Saturday, September 13, 2008

Generator

We went to Jena today to buy a generator. Milady has ordered one from Sears, last week, with the ironclad promise that it would be on the truck on Friday afternoon. She sat and waited two hours and was told that her generator wasn't on the truck. It wasn't. I understand that she gave everyone hell, then came home and wrote a scathing email.

Sears ain't what it used to be. Sears was an icon of my youth, a place we trusted. Over the years, I've bought a lot of stuff from Sears. Tools and appliances mainly, but a goodly amount of other stuff. My lawnmower came from Sears. However, the last couple of transactions didn't exactly give me a warm fuzzy feeling. This last transaction, where they failed to deliver a product that was ordered in good faith, is inexcusable.

Simply inexcusable. If a seller is able to take an order, he should know that the product ordered is in his supply chain. If it's not, he shouldn't take the otder. For example: Customer A goes to store B and widget. Store B routinely sells widgets and knows that he can have widgets in on Friday. Customer A comes to the store on Friday and picks up his widget. Everyone is happy.

Another example. Customer A goes to store B and orders and Atlas Rocket. Store B has never sold an Atlas rocket and knows that there are none in the supply chain. Customer A goes away with his order unfilled, but understands.

Lastly, Customer A goes into store B and orders a generator. Store B sells a lot of generators, accepts the order, and tells Customer A that her generator will be in on Friday. Store B, from ignorance, incompetence, indifference, or a combination of the three, fail to supply the ordered generator. Customer A gives everyone in the store a good cussing, then fires off an indignant email to corporate headquarters. Her husband blogs about how badly Sears sucks.

So, today we went somewhere else and bought a generator. It's running in the backyard now, not because it's needed, but because the literature says to run it for two hours then change the oil.

3 comments:

Melissa said...

A friend of ours is waiting for a Sears repairman to come fix her ice machine, under warranty from Sears. They keep telling her "We will be there tomorrow." She has been waiting since early July.

Anonymous said...

S-S-S

Sears Simply Sucks. I quit dealing with the liars several years ago. My blood pressure dropped immediately.

Gerry N.

Anonymous said...

I'll add to the Sears Simply Sucks. I have an older Sears Brand "Gen-Air" electric range. Occasionally, the element under the grill goes out, and needs to be replaced. No problem, look up the part number in the manual, call Sears repair, pickup the part, and replace it.

This time, when I called, I was told, my range is "out of date" (it's food?) and I could no longer get an element, which I'll note, looks generic (I've been trying to find a generic replacment via the Internet). When I asked what I could do, I was told, "I can buy a new range, Heh, Heh, Heh."

So now my appliance outage is a joke? I'm looking for a new range, and it won't be Sears.

Steve