Screw you Sears and your sorry Blue Service Crew

A few days ago my washer went into a coma. The thingy that tells the machine the the lid is on so the tub will spin and drain kinda broke. So I went on-line and made an appointment with Sears to fix it after a few tries at fixing it myself. The appointment was for today between the hours of 1-5. Ah, the joys of home-ownership. As a homeowner I get to take off work, use my precious annual leave, and sit around the house, waiting for the ‘guy’, as opposed to being a renter who’d be arguing with management about a broken washer.
I had called at 8AM to confirm and to provide more info about my washer’s model and serial numbers. The operator tried to sell me on a service plan, no dice. Then I took off work, and stayed near the phone and the front door. Five PM came and went and at 5:05 I called wondering where was the technician. I was told he must have gotten held up and they’ll have someone call in 15-20 minutes to say when he should arrive. I let 30 minutes pass, no call from Sears, so I call again. I’m unhappy but calm. Okay maybe full of sarcasm, but still calm. First call goes to dead air. Second call I get Bombay (or wherever the call center is) and get a nice but accented fellow, who puts me on hold for 8-10 minutes to get a hold of ‘dispatch’. The connection with ‘dispatch’ was splotchy but I managed to figure out that a) no one was coming today b) no one can come in the next week and a half, maybe and c) they are really sorry, blah, blah, blah.
After I got off the phone I got angry, angry enough to try to fix the damned thing myself. The broken do-hicky is in a hard to reach area and the connecting short grounding wire was in a spot I couldn’t get pliers into. But after a few tugs I managed to pull the part out where I could see it, figure out what exactly broke and find a temporary fix with a rubber band. I plugged that puppy back in and it sprung alive and began to drain and spin.
I felt so empowered. I mean a real surge of feeling that nothing could stop me. It was a I could fight ninjas and crush things with my bare hands kind of feeling. Boo-YAH!

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on July 21, 2010 6:34 PM.