La-Z-Boy of NE Ohio-- I'm Mad At You!

Allow me to refresh your memory. I have a damaged couch in my house. It was delivered that way. Here. I'll even link you to see which one it is. Now that you have a full visual, press on and read my anger, please.

I sent an e-mail yesterday afternoon to my local La-Z-Boy showroom to let them know that I hadn't heard from the very service manager that was to call me not only yesterday, but December 23. Here is my e-mail:

From: Amy
Sent: Fri 1/2/2009 5:22 PM
To: C-, La-Z-Boy
Subject: Re: Sofa

Hi C-,

It is Friday, January 2, 2009 at 5:15 PM. I've heard nothing. As of Monday, January 5, I will have had this damaged couch in my home for 1 month. Please help me to get this flipped with a new couch of the same style and color. If you would like to pass this e-mail on to the owner, I would much appreciate it.

My - - - are livid. I am in disbelief myself. I kind of feel like the ball has been dropped. A big ball in the form of a damaged couch in the middle of my livingroom. I have been kind. I have been understanding. However, I do admit that my kindness and understanding are running a hair thin. (Yes, I realize that it isn't your fault.)

Please help me to resolve this situation in a more timely manner. I feel like my other avenue has been exhausted.

Thank you!

Amy

Their response back was this:

Hello Amy,

I was out yesterday and just received your email message. I faxed a copy of your sales order to our service department again and requested that they call you to schedule a service call. I don't believe that a flip will be happening and so at this point why don't we just let service repair your piece like new. You can reach me or our Store Manager.

Thanks.

C-

Can I tell you how much my blood pressure went up at that moment?

So I e-mailed the following:

This is not acceptable. I WILL NOT BE ACCEPTING A REPAIRED COUCH. Dye lots vary and I WILL NOT ACCEPT IT. My - - - paid almost a - - - - dollars for this. This is completely unacceptable and if this is not resolved immediately, I will be contacting the Better Business Bureau. Please direct me to the owner only.

Amy

Can you tell that I was, oh-- a bit irked to say the least? Then I called the store. I was doing deep breathing exercises. I talked to the sales person who admittedly knew that I would not be pleased. I ended up talking to the store manager after I threatened to come up there. He admits that he does not know why it has been such a problem to trade my couch out for an undamaged one, but that I have to go through the hoops to the right people. Apparently, I can't get in direct touch with the owner of the store until I exhaust EVERYONE AT LA-Z-BOY. Believe me, I'm working on it. I think that they'll have my face posted at the time clock, like I'm certain the fine people at Kay Jewelers do. (Oh, a different story for a different time.)

By the way, I've kept the maker, cost and all of that quiet up until now. Here is the e-mail that I sent off to them after I spoke to the store and left a very long message for the district manager.

C-and T-

I have just left a rather exhaustive message for J-on his voice mail giving him a brief of this past month happenings. I will follow this avenue, as per your request, hoping that we get the couch replaced with a new, undamaged twin as soon as possible.

Please understand our displeasure. Please understand our not accepting a second quality couch for a first quality price. Again, the damaged corner is not the only point that is a problem. We have a dye problem along the whole top of the couch that seems to be forgotten in the whole translation of damage. This was brought to the attention of the delivery people. The option given to my husband and me was that we take the couch, service comes out and takes care of the problem. Taking it back to the truck for an immediate replacement was not mentioned in the slightest. By our taking this couch into our home, we were not accepting it, just merely biding our time while we waited for our new exchange. So please, don't be confused by that. Your delivery people did not give us that option. Had they given us the "toss it on the truck for immediate replacement" option, we certainly would have taken it.

Please know that our only option of resolution is a couch replacement with the same style and color. Any offer of repair will be rejected by both us and my - - - , who were so gracious to purchase this for us as a gift. If this is something not in the power of any of you to handle, please feed me through the La-Z-Boy mill to the person who can make this happen. I hope that whoever this is passed along to, that they can actually contact me back. Oh, that has been a true delight in this whole process as well.

Again, if you purchased merchandise from a store that was flawed, you would simply take it and exchange it. Because this is something large and involving shipment, we shouldn't be forced to settle. We shouldn't be forced to settle because this has been in our home for a month and we have been trying to return it for replacement the entire time. I called the store as soon as the delivery men left. Please know that we have been nothing but kind and understanding during this whole process, but I admit now our kindness and understanding have about worn out. This process has been exhausting and incredibly time consuming at a time of year that should have been celebratory and family oriented.

I look forward to an immediate resolution with your company.

Thank you,

Amy

So to La-Z-Boy of Northeast Ohio--

Y'ALL SUCK!

P.S. No, Jesus isn't smiling that I just told them that they suck. Believe me, I could say worse. And, I'm proud that my husband actually thought to ask if I had let my blog people know!

A Hand Up

I'm bothered by something I found online last night. My mom wanted me to check out one of my father's previous employers. Seems as though he has earned himself a stay, federally housed, for 6 months. I decided to plunk the name of an old friend in. We haven't seen him in years. Actually the last we saw him, K- was 3 months old.

His name popped up. So did his picture. Dude is strung out. He was in ja*il for attempting to ste*al a rental car. He had battled drug add*iction in the past. By the looks of the federally taken portrait, it seems as though R- is back on coc*aine again. It's sad. Truly. He has such a talent for what he does. (He is a builder by trade.) I don't exactly know what went wrong. When we were friends with him, he was clean. He had stayed here a few different times. I had made it clear that we would only accept him on a short term and clean basis. He never took a thing from us.

We met R- 8 years ago when we were doing the roof on our home. I had a dreadful sinus infection and fever, my natural curl had gone to frizz from the intense humidity, it was 90 degrees out and Hubs and I were attempting to remove the gutters from the house. No one had arrived to help out yet, but we had prayed that morning together. We knew that the roof was much more of a job than what we had anticipated. Hubs and my dad had gone up the night before and almost fell through the roof. We were so overwhelmed that we had no idea what to do. Our church had been doing the Prayer of Jabez and we had been praying all along as well. We prayed that morning that the Lord would send someone to us. We needed help. I still remember where we were when we said that prayer. Then, as we were working on the gutters, R- walked down the driveway. I thought that he was trying to sell us something, and he said that he was a builder, was going somewhere with family but he would leave his van here of supplies for us to use whatever we needed. He didn't even know us, but left us the keys and walked away. My dad had arrived and they started working on the roof. I went to the store and when I came back, R- was on the roof with them. He opted to stay back and help. He continued to come to our home every day that week until the roof was done. He was there at 7 AM and accepted no payment. He did a beautiful job. He and Hubs worked together and they were forming a great friendship.

Again, I don't know what went wrong. He kind of fell off the face of the earth. (So to speak, anyhow.) When I called Hubs yesterday to tell him what I found, his response was "We can't save them all, Amy." I know and I can't think perhaps there was something else we could do for him. My brother is a standing example of that.

My brother. I love him dearly. He is a bundle load of story all and of his own right. My brother is nearly 2 years clean from a horrible addiction to her*oin, coc*aine and Oxy*contin. As much as we all wanted him to be clean (I never in a million years believed it was that bad), it took a fai*led atte*mpt on his o*wn life for him to realize that it wasn't the best road to travel. He said that when we woke up, he figured that the Lord had other plans for his life. My mother called me that day at work to say that she was dropping my brother off to my house to stay for a while. There was no choice in the matter. I didn't argue, but I did want to know why he was being dropped off. It was a fam*ily interv*ention. I was the link to making him clean. In our neighborhood, he would get nothing. There was no one that he knew. No one knew that he was here. He could dry out. (Or clean up, whatever the case be.) I left work immediately, sighting a family emergency as the reason. I came in with both guns blazing (figuratively speaking of course, since we don't believe in having firearms in the home.) I wanted to know if he had done anything illegal, and if it was safe to have him in my home. Yes. They had explained.

My brother was with us for a few days. He had gone to my sister's house for a few more. We kept close tabs on him. If I didn't hear from him each day, I would run him down. I knew his paths. I beat on windows, went to neighborhoods by myself that I would never have gone to. I looked in ditches. I busted doors in. I stalked my brother, but because he asked us to. He asked that my sister, my mom and me keep him accountable. He knew that he asked three of the noisiest women to keep his butt clean. I reminded him of that. He's never complained once. As a result, my brother has been able to successfully manage his Bipolar diagnosis through legal drugs, rather than self-medication. He has pulled himself around. He has begun to be a model for my niece and nephew to look up to, rather than away from.

Oh, grant you his life is not perfect. He still has a ways to go in adjustment to life. Right now, he needs a job. Their home is in foreclosure and they will need to move from their neighborhood (which isn't such a bad thing anyhow.) They know, though, that we are happy to give them a hand up. I found that giving, giving, giving was something I thought was okay, but it was only enabling. I had to pull back. Now we do give a hand up, but not a hand out.

My brother is afloat, though. He's pulled through. I can only pray the same for R-. I've seen miracles in life happen when drug addict*ion is beaten. It is a choice he has to make for himself. No one else can do that for him, but him.

Happy New Year!

New Things For a New Year

Hello 2009. You are almost here. In celebration of the new year, we have some resolutions that we are working on as a family. Let me list the things that we've all discussed. I plan on giving an accountability report throughout the year to let you know my progress. Hopefully, all things will be crossed off my list come the close of the new year.

1. I would like to lose 13 pounds. I admit that I'm up 4 pounds this month. Could it be all of the food that I have been consuming? Could it be mother nature at work? Certainly. I plan on not dieting, but rather adopting a different manner of eating.
2. We will eat better. During the last several months, my husband's choice of dinner and every other meal has been a Boca Burger and a bowl of rice. It has made it harder on me with K- and I began leaning on more convenience type foods. I will go back to shopping weekly so that I will be able to get our weekly lot of fresh vegetables and fruits. Not every meal will require meat, but we'll cover it with a protein of some sort. I will go back to my weekly dinner menu. That was an easier way to see. Hubs and I can look over and see what components of dinner that he can eat and he can compliment otherwise. We're not take out kind of people or even restaurant kind of people. Just good ole fashioned cooking and a crock pot please! We are also doing a sugar cleansing of the house. K- will choose healthier snacks if they are available to her. Not that we have tons of junk anyhow. She was doing great, then Halloween came. We haven't been able to pull her out of the sugars since then. Right now, she wants "'Whatever is the sugariest, Mommy." Um, yes baby. We'll break you of that.
3. We will keep a tidier house. We're not slobs. I do admit that I live a dump and run existence from M-W (when I work) and clean the house on Thursday. You see, we have all just planned on sticking together, keeping each other accountable so that we can work on the house together. I would love to not have to apologize for the "pile on the end of the table" everytime someone comes in.
4. I will unearth the studio and make work again. I ceased making my leaded glass photo frames a few years ago so that I could mother my daughter without liquoring her up with lead. She understands that the studio is not a place to be-- period. It is full of sheets upon sheets of glass. There are sharp things, hot things, chemical things, cleaner things and other things that aren't great for her. She now has the ability to work on things independently and that will allow me to be a true artist and get back into working again.
5. I will concentrate more on Mommy School with K-. She is doing well. We've been working on numbers and it just hasn't clicked yet. Like ABC's, she struggled but it just all came together in one fell swoop. I suspect that the same will happen with numbers. We're so close. K- likes to craft things and it helps her with gluing skills and cutting. She does well with her weekly book for school. They memorize it more, but she can still bring them out to me and "read" what it says. Even from the first week! The thought it that will turn to sight reading and I think that it is working!
6. I will be certain that we get that bedtime story in every night. We've been reading Amelia Bedelia. Hubs reads a Star Wars Clone Wars comic with her. We have shelves and shelves of books. Some nights I let time slip past and it gets late. I will stay on top of bedtime to be certain that our book gets in there.
7. I will begin devotional readings again. I admit that I typically do devotional readings in the winter, but am not as good in the summer. I've never been one to generally pick a book up and just read. I never found it entertaining. I do find the Women of Faith devotionals wonderful for me, though. Things are in bits and pieces. If I can't finish one whole chapter in a day, it's okay. I need to do that again.
8. That TV will be turned off even more. We aren't big TV watchers. Even still K- will ask, "Can I watch a short movie? Can I watch TV? Can I watch . . . ?" She will sit and watch the box if the box is on. If the box is off, she will find other things to do. She'll play in her play area in the basement for an hour or so straight just if there is music playing that she can sing along to. More music, less TV. Check.
9. We will do walking in the evenings again. We may need to cheat right now and use the treadmill. Hubs is great about exercise. We have a small trampoline in the house for K- and she'll bounce and bounce away. I'm the one bad about exercise. I've never been a fan. I've said before that I don't run unless I'm on fire and even then you aren't supposed to. I do find walking great exercise and entertaining, too. Hubs did hook up the "tiny TV" (AKA the portable DVD player) for us to use while on the treadmill. See, I have no excuse for exercise boring me to death.
10. It's not about me. Its not. It's something that all of us in our home struggle with. We're working on that in a collective manner. We're praying on that in a collective manner.

How about you? Any resolutions on your plate?

Edited to add: Join in the resolution carnival at 5 Minutes for Mom at http://www.5minutesformom.com/5289/new-years-2009-carnival/

Tales from the Trenches: I Still Have a Damaged Couch in My House

Remember this?That would be my damaged couch. The same one that we paid good money for. The same one that I've waited 12 years for. It was delivered on December 5. I let the delivery man know of the damage. We noted it on the paperwork. When he walked out of the door, I called the store. The store answered the phone using my name. They scheduled service to come out. Service comes out on December 19 and informs me that they will order up a new piece to replace. "Um, no." The tech said, "Ma'am, I'm just a tech." I've been nothing but kind and patient. However, I did not pay the money that I paid for this very beautiful couch to have it be a repaired couch. I paid the money that I paid to have a new couch. So, I called the store when the tech left. They told me to call the service manager, so I did that on the afternoon of December 19. On December 22, the service manager's assistant called me at work on the work phone to tell me that Shelly the service manager will be calling me on December 23. Okay. To date, I have not heard from Shelly. So, I call again yesterday morning and leave a message that I hadn't heard anything, we're coming up to having had this damaged couch in our home for almost a month and I certainly don't want them thinking that I'm good with keeping a damaged couch. Shelby, the sales manager assistant, calls and apologizes for Shelly not calling but now she is on vacation until Friday. She suggested that I call the store. "But Shelby, the store told me to call you." So I called the store and spoke to the gentleman who originally sold us the couch. Apparently, our sales person had been talking with the owner about our couch this weekend. He has now taken down my e-mail address and is e-mailing me their updates as they have them.

UGH!

Edited to add:

I just sent the following e-mail to the furniture company. I've not heard from them. If I haven't heard from them by Monday, I'll be contacting the owner myself.

Hi Craig,

It is Friday, January 2, 2009 at 5:15 PM. I've heard nothing. As of Monday, January 5, I will have had this damaged couch in my home for 1 month. Please help me to get this flipped with a new couch of the same style and color. If you would like to pass this e-mail on to the owner, I would much appreciate it.

My in-law's are livid. I am in disbelief myself. I kind of feel like the ball has been dropped. A big ball in the form of a damaged couch in the middle of my livingroom. I have been kind. I have been understanding. However, I do admit that my kindness and understanding are running a hair thin. (Yes, I realize that it isn't your fault.)

Please help me to resolve this situation in a more timely manner. I feel like my other avenue has been exhausted. (AKA the service manager has still failed to contact me, even though she was to contact me well over a week ago.)

Thank you!

Amy

I'll keep you posted on the updates. I'm sure that you are waiting to hear the outcome of my couch. (Insert sarcasm here.)

Guess where we went today!

We'll give you a hint:

Can you guess?

While yes, we went to A Christmas Story House! The house is in the Tremont area of Cleveland and since we live south, we decided to make the trip up.

See, I can be incredibly cheesy. How are you supposed to act while in front of the leg lamp?
Don't forget to drink your Ovaltine!

Seriously, we had a great time. We toured the house, climbed in the cabinet under the sink (yes, K- and I did at different times), K- played in the backyard with Hubs and we even went to the museum. The museum, located across the street (it's the white corner house on the movie just across the street from the actual house that the Parker's lived in), had some actual movie props. While there, we met the head elf (Patty Johnson-Lafontaine) and one of the guys who carried in the FRAGILE box. (You had to say FRA-Ge-Lay, didn't you?) The head elf was very cool. She explained to K- that while she wasn't nice in the movie that she is really nice in person. She had a pretty fun conversation with K- about Curious George, too. (K- brought her stuffed Curious George with her.) Jim, the delivery guy, was pushing this puppy like he was one of the main characters. We watched the movie when we got home and found out that good ole Jim had only been on the screen for 30 seconds or less and HAD NO SPEAKING PART. All we could do was to laugh. Boy, he was way pushing the 10.00 autograph and 10.00 Untold Story of A Christmas Story DVD. No, we didn't purchase either one.

But hey! You can visit, too! Allow me to give you the link so that you can have the low down of info for yourself. I think that you would have a grand time! We did!