So a couple weeks ago we moved to the very cool city of Annapolis, into a house that had been unoccupied for a couple of years and needed almost all new appliances — the 35-year-old washing machine in the basement was sliding around on its own pool of rusty, watery grease and the lid snapped off when the home inspector tried to open it. (Not to fear, though; the house itself is in great shape, and the only issues were little cosmetic things.) The kitchen came with a nice new electric range and microwave, but no fridge.

No problem, we thought. We’ll just run across town to Trusted American Department Store and get us a new washer-dryer and fridge. We picked TADS in part because it has been spraying the tube with commercials about how it has reinvented itself and is no longer That Stuffy Old Store With The Legendarily Abysmal Customer Service, and we figured that, because in America everyone deserves a second chance, we ought to give it a try.

You can probably figure out where this is going . . .

When we went to pick out a washer/dryer combo and a fridge, our first inkling that all might not be right in TADS land was the 35 minutes our sales clerk spent on hold with customer service to verify something or other while we just had to stand there memorizing the various floor and ceiling tiles while spiders began running webs off us. Finally, she either got through or gave up, I don’t remember which (I was pretty zoned by then), and we moved on. Hey, we had just bought a great new house, nothing was going to spoil our mood.

Comes the installation and all goes well for a few days — love the washer and dryer, BTW — until one day Mrs. Sotto Voce opens the freezer to find it encrusted in ice. WTF? Well, turns out that whenever you close the refrigerator door, it pops open the freezer door. Hard slam = blow freezer door wide open. Closure with ordinary force = just enough of a crack to let the warm air in to do its thing.

Grrrrr. So we talk to the installation people when they come back a couple days later for an unrelated installation. We explain, they look, and they say the best thing is to get a new fridge rather than try to fix this one. Fine, we say. That’s when Sign #2 that all might not be well in TADSville when the install guy gets on the phone with his office, and it sounds like he’s talking to a mentally defective person — using small words very slowly. His eye rolling and evident mounting frustration don’t boost our confidence either.

When Install Guy handed me over to the customer service person to confirm our address and whatnot, I had to explain the whole thing over again, after Install Guy had just taken ten minutes to explain the whole thing himself. Slowly. Small words. Yes, I want a new refrigerator. Yes, I live at this address. Yes, clouds are pretty.

We’re told we will get a new refrigerator soon. Can you give us a date so that, you know, someone can be here? Oh no, no, says Slow Customer Service Person, as if it was silly to ask such a thing. We can’t give you a date. But we’ll call you the night before. Thank you for choosing Trusted American Department Store.

Well, fast forward to almost two weeks later and (you guessed it) no new fridge. Mrs. SV calls and waits on hold forever only to be told yes, it’s in the system; no; we can’t tell you when it’s going to be delivered; yes, we’ll call you the night before. I call and wait on hold forever only to be told the same thing — yes, it’s in the system; no; we can’t tell you when it’s going to be delivered; yes, we’ll call you the night before.

We should put TADS in charge of our national secrets.

So anyway, Mrs. SV and I decide that this silly state of affairs must come to an end, and so last night we visited TADS (in case you’re wondering, their name rhymes with “Rears” — as in, what I was ready to start kicking by then) to ask the help of one of their Specially Trained On-Site Customer Service and Satisfaction Specialist Engineers. We found a nice fellow to whom we explained the situation, and who was nonplussed at our wacky, outlandish claim that TADS couldn’t give us a delivery date.

“I’ll take care of this,” says the fellow, who promptly gets on the phone — and just as promptly gets put on hold.

(Note to Customer Satisfaction Environment experts: the people who work at the store should be equipped with a hotline to Problem Solving Central, staffed by people who are eager to walk through fire to solve problems that would otherwise fatally undermine the company’s reputation among customers. I’m just sayin’ is all.)

Well, after he memorizes the floor and ceiling tiles and gets rooted to the spot with spiderwebs, he finally breaks through to someone and explains the situation — slowly, using small words. I could actually see the man’s soul flee his body about five minutes into the conversation. Yes, they ordered a replacement, I’m looking at it right here. No, they haven’t received it. Yes, they’d like a delivery date. A delivery date. A date. Of delivery. You can’t?

Ultimately, our dogged and intrepid advocate was able to wrangle a New Ticket or something like that. I just needed to speak (slowly, using small words) to the person on the other end of the phone. He hands me the phone and I swear to the gods she introduced herself as R_____ from Delivery Solutions.

Delivery Solutions. (*Smacks forehead*) See, that’s the problem. Apparently we had made the mistake of speaking with Delivery Fuck-Ups the last time around.

R______ from Delivery Solutions says, “so, you’d like to schedule a technician to come out to repair the refrigerator, is that correct?” No, R_____, like the nice man has been explaining to you for the last five minutes, I want a new refrigerator. This was a revelation to her.

So after confirming my address, phone number, blood type, and favorite color of puppies, we got an actual delivery date — tomorrow, Saturday. Time frame? Don’t push your luck, buddy. The delivery people will (all together now) Call The Night Before.

Once we were all done and I was trying to choke out some quasi-sincere-sounding thanks, R_____ from Delivery Solutions concluded with this cheerful salutation:

“Thank You for Being Part of the System.”

And that’s the precise moment when my last shred of faith in The American Way was torn from my cold, dead hands.

Categorised as: Life the Universe and Everything

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