Friday, September 4, 2009

Dishwasher Repair - Good Times

I'm not a faint-of-heart sort of gal, and I can weather a storm as well as the next guy (or gal, or critter..) but I'm ticked. Actually it's worse than that, but this is a family friendly blog.

Background... We bought a new dishwasher in June. Came with a 1 year parts and labor warrantly. Close to a month ago, this dishwasher quit working. Just quit working! As skilled in The Rain Dance as I am, I could not find the appropriate combination of buttons to push, ways to stand, fingers to hold behind my back and chants to spout to make this work. Wasn't happening. So I did what anyone would have done. I called "the company".

Promptly Mr Nice Dishwasher Repairman came out and deemed that the dishwasher didn't work.
Wait! What? Oh, ok, that must have been why I called you!
"We'll order the parts", he said. "I'll come back out next week and install them", he promised.
Ok then. So we schedule now 2 mornings off of work.

The morning of the "promised installation of parts that would make this contraption wash my dishes" arrived with no parts having been delivered. I called "the company". They told me that the parts were back-ordered and hadn't been shipped yet. Ok, now I'm really getting ticked. Not only did I schedule another morning off of work, but I wasn't notified that my presence would not be required at the home of the dishwasher because the parts hadn't been shipped yet!
"But, we are shipping them to you in 3 days and then the following Tuesday, we will send someone out to install them".
"No!" I said.
"What?" They questioned?
"No!" I said. "I've already scheduled 2 times off from work for this and now you want me to schedule another time off when you've already demonstrated that you will fail to call me if my presence isn't required".
"Well, I don't know what you want us to do then". They said.
"What I want you to do is tell me when you'll ship the parts, and tell me when they'll be here, and then schedule a time when you WILL be here so I know when to take off work and be here".
"Well, that's what we're trying to do".
"Next week is not acceptable", I stated, "This is a new dishwasher, and I want to be able to use it. Call another repair place that can be here this week".

So here it is, the end of this week and still no dishwasher that works. And for some reason this statement, or string of statements made it though my filters and came out of my mouth - out loud:

"This is why I bought a new dishwasher. So I wouldn't have to take off time from work, chase parts, make service appointments, schedule another day off from work, find out that you won't be able to make it requiring me to take yet another day off from work.... If I had wanted to do all of that I would have stayed with my old dishwasher. No, that's why I bought a new dishwasher so I wouldn't have to deal with all of this. This isn't right...." And that's where I lost it and totally came apart at the poor repair guy who really had no clue that this had all gone down.

And what did he do then?
He asked me, very nicely, if I felt qualified to do this repair myself. (he was very nice about it, not insulting or demeaning, he was truly trying to help). I said if he could do it, so could I (a cheap shot, I know, but I was still beyond ticked). He then talked me through how to do this 15 minute repair, and gave me his personal cell number so if I ran into problems (which he guaranteed was close to idiot-proof) I could call him and he would help me. And if he couldn't help me over the phone he would then come up and fix it.

So, it still isn't fixed, but it's a lot closer. Tonight when I get home I will attempt this 15 minute "idiot proof" repair.

Stay tuned. I have a feeling this is gonna get good!

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