Hurry Up to Wait...

There’s a time in everyone’s life when his or her back says, “It’s time for a new bed!” Well, this is my time. Full of excitement and anticipating my new bed’s arrival, I hurried up to “wait”. Furniture guys are similar to the cable guys. They all give you that window frame of time that’s so ‘tentative’ that it makes you sick.

“We’ll have our guys be there from 9-12 or 11-3pm.”
“Which one will it be?”
“Those are the time frames that we’re giving you.”
“Well which time frame should I expect them?”
“Between 9-12 or 11-3pm.”

Does this make sense? Why don’t they just say 9-3?

“Fine, so 9-3pm is my time frame.”
“Okay.”
The girl says, as if she didn’t give a rat’s ass about how long I would be waiting.

The next day, (yesterday), I got up early and started cleaning up. Don’t ask me why I have to make the place immaculate, just so two big burly men can zoom in there knocking everything down anyway. I wanted to make it easy for them so they could get the hell out of there fast. It’s not like they want to sit around chit-chatting over coffee. They have lives too.

11am rolls by—the end of their first tentative time frame. I called up customer service and make sure that they’ll be coming over at the second “tentative” time frame.

“Oh they’ll definitely be there before 3pm today, Debra.”
“Great. I just wanted to check in, so that they didn’t forget about me.”
“No, we have your bed on the truck and scheduled to be there before 3pm today.”

Keep in mind, I have already stopped the world for these guys. I got up, got ready, and figured after they left, I would go to the gym and work out. Afterwards, I would stop at the farm market to pick up a few things. I had the day planned with exercise and errands. It was a cooler day than our typical 100 degree weather, so I wanted to make the best of it. 3pm isn’t too bad if they did come that late.

2:30 rolls by… I called customer service to make sure that they still had me on their list. The girl assured me that they would be there, and sometimes, their stops are longer than anticipated due to putting things together or just other things that got in the way. Regardless---they would be sure to be at my house by 3pm give or take.

As you can all see where this is going, I called at 4pm to check on them again. Maybe they got lost? Maybe they’re coming at a later “tentative” time frame?

”I’m sorry Miss Pasquella, they’ve informed me that they are in upstate New York and too far to come down to drop off your bed.”
“But you guarantee delivery within three days!”
“I apologize for the inconvenience.”
“I took off work to be here so that the guys can come whenever they could get here!”
“I do apologize.”
“Okay, fine---just cancel my order. Forget about sending me the bed. Now, you lose $2,000 because your guys couldn’t pull through. I also want you to compensate for my day that I took off from work.”
“Don’t worry, Miss Pasquella, we’re definitely going to compensate you. Can I at least put this order on hold for you?”

At this point, the girl’s voice sounded just as disappointed as mine. She totally understood me. I felt her sympathy right over the phone. How can I get angry at someone who felt my pain?

“I know it’s not you. I’m just venting hot air over here because I stopped my entire day and got excited to see my new furniture come in.”
“I know. Let’s arrange for a different day.”
“I’ll have to call you back.”

Now that I can’t blow my cork on this sweet customer service girl, I had to call back another rep and rip them a new one. The next girl informed me that the delivery truck had broken down.

“Broke down? I thought that they were too far from the city! Now they’re broke down?”
“Yes, we do apologize.”

What could I do?

I wanted a manager this time. I get this cocky up yours attitude kind of guy who basically ripped me a new one.

“The realization of this all Miss Pasquella, is that your mattress had a big stain on it.”
“A stain? It’s brand new! And for $2,000, it better not have a stain on it!”
“No, it was from the delivery.”
“Well, I expect somebody to go back to the warehouse and get me a new one by tonight- I’ll be here throughout the evening.”
“Sorry, we’ll have to make it for another day.”
“If you have your guys come here tonight, I will tip them generously, as I was already planning to. I will make it a bigger tip for them- believe me, it’ll be worth their while.”
“Sorry. Don’t you realize how difficult it is to reschedule something for you that soon?”
“Oh! I’m so sorry I’m a huge inconvenience for you! Cancel my damn order then!”

~^CLICK~^~

Now I’m fuming. What do I do? Yep---I grabbed a beer. See, this type of stress is a whole different type of anxiety. I have absolutely no control over this other than to cancel my order that I wanted so badly. I eventually talked with him again, and he said he would take off $150.00 for the amount of $2,000.00 spent. I wonder if that’s worth it.

They’ll be here Saturday afternoon…”tentatively”.


BUYER BEWARE! Raymour & Flanigan is the company who lied to me three times about what had happened to my furniture. These people do not hold up their "guaranteed" 3 day delivery, nor was the manager polite or apologetic. He made it seem that I was the big inconvenience. Joseph Asala from Ramour & Flanigan did not keep their word, nor did they compensate me----in terms of satisfying their customer (me). If a company lies to you, would you shop there again? Advice? Don't shop there. Terrible customer service and broken promises.