When You Say, ‘All I have to do is…’ God Laughs
Riddle me this: When is a magnet not a magnet?
When it’s a medicine cabinet.
I’m having some work done (in my house, not my face).
A friend of mine, Thom, who is retired from construction, was called in to do the work.
He remodeled the kitchen, updated three bathrooms, and completed a dozen or so household repairs that I have no knowledge of how to perform.
Also hired a company to replace the kitchen, bathroom, and living room windows, along with the sliding glass door that opens out to my back deck.
That was a lot of change in my house (and for me). The hard part was behind me (or so I thought), but Thom wasn’t quite done.
“Now that the bathrooms have been updated,” he casually said, “you should change the medicine cabinets in the upstairs bathrooms.”
Then he added, “All I have to do is swap out the old ones for the new.”
All I have to do is...
Oh Thom, sweet naive Thom, if you only knew what was to come.
I ordered two medicine cabinets from Lowe’s online; they were delivered the next morning.
I opened the boxes and brought the cabinets upstairs for Thom to install. He swapped out the old ones for new, just four screws each to put in place.
Then Thom called from upstairs:
“Al, check the boxes, one cabinet is missing the catch.”
(The catch is the magnet and metal plate that keeps the cabinet door closed)
There wasn’t a catch in either box.
“Call Lowe’s,” Thom yelled down to me, “tell them they’re missing the piece and they will send it to you.”
Oh, Thom.
The next day, I called Lowe’s about the missing part. I thought that call would be a sprint but it turned out to be a marathon.
Lowe’s customer service (which turns out to be an oxymoron) transferred me to Style Selection after an hour on hold.
Style Selection is the company that made the medicine cabinets.
I explained to their rep what I needed, was repeatedly put on and off hold, but the service rep seemed to feel it was an easy fix.
Turns out, we were both wrong.
Instead, he gave me a case number (was I adopting the medicine cabinets?).
I was to use the case number when, in five to seven days, I received an email to call back when the problem was resolved.
Needless to say, I never received an email, so I called back Lowe’s and started the dance all over again.
Except this time, customer service learned a few new steps.
At one point, after forty-five minutes on and off hold, the Style Selection service rep asked, “Are you there? Hello? Hello?”
I assured him I was still there, but he continued:
“Hello? Hello? Are you there?”
“I’m here! I’m here!” I said, and waved my arm like I was on a deserted island hailing a passing ship.
Just then, the line went dead.
Are you f’ing kidding me?
I called again, gave my case number again, but now this escalated to the absurd.
“This is what we can do,” the rep said. “We will send you a new cabinet. Just remove the installed cabinet, we’ll take the old one back, and you can reinstall the new one with the catch included.”
And if that wasn’t ridiculous enough...
...there was a seventy-nine dollar delivery charge!
I tried to reason with him, but it was useless. They must read off a script or something, and this problem required improvisation to solve.
I ended the call.
But here is the real kicker, something Lowe’s and Style Selection should have known.
Lowe’s sells those magnetic catches in their stores for just under five dollars.
So in reality...
all I have to do is...
