confirmation, and no gift card is in sight. JG suggests giving it a couple of more days, just in case something happened with the mail.

Saturday, December 15

• I have still not received my gift card in the mail, so I call customer service to inquire after it. I sit on hold for 20 minutes. The representative doesn’t quite understand how she sees that my order was shipped, but I haven’t received it. I repeat that I haven’t received it. She still does not understand, because it was shipped, right?
• I adopt my “don’t mess with me” tone and tell her what she’ll do for me. She’ll arrange for the original gift card to be canceled and a replacement card to be shipped to me overnight, since I need it next week.
• The representative says, “Ooh, you need it next week?”
• I snap, “Yes, that’s why I ordered it in November.”
• The representative promises that she’ll have a new gift card shipped to me as soon as possible. Maybe I’ll even get it today, she says. I highly doubt that, as the mail has already arrived.
• I receive a case number for my complaint. The representative says that someone from gift cards should call me to follow up, but I make a note to follow up on my own during the next week.

Tuesday, December 18

• I have not heard from the gift card department.
• Assuming that the request for the replacement gift card should have been processed on Saturday and then shipped overnight on Monday, I call customer service in the evening to ask just what the heck is their problem. JG advises me, “Nothing gets accomplished by yelling.” I say that I won’t start off yelling.
• I wait on hold for 50 minutes, simmering away.
• The customer service representative who finally takes my call is puzzled when she pulls up my order number and case number because there are no additional notes after the ones from Saturday’s call.
• In essence, nothing has been done.
• I am livid.
• The representative says that she will make a note for the gift card people to issue a replacement gift card to be sent out as soon as possible. I respond sharply, “Why should I be confident at all that the notes you’re taking would resolve my issue, since it is clear that the previous notes have had no effect? The fault, here, is not with me, since I ordered this gift card more than three weeks ago.”
• The representative offers to let me speak to a supervisor, which I accept. I sit on hold again. Unsurprisingly, a supervisor is not available.
• The representative says that she will make the notes she mentioned and put me in a queue for a supervisor to give me a call to discuss the issue. The supervisor should call me within 24-48 hours. I receive case numbers for my additional complaint and the supervisor call.

Today, Friday, December 21

• I have not heard from the gift card people.
• I have not received a gift card.
• I have not received a phone call from a supervisor.
• I am set to file a formal complaint with Best Buy.
• I am determined that they will fix the situation for me; I will not simply cancel this order.
• I am telling everyone I can about my experience, and I am never patronizing Best Buy again.

- - - - -

12/28 UPDATE:

Saturday, December 22

• While I am elbow-deep in cookie dough, I receive a phone call from a guy from the “Research department,” whatever that means. He confirms that I have not received my gift card, which should have arrived between December 7-10, according to his records.
• I restrain myself from pointing out that, if I had received it between December 7-10, I would not have spent an hour and a half trying to fix my problem and he would not be calling me on a Saturday.
• Between 25 minutes spent on the phone and no less than three occasions of waiting on hold (I can only speculate that he had no idea what he was doing), the representative is able to cancel the first gift card I ordered and arrange for a replacement to be sent.
• Somehow, all of that sounds very familiar. Oh, yes, I have already heard it twice before.
• I write down the new order number for my records.
• The representative asks me if he can help me with anything else, although I can tell from his tone that he really hopes that he can’t.
• I say cheerily, “Actually, I have one other question. How can I go about filing a formal complaint about my problems in resolving this issue?” I receive instructions on where to go on the Best Buy website.

Thursday, December 27

• I receive the gift card in the mail, at last. One month and one day have elapsed since I received original shipping notification.
• JG and I go to a Best Buy store to spend the gift cards, in a ceremonial fashion, that he received for Christmas, thereby ending our patronage. As icing on the cake, our cashier is completely rude and off-putting.

Friday, December 28

• I write a detailed letter of feedback, employing every rhetorical device I know.
• I submit the letter to Best Buy’s electronic feedback form, prepare it to send to the corporate headquarters via snail mail, and e-mail it (plus a link to this post) to IHateBestBuy.com.

#87

This morning, in that haze between sleep and wakefulness, I heard a muffled cry from JG. I mentally muddled through the two conceivable possibilities: either something had happened with Ted or —

“The tree fell down,” JG said as he burst into our room. “Put some shoes on because there’s broken glass.”

Oh, no.

After several stressful attempts, we managed to coerce the tree to stand upright again. JG tied the top of the tree to a kitchen cabinet to prevent another fall, and we stepped back to survey the damage. Only two soggy presents had to be re-wrapped, and we had a few ornament casualties, so it wasn’t too bad, all things considered. JG raced to get dressed for work and jet out the door as I picked up glass fragments and vacuumed up pine needles. The tree had stood up on its own for a whole ten days! What happened? It was hard to stomach the thought of re-composing the tree with only a week left before Christmas, and something about broken ornaments hit me right in pit of my stomach.

As if that weren’t enough for one day, today was the department’s annual Holiday Colloquium, which is smart-person code for Christmas luncheon. Apparently, we’re not allowed to book public meeting space for parties, so we have a colloquium instead. In my rush to leave in the morning, I had almost forgotten the peppermint patty cookies I had made for the occasion (the cheater “recipe” exposes me as a baking fraud with my illicit use of pre-packaged cookie dough), but I walked the platter down to the room amid meaty, slow-cooker smells along the way. I don’t know what I was expecting at this blessed event, but it was rather depressing. The pot-luck food was adequate, but everyone clumped up into their own groups, which gave the whole set-up an adolescent feel. I brought a camera so that I could try to document the lunch for our newsletter, but everyone looked at me askance when I drew near. It was a complete change from my old job, which had a separate Pictures folder on the shared drive for fun photos. I have to keep reminding myself that I work in a department full of lab rats, which doesn’t make for a very festive party atmosphere. After I had eaten and snapped some obligatory pictures, I retreated back to my office as soon as I could.

I’m not exactly stressed out, but I feel as though my allotted store of sparkling, festive Christmas spirit has already been drained. Maybe I expended too much of it prematurely with Secret Blogger Santa. Maybe the inherent strain of Family Time is finally rearing its ugly head. Maybe I don’t want to hang those ornaments back up on the tree. Or maybe I just need a nap.

Bah.