Ruby Tuesday: What’s with all the noise?

Sometimes my dad can be really loud.  He has these machines and I don’t like them.  He was tearing up the floor with this one.  Something about a leak or something.  Whatever, I don’t know why anyone would cut a big hole in the floor.  That’s just asking rats and mice and stuff to come in the house.  Sometimes I wonder if people ever think things through.

See, that big ol’ machine, just cutting a huge hole in the floor. Then they were all impressed with the big thick wood.  La-de-da!  Yea, people!  That wood was there for a reason — to keep out the rats!  And mice.  And squirrels.  And all the other vermin!  Moles could come in now.  They never listen to me.

It wasn’t all noisy this weekend though.  Mom did get some stuff put away.  I think the kitchen might start having food in it again soon!  I hope so!  Toes crossed!

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Ruby Tuesday — The I Hate Home Depot Edition

Ruby wants you to know that she hates Home Depot too. (And yes, this is all just a clever way of complaining about Home Depot under the guise of a Ruby Tuesday post.) Ruby hates them more now because tonight they were supposed to call and let us know that our countertops were in and ready for pickup. But, there was no phone message tonight. So, I called the store around 6pm to find out whether or not I should order pizza or just go down and get the countertops and get fast food in the car. The kids were rampaging around whining about not having any food in the house and I was irritated to say the least. Well, the girl that answered the phone was quite helpful but ran out of options when no one in receiving would answer the blinking phone. So, she told me that she’d give my message to a guy who would call me back in 20 minutes. At 7pm – 40 minutes later, I loaded the kids up in the truck and we went into town for pizza — meeting Greg there.

The phone call came in at 7:44 pm. The message was hilarious — I’m sure he thought he was being clear but he said, and I quote, “If your countertops aren’t supposed to have backsplashes, then I think I’m looking at them so if you aren’t sure, call me back.”

Sigh. Heavy, heavy sigh.

As for me, I’m going to go back to grading 5th grade essays where the language is clearer and more definite than a well-paid Home Depot sales associate’s phone messages.

Maybe tomorrow night, I’ll be able to take a picture of Ruby next to our new countertops without backsplashes, thank you very much!

Despising the Despot

Kick me while I’m down, why don’t you?

I’m sure I’m not the only one who calls Home Depot “Home Despot,” but I must say that usually, I find Home Depot to be among my favorite places. It is a place filled with hope and excitement — all those tools and raw materials waiting to be crafted into projects. It’s thrilling.

But, for me, right now, Home Depot is nightmarish and frustrating. They have screwed us over so much on our counters that I’m beyond feeling unhappy about it. My kitchen remains torn to pieces because Home Depot can’t get their act together. I’ve written about it before [click] but it’s gotten worse so I’m ranting now.

So, to recap. We ordered our countertops. They screwed them up by making backsplashes on them even though we had expressly asked for them without backsplashes. We had to make many phone calls and visits to sort it out and then were told that they couldn’t get our color in for like 6 weeks. I had to go in and look at the samples to figure out that the same blinkin’ color was available in a slightly different finish. They said, “Oh, yea. Good idea.” And, then gave us a 3 week delivery time — no rushing them through even though THEY had screwed them up.

Meanwhile, we’re getting regular calls from the customer service desk to come and pick up the counter tops. The ones that we had refused because they were WRONG! So aggravating.

Greg called the guy at Home Depot who seemed to know what was going on last week and told him we really needed them and he said he couldn’t rush them through. Greg explained to him that we have no kitchen. We have finished the painting and are now waiting for the counter tops to do anything else. We can’t tile the backsplash until the counters are in place. We can’t do the metal tile backsplash behind the cooktop until the counters are in place. We can’t put in the butcher block counter until the counters are in place. We can’t put the sink back and re-hook up the plumbing until the counters are in place. We can’t put the cooktop back until the counters are in place. We can’t start on the hardwood floors because there is still so much construction to do. We are eating out for most meals. We are hemorrhaging money and totally wish we’d gone to a high end counter place now — we would have saved so much money at this point. The guy is like “Sorry about that. I can’t speed it up.”

So, the countertops are due in today (Monday). Friday, Home Depot took another jab at us.

We got a call saying our countertops were in. I told Greg, “you better call them and make sure they aren’t just talking about the same ones that have been sitting there at customer service for 5 weeks now.” He did. He called them about 8:30 on Friday night. The young woman who had called him assured him that these were not the old, wrong countertops. They were the new ones — the replacements. The manufacturer, she assured him, felt so badly about the delay that he rushed them and delivered them on Friday. Greg said, “Okay, I’ll come and get them tomorrow morning.” She offered the information that Home Depot was open until 10pm. He thought about it and said, “Okay, I’ll come and get them tonight.” It seemed reasonable — it was due to rain on Saturday so that seemed the best decision. Meanwhile, I moved stuff in our workspace to make room for the new countertops. Yay! We thought.

I wasn’t really surprised when he arrived home empty handed but I was very, very angry. The woman who called was wrong on two critical points and lied on at least two others. She was wrong about the countertops being the new ones — they were not. They were the old ones. That have been sitting there for 5 weeks and are now damaged from being run into by something. There is absolutely no way you could think they were ready for delivery — they are damaged really badly. Unusable. Furthermore, Home Depot was not open until 10pm that night. They closed at 9pm. Greg got there at 9:15. He talked someone into letting him into the store. Only to see the wrong, freakin’ countertops. Greg is a calm and patient man but I am glad I wasn’t there to see his anger then. So, the lies . . . well, she lied when she said she’d checked that they were the new countertops and not the old ones and she lied when she told the whole cock-and-bull story about the manufacturer feeling badly about doing the countertops wrong and taking so long.

I wonder how long it will be before I can walk into a Home Depot again and feel that same sense of anticipation that I used to feel? In it’s place, I feel a sick and hopeless rage.

So, the countertops are due to arrive today. Our confidence that they will arrive is nil. Our confidence that they’ll be what we ordered is nil. Our belief in Home Depot is similarly nil.

Oh Home Depot how you disappoint . . .

I know that I normally rave about IKEA and never mention any other vendors but the fact is that we are using several vendors for this project. Unfortunately, not all the experiences have been good ones.

We ordered our countertops from Home Depot several weeks ago. We went in, picked out what we wanted {click}, and placed our order. Greg is an architect and deals with this sort of thing all the time. We were prepared. We had drawings with accurate measurements. We were specific about what we needed. We liked the woman who took our order. All was good.

And, they called and said it would be a week longer than expected. No worries, we thought, that’s fine.

And, it was.

And, then they called and said our countertops were in. So, we drove to get them. We walked in and saw them at the customer service desk and Greg said, “Oh no. That can’t be our countertops.” But it was and they were totally wrong.

We ordered them without the integrated backsplash. The reasons why we did not want a backsplash are legion and, really, unimportant to this story. It took a lot of doing to get someone to come down from Kitchens to talk to Greg about the countertop problem. He seemed knowledgeable. He knew right away what was wrong and assured us it would get fixed.

And, several days later, someone called us to say could we come in and pick up our countertops. We were suspicious at that point. Greg called and sure enough . . . it was still the same old wrong countertops still sitting at Customer Service. He talked to someone who assured us that it would be taken care of. This time.

But we heard nothing.

Greg called them Monday and asked what was up. It took awhile but he finally spoke to someone who knew what was up. He’d take care of it and call us back. But, nothing. So, Tuesday night, we went down there again. Greg spoke with someone at Customer Service who gave him the name he needed to ask for — someone who would be at the store first thing in the morning.

Greg called him first thing and got bad news. They can’t get the countertops we want for 6 – 8 weeks. The company used the last piece screwing up our order. Wilsonart has told them they can’t get more for 6 weeks. And, so we are screwed. We had to drive down to Home Depot again to pick out new laminate for the countertops.

Let me just say that we live in the coastal mountains. Every trip to Home Depot involves getting the kids loaded up in the car with all their DSes and other essential goodies, driving 40 minutes each way, getting dinner out because we have to go in the evening. It’s a major deal to “pop in to the store to pick another laminate choice.”

I worked all day, then went to a late afternoon seminar, and then, finally, met my family at Home Depot where we picked out some options, and then had to wait and wait and wait to talk to someone for a few minutes before he had to have us wait again because he had an appointment. Greg finally took the kids back to the car and made a business call he’d had scheduled and I spoke to the Kitchen guy. Oh, did I mention the migraine I woke up with that morning. Sigh.

I as really nice to the Kitchen Guy. He was not the one that Greg had spoken to but we both had to be there to pick out the colors so it was the only option for us time-wise. We were supposed to leave a set of samples with our choices for the other Kitchen Guy so that he could follow up with the laminate makers and hopefully get us our counters in a timely manner. The new Kitchen Guy keeps trying to re-write the order. I finally used my “reasonable” teacher voice and said that we just wanted to leave the samples. He was okay with that.

Greg called this morning and we are getting our first choice in the laminate. Here’s the thing . . . they are saying it will take 3 weeks. All this waiting, all this screw up on their end and they can’t even rush the order.

And, then the capper, the thing that ticks me off royally is this. We ordered Terra Roca (4837-38). When I was waiting for Greg and the kids and picking out samples, I noticed that there were two Terra Rocas on the display (4837-38 and 4837-52). So, I grabbed both and showed them to Greg. We couldn’t remember which one we’d ordered — the difference in those last numbers indicates the finish used on the countertop. But, we figured if they could do the other finish that would work for us.

And, guess what? They could do that. When Greg called this morning, the guy told him it was no problem using the same color with the different finish. So, here’s what makes me so incredibly angry with Home Depot and the crew at the Santa Cruz store: why was I the one who noticed that option? Why didn’t the Kitchen Guy (either one of them) know enough about their product line to see that option and offer it to us?

I am so frustrated with Home Depot at this point. We have used them for YEARS. Our last home remodel couldn’t have been done without Home Depot. We are truly devoted customers and this just stinks. They keep telling us that they are sorry. Well, sorry doesn’t give me countertops, dudes. It just doesn’t. Sigh.

So, how surprised will I be when the countertops are not in in 3 weeks and when they come in 4 weeks, will they be right or wrong? We’ll be more than a month without a functional kitchen at that point. ARGH!