You want to shame me with this?

[evilhomer]

I'm installing a boardroom table. I get things opened up and I see that there is a manufacturing defect, the table does not have the machine screw inserts for the centre set of legs. The dealer is on site with me, he doesn't totally understand what I'm telling him, but I reassure him, he knows me and that I know what I talk about. So we make a call to the manufacturer. I explain the situation to the manufacturer and he agrees with my assessment that it's a defect. I suggest using wood screws, but he says no, for structural support, it has to be machine screws into the inserts. Okay, then the table has to go back to your factory to get this done. He transfers it over to another department to handle that.

Okay, this sucks but shit happens, let's just get this authorization to get it returned and fixed. Okay, now I'm on the phone with the sales dept. The girl I am talking to doesn't know the first thing about anything. I have to explain what I am talking about, what purpose they serve, that they aren't there, that they are supposed to be there, and so on. Finally she figures it out, or at least figures out that the thingamajig that goes with the thingamadoodle needs to be thingamafigured. She decides that she's just going to send me some machine screw inserts and let me install them.

Me: Uh NO! I'm sorry, these are computer configured holes, the accuracy required is not something I can do by hand.
Rep: What is the problem?
Me: There are 24 holes that have to be drilled and 1/64th of an inch margin of error for their placement, if one is off by that much the whole table is ruined.
Rep: It shouldn't be that hard?
Me: Okay, tell me I'm wrong. How does your factory drill these holes? What is the margin of error?
Rep: Well you know, when we ask ABC Installs to do this, they never have a problem.

Sidenote: I have worked with ABC installs before. They are beyond horrible, guys who have that great combination of no knowledge, and no cares about even trying to figure it out, just slap it together and give it a taillight warranty. To give you a flavour, if you read my posts from many years back, Vince was one of their "better" installers.

Me: (not even trying to stifle my laughter) Seriously?!? ABC You mean the company where if you are lucky enough to get a guy who shows up with tools, he doesn't know which end of it he is supposed to hold?
Rep: They are a very good company, we never have a problem with them.
Me: Yeah, okay, I guess the hundreds of mistakes I've had to fix in their work was just an aberration. Regardless, you are dealing with a professional company today, I think the customer deserves a table that is professionally manufactured.

She sees that she is getting nowhere with me so she tries with the dealer again. I let him know that I'm willing to give it a try, but only if the manufacturer is willing to accept 100% responsibility for anything I do. That won't fly so we wind up sending it back to them.

I find it quite amusing that with as bad as my company is, there are still worse ones out there and this girl tried to shame me by saying that one such company is better. Yeah, whatever, I'm not screwing up a multi-thousand dollar table falling for that trick.

[Shyla]

Shaming you? Ha! They have to do a lot better than that.

[jedimaster91]

the thingamajig that goes with the thingamadoodle needs to be thingamafigured.

I am so stealing this!

[Dreamstalker]

Oh, you know I'm stealing that.

[earl colby pottinger]

Go ahead, make my day

I had to deal with people who tried to claim that other companies could do my job (computer repair) cheaper or faster than the company I worked for.

If I had not already started the work on their hardware my response was simple, "Really, I pack up your stuff and you can take it right over to them.".

A few people must have believed their own hype because they did take back their machine (I often would see them later if they took it to the really cheap shops), but most people realized if I have to order and wait for parts, whoever else they take their hardware to still has to order the same parts.

[notalwaysright]

Sometimes people would call the roofing company asking about some new product that we weren't super familiar with. They'd get all smug, how they read about it online or saw it recommended on some tv remodel/flip show. Aren't we embarrassed we're not keeping up with the industry, that customers know more than us? And we'd try to explain that these fad roofing trends almost never came to anything, in fact many get recalled or fail or are not suited for our very rainy climate. We were very experienced with quality products, so go find someone else to put on your recycled glass/smart roof/composed thatch roof.