I need to squeeze in another EF, but it might just morph into July. I have been SO stressed this whole week (more like 2 weeks!) - like waaaayyyy beyond the norm. I can just feel the cortisol building up around my middle! Need to fast, and calm things down.
Can I just vent for a bit here? So, two days before we went on vacation, our fridge/freezer dies. This is a 30 cubic foot LG Behemoth. We had a special area built into the kitchen to accomodate it. It holds A LOT of food, plus ice and water. Service man comes out, checks it. Could be the compressor, evaporator, condenser, motherboard…who the hell knows now?..probably all of them. He orders new parts, and in the meantime, I have to take every salvageable item out, and put the frozen stuff in our already stuffed freezers, and dump nearly everything from my workshop fridge so I can store the stuff from our house fridge. (Now, remember I run a business from there - so I am unable to do any business since my fridge has been taken over. ) We go on our vacation, with the assurance that the parts will arrive, and as soon as we get home, he can repair it. While on vacation, I get a text message from one of my major customers notifying me that her entire family will be up for the 4th of July weekend, and they will be placing at least a dozen orders (siblings, kids, aunts, uncles.etc…) Well, none of the repairs worked. Some of the parts came in damaged, so he reordered them. Installed, and still nothing works. I cancel on my customer. I also had a class to teach, which had to be cancelled, and now all 5 of our kids, their families, plus 2 sets of cousins are set to start arriving here Thursday evening - and I have only have the workshop fridge which has limited capacity. So, I called LG Thursday. Their customer - service is an oxymoron. The first guy tells me, as soon as your serviceman files a claim, they will issue and RA and I’ll have new fridge in 3 business days. Friday, our serviceman calls and tells us he filed it that morning, and he is awaiting the RA code. I called LG Friday after I got out of work, 530pm, to verify the RA had been issued - that “customer service rep” informed me "Oh no, there is no claim yet. That takes 5-7 business days, and a replacement will take 7-11 WEEKS to arrive. My reply to that? “Wrong answer. Connect me to a supervisor now.” She put me on hold, as she connected me to “Executive Services”. After being on hold for 47 minutes…Yes, FORTY SEVEN MINUTES, that lady informs me that nothing has been filed and no one can do anything until Monday. It was after 7pm when I got off the phone.
Now, it takes alot to rattle me. And I wasn’t really rattled in the sense that I was frantic and didn’t know what to do - I was just waaayyy more pissed that spent so much time on the phone -on hold with no results - so I did lose my shit on the phone with LG. Between two phone calls, I spent no less than 2 hours on the phone with them. Any company that size should not be so compartmentalized that they can’t see what has been entered into the computer from another department. A company of that size should also have assets deployed in a manner that they can assist with emergencies and have back up units available- like car dealer have loaner cars. They basically employ a polite but firm, “F-U” response. So, my service guy calls their sales rep and got her to file the RA. While he was doing that, I called LG again, first call was over 20 minutes long - and before I could speak to the executive services, they hung up on me. I called a second time. The first gal from tier one lectured me for over 20 minutes on what was supposed to happen, and what was not on her computer. I told her to just connect me to executive services, as this was my 4th call to LG. I was on hold for a freaking hour before someone that was at least knowledgeable got on the phone. NOTHING from the service dept had been relayed on the computer. I had to explain no less than 3 times, that I was the customer, not the serviceman - so there would be no repairs linked to my phone number. (That’s how they look at your repair history). I had to explain each and every part that was ordered, when it was ordered, by whom it was ordered, who delivered it and when, what was broken - I can’t make this stuff up - she had NOTHING in her records. I told her to talk to Scott - that was the service technician my guy deals with. (Name dropping is apparently an effective technique in these situations.) Not sure how she verified it, but, that got the ball rolling. I told was sorry their engineering dept put them in this awkward position when they created faulty linear compressors, and that is why they are currently dealing with their second class action lawsuit in 5 years. She started pushing an exchange scenario, and I told her I was more inclined to do a buy-back, then get a different brand - because I don’t want another lemon. This fridge, we paid at least 3K for (don’t recall how much really), is two and half years old. With these current repairs, we’re at 6 repairs in 2 years. This is a very expensive lemony lemon. So. Now I wait. My repair guy is working with a sales rep to get an emergency RA and replacement. IF that fails, all I have to tap a button, and I will send in my buyback option and get a refund. It will have depreciated about 13.4% if my calculations are correct. I can buy something decent for that amount. =) Its just getting a little close to the wire now. I am working Tuesday through Saturday, so, won’t have much time to prep at all for company. Trying to do that now. Just stressed.
Okay. Done venting. Thank you for allowing me to take up space here with my jabber. A long fast should do me some good. I am going out to dinner tonight w hubby to celebrate our 24th wedding anniversary…so I will start after that. Whew. It can only get better, right? =)