Smudger Snippets
Created | Updated Oct 18, 2007
I suppose it's because I have so much time on my hands these days that all these memories come flooding back to me.
Why Us?
It seems to me that every time we buy something, it never goes right for us. For example when people buy an item and pay for it to be delivered and installed, the company concerned turn up on time, install it, then go away. The item or whatever it was people bought, then goes on and does whatever it is supposed to do, and that is that, no problems.
No, not so for us I am afraid. Take for example the latest item we bought recently, a simple thing, a dishwasher, as our old one had packed up on us. We had a look at it in the shop, and noticed that the one we like comes in two colours, white and silver. The assistant came over to ask us if he could help us in any way. So we decided to buy it there and then, and asked when it could be delivered. Well, at this point, things did not go our way. It turned out that they didn't have a white one in stock, and they would have to order it. Now you would think that such a well-known high street firm like that would at least have one of each colour in stock.
I should have known better and walked away at that point, but no, feeling rather adventurous, we said OK, and the bloke went away to phone the warehouse. When he returned, he had good news, which alone was unusual for us. They could deliver and install it for us for an extra cost of just £18.50. So we said yes, and decided to pay the extra for the installation; my idea being that if they installed it and things went wrong, they couldn’t use the excuse that it was my installation which caused the actual problem. I know you might think that I am being pessimistic by saying that, but I am going by our past history of such matters. Then the salesman told us that they couldn't disconnect the old dishwasher for us, as their recycling policy only covers removing all the packaging and taking the old one away.
So we left and carried on with the rest of our browsing, in fact, on leaving the store I noticed that they had a really good deal on Satellite navigation units, so since we were feeling rather pleased with ourselves we went ahead and bought one, as it was at such a low price. When we got home a couple of hours later, I wanted to get right into reading all about the new sat-nav, so that I could get it up and running, but Mk 2 had other plans for me. She wanted me to start disconnecting our old dishwasher right away; there was no point in my trying to explain that it would be two days before the new one arrived; because if there is one thing I have learned during my lifetime, that is never to try and change a woman's mind once she has decided to do something. I even tried to say that it would mean that the old dishwasher would be sitting outside on our ramp (we have a ramp installed up to our door so that we can get her wheelchair into the house), but this had no effect on her decision.
Hence I started removing the shelf which I had made and fitted under our sink when I renovated the kitchen. It was just amazing how much stuff we had managed to squeeze onto that shelf, and of course this had to be left on the kitchen top until the shelf went back in. It was not long before I had disconnected the hoses and plug, and had the dishwasher on the trolley for moving heavy items that I had made after my back injury, and it was standing outside on the ramp.
On the day of delivery we met the driver (and hopefully installer) standing in our doorway with clipboard in hand, looking very efficient. This however was only in appearance, because when they opened up the door of the back of their van, they discovered that they had driven out the depot in Glasgow earlier that morning in the wrong truck! They did however have the right clipboard which gave the details of the dishwasher we had ordered, so with that information the driver paced up and down inside the rear of his truck, trying to explain the problem to the other driver who was in Perth at the time, that he in fact had their truck. At the end of their phone conversation the rather embarrassed driver drove away to meet the other truck at a point half way, to swap over and return to us within an hour. When they did return with the correct truck and started to unwrap the dishwasher, we thought that there would be no further problems, but then that pessimistic feeling came over me again.
I think it was when the bloke started to unscrew the water supply pipe to the washing machine, and not the dishwasher one, that my earlier feelings were coming true to form. Then when he left a knot in the electric supply cable and tried to run it over a hot water pipe beneath the sink, I stepped in and told him that I would rather install it myself. However, he was not too keen on that idea and removed the knot and ran the cable behind the hot pipe. I did keep a close eye on everything he did after that, and started to wonder if the £18.50 we had paid for delivery and installation had been such a good idea after all. I could not see everything he did, as there was not a lot of space in our small kitchen, so I just had to hope that he had not made any more mistakes like the ones I had seen earlier. Then he stood up, and said that it was done, while his mate, who had just stood there all through the procedure, staring into space out the kitchen window, started to put all the packaging into a bag I had given him earlier. The other bloke set the dishwasher to a cycle, and waited until it started before asking me to sign the delivery form, and then they both left, despite my request to stay and see if it completed the cycle.
I left to drive into town to do the shopping that Mk 2 had made out a list for. It was around an hour later when I returned, and went to make a cup of tea, that I noticed that the machine was still making the same noise as when I left. Only at that point did we check the dial setting, only to discover that it had not moved a bit since the fitter had set it over an hour earlier! So we got the instructions out and spent what seemed like days reading through every word of them and set it to a setting that took the least time. After about an hour we checked it only to find that it had not moved at all, exactly the same as before.
This was just a bit too much for us, especially after all the hassle we had already gone through. So I phoned up the number that was shown on the invoice, only to be greeted with a four choice menu, then yet another one! By this time, I was beginning to get really annoyed and eventually got through to a human voice. This however turned out to be yet another disappointment, as the person I was speaking to made no sense at all; in fact I had a better result when talking to the multi choice menu! The bottom line being, that we had to go back to the shop the next day and start the whole thing all over again! We did however manage to get a complaint number from the person we spoke to on the phone. Unfortunately, that was all we got, after spending twenty minutes on the phone using an 0845 number, which cost us a lot of money, as we have one of those £25 all-in deals for all calls with the prefix of 01 and 02 numbers. So the question why us sprang into my mind as a title for this snippet. The sat-nav, well, at least I managed to read through all the instructions while waiting for that dishwasher to complete its cycle, and got it calibrated and can now understand all its functions. I just wonder how long it will be before that breaks down on me?
