More Drama With Home Depot Disservice

As each day progresses, I am impressed by the ability of management at Home Depot to intensify my dissatisfaction and sense of outraged annoyance with their service. Unfortunately this is not a favorable impression.

When we left off, HD had called me to say that they did not have an actual door to install, which presented a technical difficulty since I had paid for a door installation. I was told that a door had not yet even been built for this order. And as you might recall, since my wife was at that moment taking a vacation day and sitting on the porch of the house an hour and a half drive away in another city awaiting the installer, I asked the next logical question, "how long shall I tell my wife to wait?" "It won't be today" was the reply. So I called her and told her to come home.

Fast forward about 7 hours later, I received a call from a manager at HD who left the message that they now had a door to install (earlier it had not yet been built; I wonder if they bought it at Lowe's). By this time the since of liberation that came when they had compounded their error was wearing thin, and since I have used all my cell minutes plus some working on this problem, I resolved to return their call later. I wanted to give myself some time to cool off.

I received another call from the HD store manager today. Since I was at work and on a call with one of my own customers, I let it go to voice mail. Mr. Manager's message was an invitation to call him back on his direct line to discuss the tragic tale of the wayward door. In addition to his number, he said that I could return his call until 2:00 when he would leave for the day.

My lunch is from noon until 1:00 and since I had already wasted considerable time during my working hours with this (my supervisor has the patience of a saint) I decided to call him back in the last half of my lunch hour; around 12:40. I wanted to keep the conversation short, and I didn't want it to spoil my appetite.

When I called the manager's direct line, it rang about twenty times before a woman answered. I introduced myself and asked to speak to Mr. Manager.

"Oh, he's gone for the day".

It was just now 12:45. "He told me that he would be in until 2:00" I replied. I did not bother to point out that it was not yet 1:00; I presumed she understood this subtle yet crucial point.

"Uh, well I just spoke to him a half hour ago and he said he was leaving for the day".

Given the long sad history of this process, I was not surprised in the least. But wait, it gets better!

"May I leave a message?" I asked in my most polite, professional tone.

Wait for it...

She replied, "well, if you leave a message here with me, it will never get back to the managers". This was a refreshing breath of honesty, even as it was not particularly reassuring. "Let me transfer your call to the back".

Apparently when she said "back" she was referring to the "outback" because I spent the next ten minutes on hold. Did I mention that I had already used up all my cell minutes for this month? Their hold music was not even as entertaining as "The Girl From Ipanema"; it was a loop of advertisements about opportunities to purchase quality products from Home Depot ("just ask any of our associates for details"). When my lunch hour was over I abandoned the call and went back to work.

So now it is 2:20 and I just received another call from Mr. Manager. He left a voicemail. This time he gave me his cell number to call. Unfortunately, by now I have exhausted my cellphone battery along with all my minutes.