*sigh*

The bottom of the french doors on my patio rotted through. 8 inches of the bottom of the door just BROKE OFF in February when Laura tried to open one. Thus began a new Door Saga. You may or may not remember the hell I went through getting my front door installed. If you're feeling particularly masochistic, you can revisit my entries about that here, here, and here.

I went to Lowe's this time because they treated me well when I ordered new cabinet doors and such. There was a little frustration getting the order placed, but nothing to get angry about.... and here's the thread after that:

Wait a week for the installer to come out and measure the door.
Wait a week for Lowe's to actually order the door.
Told it would arrive next Thursday.
Wait for two Thursdays to pass to finally get the door.
The installer is swamped and has to push the install date back another 1 week.
Installer goes to Lowe's on the install date and finds the door is the wrong size and calls off the install.

... and this is where everything hits the fan. This was Friday, April 2nd.

Michelle from Installed Products calls me to tell me about the problem. She says she can get a new door ordered and it'll arrive next Thursday. I explain that I was told the first door would arrive "next Thursday" as well, but that it didn't and told her that unless she was sure it would arrive "next Thursday" that she should not tell me "next Thursday." She worked with me on getting a solution in place and she did her job adequately. I asked her for a discount off of the price because of all of the delays and she said that she didn't have the authority to give refunds, but that her boss, Hector, could do so and she would have him call me.

Me: "Ok, Michelle, I just want to let you know that I've been told many times over the years that 'my manager will call you today' but very rarely does that ever happen. I would like you to pass a message on to Hector for me. Please tell him that it is in his best interest to call me. If he doesn't call me today, I will be very upset. Every day that he continues to fail to call me will only make me angrier and angrier. Make sure that he really understands that if I have to call him that I will be really upset. Can you do that for me?"

Michelle: "Absolutely, I'll make sure he calls you today after approximately 2pm."

Hector didn't call on Friday.
Hector didn't call on Saturday.
Hector didn't call on Sunday.
Hector didn't call on Monday.
I called Hector late Monday.

Michelle answered the phone again...

Michelle: "Hello, this is Michelle, how can I help you?"

Me: "Hi Michelle, this is Kenny Wyland. Do you remember me?"

Michelle: "Yes, Mr. Wyland and I totally told Hector to call you on Friday. I even told him again this morning. I said, 'You really need to call him.'"

So, Michelle understands what's up. She knows that Hector has already fucked up and she's making sure I'm well aware that she did what she could and she knew that I was going to be pissed because Hector wasn't calling. I get Hector on the phone. There is mostly talking and some yelling. Hector tells me that he's going to call the vendor and make sure that the current order has the right dimensions and is going to arrive on Thursday.

Hector calls me back to explain "the vendor says that this door should actually fit and I talked to another installer and explained the sizes to him and he said that this door should totally fit. I'm not sure why your installer decided not to do the install." He begins trying to talk me into taking the door they received and that the installer will "make it work." What this smells like to me is that Hector discovered that they never actually reordered the door and so they won't have one for me by Thursday and so he's trying to cover his ass and make it sound like it's the installer's fault.

Here is where Hector starts lying.

Lie #1

I get out my notebook...

Me: Ok, you say that this door is actually a perfectly reasonable size? Run me through the numbers. What size did the installer ask for?

Hector: 61" x 81"

Me: What size did you order?

Hector: The computer automatically changes the sizes when it gets ordered. We ordered: 62.5" x 81.5"

Me: What is the size of the door that actually arrived?

Hector: 61 3/4" x 81.5"

Then I started talking to him about something related... and then asked him again.

Me: Ok, what was the size that the installer asked for?

Hector: 61.5" x 81.5"

Me: and what size did you order?

Hector: 62" x 81"

Me: and what is the size of the door that actually arrived?

Hector: 61 7/8" x 81"

For those of you paying attention:

61" x 81" is not equal to 61.5" x 81.5"
62.5" x 81.5" is not equal to 62" x 81"
61 3/4" x 81.5" is not equal to 61 7/8" x 81"

I called him on his bullshit that all of his numbers didn't match up. He tried to give me some bullshit answer about how it's perfectly normal for the actual door to be smaller than the requested size because the installer needs to be able to get it in the spot and can shim it to tighten it up. I call him on his bullshit AGAIN because both sets of numbers show a door that is LARGER than requested in at least one dimension. I continued...

Me: "You tell me that you've spoken to another installer and explained to him what the sizes are and he says it'll work just fine, but YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE FUCKING SIZES ARE so you can't possible have had any sort of an educated discussion with some other installer which means the other installer can't possibly have given you a real answer. You just want to cover your ass and convince me that this door is going to work and you don't care what lies you have to tell to make it happen."

Lie #2

After more yelling and another call back, Hector says that he can get another installer to come out on Tuesday to double check the measurements and see if this door will fit. If so, then that installer can install it on Friday. He assures me that he's already talked to his "go-to" installer (Scott) and Scott told him that he had a few hours free on Tuesday between jobs so he might be able to swing by and double check the measurements. Hector will need to call me Tuesday morning to verify what time Scott will be able to arrive on Tuesday.

The proof for this lie comes later.

Lie #3

Hector calls me Tuesday morning and tells me that Scott won't be able to measure the door on Tuesday. The soonest he can do the measurement is on Thursday and then do the install on Friday. I tell Hector to have the installer call me so I can schedule the appointment on Thursday.

Integrity (the name of the installation company that Scott works for or maybe owns) calls me to schedule the installation for Friday. Not the measurement on Thursday... just the unseen installation. I calmly explain the situation to Katrina at Integrity (I think that was her name) and explain why the measurement is so important. She doesn't realize that another installer has done the measurement and schedules Scott to do a measurement on Thursday...

...... I call Hector back and ask him why the hell the installation company is scheduling the installation without scheduling the measurement. I accuse him of trying to just brush me off that he tried to placate me with a promise of a measurement beforehand to ensure the door would work but then baited and switched me to just install it without the measurement.

Me: "I allowed you to postpone the measurement AGAIN to Thursday and now you're just trying to skip it. I don't trust you and I don't believe your bullshit."

Hector: "Look, Kenny, I called Scott on Monday and he said that he might be able to do the measurement on Tuesday, but when I called him this morning to get the specific time he said that he had an emergency pop up and he wouldn't be able to do it, so I scheduled it for Thursday."

Me: "I want to speak to your manager."

Hector: "She's on the phone at the moment."

Me: "Yeah, amazingly whenever someone is in deep shit their manager is unavailable. Have her call me back or you will not believe how upset I will become."

So I called up Integrity to ask them about Scott's schedule...

Me: I have a question for you, because I'm trying to figure out what exactly has happened here and please understand I'm not upset with you at all. What is Scott scheduled for today?

Her: Scott is up in Sacramento working on other job.

Me: He's in Northern California?

Her: Yes, sir.

Me: Was that an emergency job? Did he get called away yesterday to handle this?

Her: I'm not sure, let me ask. *calls across to another woman in the office* Hey, the job that Scott is doing up in Sacramento, when was that scheduled?

Co-worker: Let me check.... It was put on the schedule last week. He's scheduled to be up in Sacramento Monday and Tuesday.

Her: It looks like that was scheduled last week.

Me: Wait, so he was in Sacramento yesterday and he's scheduled to be there today as well?

Her: Yep.

Me: Ok, thank you. Could you have Scott call me when he gets a chance?

...... Scott calls me about 10 minutes later. He explains that they're going to help me out, etc, etc. I ask him..

Me: I appreciate you helping out with this install and I understand this is last minute for you. I just have a question because I'm trying to figure out what exactly has happened here. When you talked to Hector yesterday on the phone, what did you tell him?

Scott: I told him that I had a job down in Orange County on Thursday and that I should be able swing by your place and do the measurement and then hopefully do the install on Friday.

Me: Ok, was that yesterday or this morning?

Scott: That was yesterday.

Me: Alright, I think you should know that Hector told me that when he spoke to you yesterday that you had time between jobs on Tuesday to come and do the measurement.

Scott: What? but I'm in Sacramento...

Me: Yeah, this isn't the first time I've caught him lying.

Scott: Ok, well, I don't know what's going on with Hector, but feel free to just deal with me and my people from here out and we'll get the door fixed for you. I have a meeting on Wednesday and it's POSSIBLE I could come by that night and do the measurement but I can't make any promises. It'll depend on how the meeting I have on Wednesday goes.

Hector fucking outright lied.

While I was on the phone with Scott, I got a call from Hector's manager (Desiree, not really his manager, just the Ops manager at Lowe's). I decided I was done with the phone. I gave them ample opportunity to resolve this over the phone and I even warned Hector that he could deal with me over the phone or he could deal with me face-to-face and assured him that I would be FAR less pleasant face-to-face.

I drove down and talked to Desiree. She kept trying to blow me off and explain away that Hector wasn't lying...

Desiree: I understand there was some confusion with the numbers and that he gave you the wrong numbers...

Me: No, there was no confusion with the numbers. He was trying to give me numbers off the top of his head and presenting them as truth when he didn't have them. He tried to tell me that he had spoken to another installer and given them the numbers, but he COUDLN'T HAVE because he DIDN'T KNOW what the numbers were.... and even if you completely disregard the numbers, even if you just throw that one out, he's LYING about talking to Scott. Scott is up in fucking Sacramento and has been for TWO DAYS. Scott never said he could come to my house on Tuesday. I talked to Scott directly and to Scott's office directly and at no time was Scott EVER under the impression that he could come to my house on Tuesday because HE'S NOT EVEN IN HIS HALF OF THE STATE.

Desiree: I think this was just a misunderstanding and that Hector was just trying to, as a customer service manager, trying to over-promise and under-deliver... wait, no the other way around. Trying to under-promise and over-deliver.

Me: No, no, no. This isn't a question of managing expectations. I've been in customer service and I understand how to manage expectations. This isn't what Hector did. Hector LIED. If he were managing expectations he would have told me on Monday that the soonest Scott could measure was on Thursday and then secretly try to urge Scott to do it on Wednesday night so that in the worst case scenario he was correct but in the best case scenario then yay! he's managed to get things done sooner and look at how helpful I'm being! But NO. What he said was that he spoke to Scott on Monday and that Scott said he could measure on Tuesday and it was a FUCKING LIE because Scott is in SACRAMENTO Monday and Tuesday. So don't try to pass this off and just some misunderstanding or some mistake. He has KNOWINGLY and WILLFULLY LIED TO ME and there is NOT A SINGLE QUICKER WAY to piss me off than to lie to me. Look, I'm not some crazy guy who's just yelling at everyone. Cloyd put in my order and he was knowledgeable and helpful, I didn't yell at him. I didn't yell at Michelle when she called me on Friday to tell me the bad news. I'm a repeat customer here, I bought kitchen cabinets from you last year and the guy that helped me, Wayne I think he name was, I didn't yell at him! There was even a vendor problem with THAT order and I didn't tell at him because he called me to tell me immediately about the problem, had a solution prepared and got it done and fixed. The only person I'm yelling at is Hector because he has LIED to me again and again.

Amusingly, about 5 minutes later, a Lowe's employee walks up next to us outside of my peripheral vision and stands there clearly trying to get our attention. I turn to see him.... and it's Wayne.

Wayne: Sorry to interrupt, but didn't I help you with your kitchen remodel?

Me: *shakes his hand* Yes, you did and you did a great job.

Then I turned back to Desiree and continued my ranting. I made sure that all of his was done in front of the checkstands where people could hear what was happening. Desiree has agreed to refund some of my money after the installation is complete and gave me Hector's REAL manager's contact info (He's the District Manager for multiple stores) so that I can file a complaint against Hector.

Mother fucker. Why are doors so god damned difficult?