If you’re here because of the Running in Place, Before the Treadmill Ever Arrived, by David Segal in the New York Times’s Haggler Column, welcome.
To read my treadmill posts in order, just start with the first one, Why I Do Not Have A Treadmill (Sears Can’t Deliver). There’s a link to the next one at the end of each post.
In the days since the treadmill was actually delivered, I got my new receipt for warranty purposes, and I’ve had calls from four different live human non-robotic folks in the Sears delivery/fulfillment/mess-containment hierarchy asking if everything is OK. The last was the most interesting: it was from “Donna” in Sears HQ, who is apparently in charge of straightening out the delivery mess that someone in Sears has figured out they have (she made it sound as if this job predated my experiences). Donna started out by asking me who I had dealt with in a way that suggested something messy would roll downhill; I said most of the people I had dealt with had actually been very nice, they just seemed trapped in an evil system. According to Donna there is a way to stop the robocalls, and she seemed peeved that no one had trained front-line staff in how to do that. And she offered me a $100 gift certificate; perhaps I will have to set foot in Sears to use it, we’ll see.
Donna and I had a long chat, during which I think I learned that the call center operations are going to be repatriated from the Philippines, something I’ve read many other firms are also doing. And Steps Will Be Taken about delivery problems. On the one hand, it seems good that Sears is working on its delivery/fulfillment problems. On the other hand, there was one aspect of the conversation that I found very odd. I asked Donna — purportedly the person in charge of sorting this stuff out — if she’d had a look at the I Hate Sears website. If I were in charge of fixing something, the first thing I’d want to know is what the symptoms were. Donna said she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do that because of the term “hate”. Donna, if you are reading this, you really should go over there and see what all the commentators are complaining about.
Meanwhile, however, here is the full list of my treadmill-related posts:
- Why I Do Not Have A Treadmill (Sears Can’t Deliver)
- Monday Treadmill Update
- Tuesday Sears Update: Important Information About Your Treadmill
- On the Treadmill Treadmill
- Yup
- Sears Can’t Deliver Email Either (Updated)
- In Case You Were Wondering
- Sears Treadmill Saga Notes
- Sears Feels the Power of the Press
- A Quick Dispatch from the Treadmill Front
- The Grand Finale (Probably)
- The Consumerist
- Final Sears Treadmill Delivery Disaster Post
PS. While you’re here, look around. I also write about a politics, law, technology, and other things.
In the NYT article, there’s a quote from an email that your wife wrote. It’s probably the most brilliant thing I’ve ever read about a situation that I face daily (as we all do) in my personal and professional life. I am going to keep it as a talisman, and internalize it, and act (and write letters) with it in mind. I don’t see it here – if I missed it, could you link to it, and if it’s not here, perhaps you could reproduce it here.
As I had told the Haggler, it’s from Blenderlaw, Caroline’s blog, and not an email. No idea why he got it wrong, but you can see the original text at accountability failures.
I quoted and sourced it in Sears Treadmill Saga Notes.
And yes, everyone (including me) agrees her one paragraph is better than all the reams I wrote.
“Blenderlaw”, by the way, is a bit of a family joke: after reading one comparative article of Caroline’s in which she seemed to be borrowing legal ideas from a whole host of jurisdictions, I said her approach to law was like taking ideas from all over and mixing them up in a blender. She thought it was funny, so I bought her the domain name as a gag gift…
I was considering buying a treadmill from Sears and having it delivered. I think I will scrap that now! Glad you took time to blog about your ordeal.
Sadly, this echoes my current experience with a Sears treadmill delivery. It was dropped loading it onto the truck and on my redelivery day I was called by the delivery truck and told “it’s heavy” and he does not want to deliver it. As an independent contractor… the delivery company is “sorry” but that’s that. In my case, there have been no robocallers (2 years later, they’ve learned something) but I also am unable to get Sears on the phone. Oh, and after the first treadmill was dropped my order was cancelled and re-placed. However…it will be up to 30 days before they refund the money for the 1st one (so, they’ve charged me TWICE but delivered none).