We are Incenced!

It takes a fair bit to get me really mad, but it happened tonight! Those of you that know me, know that I’m a mediator at heart and would rather avoid a conflict than create one, well…

About two weeks ago, Shelley and I went to a Lane Home Furnishings Store and ordered about $3500 worth of furniture. No, it’s not the $10,000 quad recliner home theater model of couch, but a pretty nice set of a sofa, ottoman and “chair and a half” (almost a love seat). The chair and ottoman are in a “patterned” fabric and the couch is a solid. No problems so far.

So, we got a couple of “mystery calls” from the store over the weekend and they left no message, but today they finally got a hold of us and said there was a problem with the trim on the PILLOWS that come with the couch. Something about the chair being in a “promotional fabric” and the sofa not being in the same fabric, so we had to switch the trim… Whatever, Shelley and I went in to pick a new trim for the throw pillows, big deal.

Now it starts geting weird. Shelley didn’t like the “replacement” trims as much as the original and if we did switch, the pillows on the sofa wouldn’t match the pillows on the chair. We asked the seamingly simple question: “If they can make the pillows for the chair with the trim we liked, could they not make the same pillows for the sofa”?

“No”, was the answer. No offer to help or talk to someone, the manufacturer, anyone. No offer of options. Well, Shelley won’t just take that lying down and says something along the lines of, “Well, will you step up to the plate and do ANYTHING for us”? And his response was, “No”. He had “sensed negativity from us” and would no longer help us Honestly, the guy sounded like he was having a PMS episode. We asked to speak to the manager. “No, he’s not here”.

We asked why was seemed unwilling to help, was he mad because we didn’t like the trim options? “Yes. And I’ve had a bad day”.

Huh?!? I’VE HAD A BAD DAY!? Like I frickin’ care about his day!! He didn’t like the fact that we didn’t like his options?! Give me a break!

Things begin to escalate, as you can imagine, and admittedly we were getting mad. Shelley mentioned that she “could just go to another store”, and his reponse was “Fine. Lets just cancel your order”. We were then asked to “leave the store”. Leave the store! It’s not like we were screaming or anything, just trying to get a wee spot of customer service. Great job there!

When the guy went away to the business card for the Sales Manager, another sales person who was watching said that he could just order a couple extra pillows with the chair. No big deal, maybe they eat the cost, maybe not, but it was doable. But by then, things had gone too far, and the other sales person didn’t really want to step into the middle of it. Fair enough, but now we KNOW it IS possible to get the correct pillows, and this guy is just being an ass.

Grrrr. So now I have to phone the sales manager tomorrow and try and explain what happened. Undoubtedly this ass has already talked to him saying that we were wholy unreasonable so it’ll be a complete uphill battle to get anything out of it. Of course, the REALLY annoying thing is that we would have settled for one of the replacement trims if he hadn’t had a cow on us. Now it’s a matter of principle that we WILL get what we wanted, and I hope I can get this guy fired.

Asshat.