"You're Asking Me to Fix Something I Didn't Break"
That's what the manager of our local Home Depot just said to Cooper. I almost can't believe it.
I'm more than a little upset with the orange giant right now. Ever since our new kitchen project began (almost a month ago), dealing with HD has been frustrating. Up until today, though, its been manageable. Today, not so much.
It all started back at the end of March. One day, we decided to get new cabinets, so we made an appointment with a HD "kitchen consultant." Our initial appointment, when we picked our cabinets and countertop, took 2 1/2 hours - even though we walked in knowing exactly what we wanted...and our kitchen is about 5x5.
So we were there forever, not a huge deal. We ordered and paid and got a phone call a few days later from Kraftmaid, saying the cabinets would be delivered May 11th. Fine.
Then we got another phone call, three days later, from HD, saying our delivery date had been pushed up and we'd get our cabinets April 29th. Fantastic. Especially since that's a Friday and it happened to work out well for installation.
The next few weeks went by with little pain (except for the 1 hour long countertop ordering meeting - even though we'd already picked the countertop and had all the info in the HD computer...and that I had to call HD TWICE to get them to finally fax the countertop info to the fabricator. But these are little things). During my countertop meeting, the consultant confirmed our April 29th delivery.
By Monday, Cooper and I were both very excited to get the new cabinets. He helped some friends install new cabinets last weekend, as practice. It went well. Yesterday, I took everything out of our old cabinets and he tore them down (and I do mean "tore"...they weren't the sturdiest) and took off the countertop. We took the sink out, unhooked the dishwasher and took down the over the range microwave. Only the refrigerator and stove are currently usable.
And today I called Kraftmaid to find out what time the cabinets would be delivered tomorrow.
Unfortunately, no one at Kraftmaid knew what I was talking about. Our delivery is scheduled for May 11th. Just like it (apparently) always was. They were very nice, but can't do anything to help me, since our cabinets haven't even been MADE yet. (At this point, I checked our messages to make sure we'd actually gotten the second call and hadn't dreamed it. We had.)
A call to HD was little help. First I talked to the "expediter" who was nice and confirmed that yes, indeed, HD had called us with the 4/29 date. But, sorry, Kraftmaid doesn't have a record of it - she confirmed that, too. And no, there's nothing she can do to speed up delivery.
I went into my kitchen, looked at the contents of the cabinets strewn all over the house and the big hole where we used to have a sink and counters, and very nearly crumbled. Two more weeks of this?
When he got home, Cooper called the manager. Cooper has a work account with HD and has spent a fair amount of money there in the past month. So we thought he might have some clout, as a "bigger" customer. Apparently, though, HD doesn't care much about that.
Cooper was very nice on the phone. He made it clear that he wasn't looking for free cabinets, just maybe some kind of discount. Maybe cover the cost of our sink. That's not so much - about 3% of the total cost of our kitchen. At this point, honestly, I'd almost be happy with an apology. Apparently, even that's too much to ask.
Ken took Cooper's name and number, but we don't really expect to hear from him. His initial response was, "You're asking me to fix something I didn't break." Well, no, Ken, you didn't personally ruin our cabinets, but there certainly was a mixup somewhere either in your store or between you and your vendor. As the manager, shouldn't you take the responsibility?As it stands right now, it looks like we'll be the ones paying for that mistake, even though we really are the innocent party in this.
Right now, Cooper is building a frame that will hold up our countertop for the next two weeks and is reinstalling our old sink. And I'm fuming, much like I have been all day. Lowe's is looking friendlier and friendlier by the minute. Not even to mention Stebbins Anderson and Ayd, our local hardware stores. They might be a little pricier...but a few cents feels awfully worth it right now.
Ugh. I'm still furious. Apparently complaining didn't help.
UPDATE: I forgot to add that during our initial meeting, we were told we'd get a $250 credit as a bonus because we ordered a Silestone countertop, only to discover, when I actually ordered the countertop, that the consultant was mistaken. No credit for us.
I'm more than a little upset with the orange giant right now. Ever since our new kitchen project began (almost a month ago), dealing with HD has been frustrating. Up until today, though, its been manageable. Today, not so much.
It all started back at the end of March. One day, we decided to get new cabinets, so we made an appointment with a HD "kitchen consultant." Our initial appointment, when we picked our cabinets and countertop, took 2 1/2 hours - even though we walked in knowing exactly what we wanted...and our kitchen is about 5x5.
So we were there forever, not a huge deal. We ordered and paid and got a phone call a few days later from Kraftmaid, saying the cabinets would be delivered May 11th. Fine.
Then we got another phone call, three days later, from HD, saying our delivery date had been pushed up and we'd get our cabinets April 29th. Fantastic. Especially since that's a Friday and it happened to work out well for installation.
The next few weeks went by with little pain (except for the 1 hour long countertop ordering meeting - even though we'd already picked the countertop and had all the info in the HD computer...and that I had to call HD TWICE to get them to finally fax the countertop info to the fabricator. But these are little things). During my countertop meeting, the consultant confirmed our April 29th delivery.
By Monday, Cooper and I were both very excited to get the new cabinets. He helped some friends install new cabinets last weekend, as practice. It went well. Yesterday, I took everything out of our old cabinets and he tore them down (and I do mean "tore"...they weren't the sturdiest) and took off the countertop. We took the sink out, unhooked the dishwasher and took down the over the range microwave. Only the refrigerator and stove are currently usable.
And today I called Kraftmaid to find out what time the cabinets would be delivered tomorrow.
Unfortunately, no one at Kraftmaid knew what I was talking about. Our delivery is scheduled for May 11th. Just like it (apparently) always was. They were very nice, but can't do anything to help me, since our cabinets haven't even been MADE yet. (At this point, I checked our messages to make sure we'd actually gotten the second call and hadn't dreamed it. We had.)
A call to HD was little help. First I talked to the "expediter" who was nice and confirmed that yes, indeed, HD had called us with the 4/29 date. But, sorry, Kraftmaid doesn't have a record of it - she confirmed that, too. And no, there's nothing she can do to speed up delivery.
I went into my kitchen, looked at the contents of the cabinets strewn all over the house and the big hole where we used to have a sink and counters, and very nearly crumbled. Two more weeks of this?
When he got home, Cooper called the manager. Cooper has a work account with HD and has spent a fair amount of money there in the past month. So we thought he might have some clout, as a "bigger" customer. Apparently, though, HD doesn't care much about that.
Cooper was very nice on the phone. He made it clear that he wasn't looking for free cabinets, just maybe some kind of discount. Maybe cover the cost of our sink. That's not so much - about 3% of the total cost of our kitchen. At this point, honestly, I'd almost be happy with an apology. Apparently, even that's too much to ask.
Ken took Cooper's name and number, but we don't really expect to hear from him. His initial response was, "You're asking me to fix something I didn't break." Well, no, Ken, you didn't personally ruin our cabinets, but there certainly was a mixup somewhere either in your store or between you and your vendor. As the manager, shouldn't you take the responsibility?As it stands right now, it looks like we'll be the ones paying for that mistake, even though we really are the innocent party in this.
Right now, Cooper is building a frame that will hold up our countertop for the next two weeks and is reinstalling our old sink. And I'm fuming, much like I have been all day. Lowe's is looking friendlier and friendlier by the minute. Not even to mention Stebbins Anderson and Ayd, our local hardware stores. They might be a little pricier...but a few cents feels awfully worth it right now.
Ugh. I'm still furious. Apparently complaining didn't help.
UPDATE: I forgot to add that during our initial meeting, we were told we'd get a $250 credit as a bonus because we ordered a Silestone countertop, only to discover, when I actually ordered the countertop, that the consultant was mistaken. No credit for us.
posted by Kit Pollard at
5:00 PM
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