I'm in such a mood, so if you don't want to read a bunch of whining about one letdown after another resulting from the setting of mediocre expectations, not even high expectations, then just click on the little 'X' in the upper right corner of your browser. I realize we have so much to be grateful for, and we are. I promise we are. But on a daily basis I feel like I'm being swallowed by the incompetence all around me. You tell me blogger friends, you can be honest with me! Is it just me?
In honor of Jimmy Fallon's late night "thank you notes" in which he writes snarky thank you notes to random people, places, and sometimes inanimate objects or abstract concepts...
Thank you WALMART
I'll get the embarrassing one over with first. I'm a big fan of teeny bopper cult book series. There, it's out! I just recently let go of my Edward Cullen pillow case when we got all new bedding in the new house. You with me? So, it's no surprise that I've read all the (available) books in the Mortal Instruments and its prequels, and eagerly looked forward to the release of the final book in the series which released today. For over a week, our local Walmart in our new little Podunk town has had signage advertising that the book will be available on May 27, 2014. I had to run some errands this afternoon, and passed by literally 3 different Barnes and Nobles but didn't stop because my last errand was grocery shopping, which we sadly have to do at our local Walmart based on where we now live. We can pick up the occasional item at Kroger, but it's farther than I'd like to trek fresh milk and frozen stuff for a whole grocery shopping trip. Plus, that isn't a great Kroger either, and I can't find a one-stop store where I can buy all the groceries we are used to. Anyway, knowing Walmart advertised that they'd have the book today, I just decided to get it there when I picked up the groceries.
You know where I'm going with this right? Aside from not having a single zucchini, a single red bell pepper, or the mini halo mandarins the kids love so much, I couldn't find the book anywhere. So I made an even more annoying mistake. I asked an employee. And when he was done rolling his eyes in judgement of my interest in the young adult literature section, he informed me that our local store wouldn't be getting the book today, and not even soon enough to have an ETA. I said, "but look right here at the sign that says it will be available HERE today." His response, "Sorry ma'am, we don't have it." That is our local Walmart's response to everything they don't have in stock. I wish I had snagged a photo of the actual sign, but here's a similar ad with the same "available XXXX" date message for the Avengers DVD advertisement I found on another blog. Would you for any reason think that the store you're standing in would NOT then actually offer the dvd for sale on that date?
Don't even get me started on the fact that I can do self checkout for an entire cart full of groceries faster than the express line moves. Wow, first world problems. I know. It doesn't make it less annoying, and I warned you I'm in a mood. If I had ANY better options I would so happily take my business elsewhere, but I don't!
Thank you DALLAS SOD GRASS and TRINITY TURF
Remember the sod we laid last weekend? That sod was delivered on 28 pallets. We paid a deposit on those 28 pallets that we get back once they're returned to the sod farm. We called last Monday to have them picked up. Then again on Wednesday to remind the broker to arrange it. Then late on Thursday I broke down and called the sod farm directly, and she sounded eager to pick them up as they're running short on pallets! So she assured me they'd be picked up Friday (last friday). I called again today, and this time they told me that whoever ordered the sod is responsible for returning the pallets. That has NEVER been the agreement. Our sod broker has no incentive to bring them back because I'm the one waiting for the deposit to be refunded, nor do we have the means to drive 28 pallets to their sod farm. What I know is I'm tired of babysitting the pallets to make sure they're not stolen, and I'm tired of looking at the pile of them out at the street, as I'm sure our neighbors are. Another text to the broker and he assured me they'll be here today or tomorrow at the latest to pick them up. *sigh, we shall see.
Thank you DILLARDS in LEWISVILLE, TX
I've been keeping you all waiting for pictures of our living room/great room area because we've been waiting for our custom ordered chairs (that I ordered on February 3rd) to get here to complete the room! Now, in all fairness, they showed up to deliver the chairs, but the delivery guy unpacked one and didn't even bring either of them in the house because the arm was busted so badly. He suggested we refuse BOTH chairs since they were custom and if we keep the one that's not broken, it's quite possible the new chair would be from a different dye lot of fabric and they wouldn't match. I thought that was a helpful tip, and took his advice. He said the sales person would be in touch later that day with information about reordering the chairs for us. A few days went by (this was in April the week we moved in) and I still hadn't heard from the salesman, so I called and explained the situation and he said he hadn't even heard the chairs were damaged and refused. A few days and SEVERAL attempted calls later, they apologized for the confusion and told us the chairs had been re-ordered and they even brought back one of the undamaged chairs as a loaner to have while they manufacture the 2 new ones for us, which again, I thought was very thoughtful. This was on April 18th. So I started my 6 week countdown, even though they manufactured the first set in only 3 weeks.
So 6 weeks would be this coming Friday and I called today to see if we're on schedule. Again, 4 calls to the furniture department because it rings for so long that their phone system just disconnects the call. Fun. On lucky call number 4, I happened to get Doug, the furniture department manager. What luck! He looked it up in the system and said they'll be ready on June 18th.
ME: oh no, that must be a mistake. Our chairs were ordered 6 weeks ago when the first set arrived damaged, and the first set only took 3 weeks.
DOUG: these are custom chairs. i don't just have any sitting around. we have to order them from the manufacturer.
ME: Yes, which we did in February, and then again 6 weeks ago when they arrived damaged.
DOUG: I don't know what to tell you. The manufacturer must be backed up because the date in the system says the chairs will be ready on June 18th.
ME: Well what date does the system say the chairs were ordered?
DOUG: May 6th
ME: May 6th????? But we reported the damage on April 15th and you personally called me on the 18th to tell me we were all set and the chairs had been reordered! Why did you wait almost 3 weeks after that to finally re-order them?
DOUG: We just pass the information along. It's the delivery department that's responsible for reorders and replacements. They must have been backed up.
ME: But I was told the sales team would re-order and confirm with me, and it was the sales team I talked to. The only person I've ever spoken to in delivery was the driver who came to our door.
DOUG: Well it's the delivery department who handles that.
At that point, he suggested if I wanted to complain (yes, very good deductive judge of character, Doug) to call the delivery department and see if they could speed it up. So I did call the delivery department, not necessarily to complain, but to see if I could get some clarification on what went wrong and if my chairs are in fact ordered and expected June 18th because after Doug's song and dance I didn't trust that the chairs were ordered. The delivery manager there told me that the delivery department is not and never has been responsible for processing any order, reorder or otherwise, and that their sole responsibility is to schedule delivery and deliver the goods and report any damage to the sales team. However, she softly suggested that the sales department may have been slower than normal at that time because they were transitioning to a new furniture department manager. I said, "funny, would that new manager be named Doug by any chance? because Doug, the furniture manager at the Lewisville store blamed you and your department for not re-ordering the chairs in a timely manner!" Instead of retaliating and chucking her colleague under the bus, she said she was terribly sorry for the experience, she would understand if I don't think highly of their store right now, and would attempt to get in touch with the operations manager to fill him in on the whole scenario. Whether she does or not, and whether our chairs will get here on the 18th or not, I don't know. But I know she was the first person who sounded remotely genuine in the whole Dillard's chain, so for that I'm grateful. I also know our chairs will most definitely not be here for our first party or our first house guests, which is a huge disappointment for me after all the thought and time I've put into the plans for this room! The (loaner) chair really is beautiful and will have been worth the wait. The issue is, there was no need for this long wait, and the lies and poor communication are just so disheartening.
Thank you SCOTT'S EARTHGRO BROWN MULCH
My final gripe... Scott's "premium" lawn and yard care products step right up! We've been avid Scott's customers since we bought our first home in 2004. Brent takes great pride in his 5-6 seasonal grass feedings each year. When we landscaped the beds in the back of the house a few weeks ago, we decided to buy bags of mulch to keep it simple. And we bought about 23 bags if I'm not mistaken, and they were all lovely dark brown chunky looking wood chips made by Scotts. It was called Earthgro Brown Mulch with Color Advantage. All 23 bags. So, when we tackled the front yard, ripping out all the dead plants and relocating the living ones to fix the horrendous landscaping job, we stuck with the same mulch because we liked it so much in the back, and even got comments on how nice it looked from our builder! So we picked up another 25 bags from the same exact Home Depot as the week before in preparation. When we were done planting, we opened the first bag and dumped it and were very confused when it was nothing like the mulch we used in the back. So we double checked the bag, and it's the same exact bag, but the mulch was shredded this time, not chips, and the color was darker, considerably darker, like maybe should have been in the "black mulch" bag. I thought, maybe a funky bag, so we opened another, and the same thing. Of the 25 bags, 3 of them were chips this time. I was fuming mad again. Shocker, right?
Here's a side by side shot of two consecutive bags of mulch poured next to each other in the same bed. Hmmmm... looks like something our landscaping crew would think is perfectly fine! Now, for full disclosure, the chips on the left are the size and texture of what we had in the backyard, but the color is way too light. So there were multiple variables in the mulch this time, whereas when we did the backyard it never occurred to us that there was variability because out of 23 bags we didn't have a single problem.
But we needed another 50 bags to finish the job, so this time when we went to Home Depot, we filtered through the pallet to find the chip style mulch, and ended up tossing about 10 bags to the side as they weren't matches. That does NOT seem right to me since they're labeled exactly the same in the same bag pulled off the same freshly unwrapped pallet. We ended up having to buy an extra 10 bags of the chip style to top off and cover up the shredded stuff so that it all matched. So weekend warriors beware! If you prefer one style of mulch over another, or if you want to lay all one style of mulch instead of a buffet of mulches, look REALLY closely inside the clear window on these bags before you take them home!
I'm seriously starting to wonder if it's just me! Are my expectations out of whack? What do you think friends? Does my whiny misfortune entertain you? Or should I instead save my frustrations for all the manual labor we've been doing and share only my tales of sunshine and rainbows? I had too much to complain about to get into the front yard this time, but we did finish and I'll tell you all about it in the next post along with pictures I have yet to download. :) Thanks for letting me vent as usual! Mom is literally on her way back from Barnes and Noble with my book in hand, and all will be well in my world again for the time being.
In honor of Jimmy Fallon's late night "thank you notes" in which he writes snarky thank you notes to random people, places, and sometimes inanimate objects or abstract concepts...
Thank you WALMART
I'll get the embarrassing one over with first. I'm a big fan of teeny bopper cult book series. There, it's out! I just recently let go of my Edward Cullen pillow case when we got all new bedding in the new house. You with me? So, it's no surprise that I've read all the (available) books in the Mortal Instruments and its prequels, and eagerly looked forward to the release of the final book in the series which released today. For over a week, our local Walmart in our new little Podunk town has had signage advertising that the book will be available on May 27, 2014. I had to run some errands this afternoon, and passed by literally 3 different Barnes and Nobles but didn't stop because my last errand was grocery shopping, which we sadly have to do at our local Walmart based on where we now live. We can pick up the occasional item at Kroger, but it's farther than I'd like to trek fresh milk and frozen stuff for a whole grocery shopping trip. Plus, that isn't a great Kroger either, and I can't find a one-stop store where I can buy all the groceries we are used to. Anyway, knowing Walmart advertised that they'd have the book today, I just decided to get it there when I picked up the groceries.
You know where I'm going with this right? Aside from not having a single zucchini, a single red bell pepper, or the mini halo mandarins the kids love so much, I couldn't find the book anywhere. So I made an even more annoying mistake. I asked an employee. And when he was done rolling his eyes in judgement of my interest in the young adult literature section, he informed me that our local store wouldn't be getting the book today, and not even soon enough to have an ETA. I said, "but look right here at the sign that says it will be available HERE today." His response, "Sorry ma'am, we don't have it." That is our local Walmart's response to everything they don't have in stock. I wish I had snagged a photo of the actual sign, but here's a similar ad with the same "available XXXX" date message for the Avengers DVD advertisement I found on another blog. Would you for any reason think that the store you're standing in would NOT then actually offer the dvd for sale on that date?
 |
| Pretty clear implication that the movie will be available for purchase THERE on Tuesday, Sept 25th, right? |
Don't even get me started on the fact that I can do self checkout for an entire cart full of groceries faster than the express line moves. Wow, first world problems. I know. It doesn't make it less annoying, and I warned you I'm in a mood. If I had ANY better options I would so happily take my business elsewhere, but I don't!
Thank you DALLAS SOD GRASS and TRINITY TURF
Remember the sod we laid last weekend? That sod was delivered on 28 pallets. We paid a deposit on those 28 pallets that we get back once they're returned to the sod farm. We called last Monday to have them picked up. Then again on Wednesday to remind the broker to arrange it. Then late on Thursday I broke down and called the sod farm directly, and she sounded eager to pick them up as they're running short on pallets! So she assured me they'd be picked up Friday (last friday). I called again today, and this time they told me that whoever ordered the sod is responsible for returning the pallets. That has NEVER been the agreement. Our sod broker has no incentive to bring them back because I'm the one waiting for the deposit to be refunded, nor do we have the means to drive 28 pallets to their sod farm. What I know is I'm tired of babysitting the pallets to make sure they're not stolen, and I'm tired of looking at the pile of them out at the street, as I'm sure our neighbors are. Another text to the broker and he assured me they'll be here today or tomorrow at the latest to pick them up. *sigh, we shall see.
Thank you DILLARDS in LEWISVILLE, TX
I've been keeping you all waiting for pictures of our living room/great room area because we've been waiting for our custom ordered chairs (that I ordered on February 3rd) to get here to complete the room! Now, in all fairness, they showed up to deliver the chairs, but the delivery guy unpacked one and didn't even bring either of them in the house because the arm was busted so badly. He suggested we refuse BOTH chairs since they were custom and if we keep the one that's not broken, it's quite possible the new chair would be from a different dye lot of fabric and they wouldn't match. I thought that was a helpful tip, and took his advice. He said the sales person would be in touch later that day with information about reordering the chairs for us. A few days went by (this was in April the week we moved in) and I still hadn't heard from the salesman, so I called and explained the situation and he said he hadn't even heard the chairs were damaged and refused. A few days and SEVERAL attempted calls later, they apologized for the confusion and told us the chairs had been re-ordered and they even brought back one of the undamaged chairs as a loaner to have while they manufacture the 2 new ones for us, which again, I thought was very thoughtful. This was on April 18th. So I started my 6 week countdown, even though they manufactured the first set in only 3 weeks.
So 6 weeks would be this coming Friday and I called today to see if we're on schedule. Again, 4 calls to the furniture department because it rings for so long that their phone system just disconnects the call. Fun. On lucky call number 4, I happened to get Doug, the furniture department manager. What luck! He looked it up in the system and said they'll be ready on June 18th.
ME: oh no, that must be a mistake. Our chairs were ordered 6 weeks ago when the first set arrived damaged, and the first set only took 3 weeks.
DOUG: these are custom chairs. i don't just have any sitting around. we have to order them from the manufacturer.
ME: Yes, which we did in February, and then again 6 weeks ago when they arrived damaged.
DOUG: I don't know what to tell you. The manufacturer must be backed up because the date in the system says the chairs will be ready on June 18th.
ME: Well what date does the system say the chairs were ordered?
DOUG: May 6th
ME: May 6th????? But we reported the damage on April 15th and you personally called me on the 18th to tell me we were all set and the chairs had been reordered! Why did you wait almost 3 weeks after that to finally re-order them?
DOUG: We just pass the information along. It's the delivery department that's responsible for reorders and replacements. They must have been backed up.
ME: But I was told the sales team would re-order and confirm with me, and it was the sales team I talked to. The only person I've ever spoken to in delivery was the driver who came to our door.
DOUG: Well it's the delivery department who handles that.
At that point, he suggested if I wanted to complain (yes, very good deductive judge of character, Doug) to call the delivery department and see if they could speed it up. So I did call the delivery department, not necessarily to complain, but to see if I could get some clarification on what went wrong and if my chairs are in fact ordered and expected June 18th because after Doug's song and dance I didn't trust that the chairs were ordered. The delivery manager there told me that the delivery department is not and never has been responsible for processing any order, reorder or otherwise, and that their sole responsibility is to schedule delivery and deliver the goods and report any damage to the sales team. However, she softly suggested that the sales department may have been slower than normal at that time because they were transitioning to a new furniture department manager. I said, "funny, would that new manager be named Doug by any chance? because Doug, the furniture manager at the Lewisville store blamed you and your department for not re-ordering the chairs in a timely manner!" Instead of retaliating and chucking her colleague under the bus, she said she was terribly sorry for the experience, she would understand if I don't think highly of their store right now, and would attempt to get in touch with the operations manager to fill him in on the whole scenario. Whether she does or not, and whether our chairs will get here on the 18th or not, I don't know. But I know she was the first person who sounded remotely genuine in the whole Dillard's chain, so for that I'm grateful. I also know our chairs will most definitely not be here for our first party or our first house guests, which is a huge disappointment for me after all the thought and time I've put into the plans for this room! The (loaner) chair really is beautiful and will have been worth the wait. The issue is, there was no need for this long wait, and the lies and poor communication are just so disheartening.
Thank you SCOTT'S EARTHGRO BROWN MULCH
My final gripe... Scott's "premium" lawn and yard care products step right up! We've been avid Scott's customers since we bought our first home in 2004. Brent takes great pride in his 5-6 seasonal grass feedings each year. When we landscaped the beds in the back of the house a few weeks ago, we decided to buy bags of mulch to keep it simple. And we bought about 23 bags if I'm not mistaken, and they were all lovely dark brown chunky looking wood chips made by Scotts. It was called Earthgro Brown Mulch with Color Advantage. All 23 bags. So, when we tackled the front yard, ripping out all the dead plants and relocating the living ones to fix the horrendous landscaping job, we stuck with the same mulch because we liked it so much in the back, and even got comments on how nice it looked from our builder! So we picked up another 25 bags from the same exact Home Depot as the week before in preparation. When we were done planting, we opened the first bag and dumped it and were very confused when it was nothing like the mulch we used in the back. So we double checked the bag, and it's the same exact bag, but the mulch was shredded this time, not chips, and the color was darker, considerably darker, like maybe should have been in the "black mulch" bag. I thought, maybe a funky bag, so we opened another, and the same thing. Of the 25 bags, 3 of them were chips this time. I was fuming mad again. Shocker, right?
Here's a side by side shot of two consecutive bags of mulch poured next to each other in the same bed. Hmmmm... looks like something our landscaping crew would think is perfectly fine! Now, for full disclosure, the chips on the left are the size and texture of what we had in the backyard, but the color is way too light. So there were multiple variables in the mulch this time, whereas when we did the backyard it never occurred to us that there was variability because out of 23 bags we didn't have a single problem.
But we needed another 50 bags to finish the job, so this time when we went to Home Depot, we filtered through the pallet to find the chip style mulch, and ended up tossing about 10 bags to the side as they weren't matches. That does NOT seem right to me since they're labeled exactly the same in the same bag pulled off the same freshly unwrapped pallet. We ended up having to buy an extra 10 bags of the chip style to top off and cover up the shredded stuff so that it all matched. So weekend warriors beware! If you prefer one style of mulch over another, or if you want to lay all one style of mulch instead of a buffet of mulches, look REALLY closely inside the clear window on these bags before you take them home!
I'm seriously starting to wonder if it's just me! Are my expectations out of whack? What do you think friends? Does my whiny misfortune entertain you? Or should I instead save my frustrations for all the manual labor we've been doing and share only my tales of sunshine and rainbows? I had too much to complain about to get into the front yard this time, but we did finish and I'll tell you all about it in the next post along with pictures I have yet to download. :) Thanks for letting me vent as usual! Mom is literally on her way back from Barnes and Noble with my book in hand, and all will be well in my world again for the time being.
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