Ok, settle in, here comes the rest of the mower story, as that consumed my entire day today (10 hours, at least).
To remind you of the theme of this experience (all about Mr. Murphy and His Law), I give you this recap:
Saturday:
Picked out mower, employee had difficulty signing me up for a store credit card and loyalty card - took about 45 minutes. Rang up mower, found the advertised terms (48 months no interest) had expired three weeks earlier, they just forgot to take down the sign.
Manager said 24 months no interest started on Sunday, so I planned to come back for that.
Sunday:
Only two people working, waited about 20-30 minutes for the manager to help me out, she finally rang up the mower, new terms popped up…12 months no interest. Tried to call their finance department, closed on Sunday, and also Monday federal holiday. Planned to go back Tuesday.
Tuesday:
She called to say the financing issue had been fixed, I went in for a third attempt at buying a mower. Called up my customer record on the computer…”Computer says no…” - I’m not there. Tries again, same answer.
“No problem, I’ll just add you again.” - Provided my full name, phone number, address, email address for the 43rd time…”Cannot add, computer says customer already exists. Display customer?” - clicked Yes - “Computer says no…” - another 45 minutes while she called their IT department to figure that out, but I was finally able to purchase the mower.
That brings us to today.
Left the house at 7AM to drive about 80 minutes to my brother’s, to borrow his truck and trailer. Here’s a pic of my Mower Delivery System:
View attachment 101578
That truck is 29 years old (my brother’s remark was, “Didja bring some cassettes to listen to?”).
Got in the truck, went to drive away…”Wait! The trailer lights ain’t working!”
He uses the trailer constantly, hasn’t had an issue with the lights, went over all the common stuff, no luck - “Jus’ don’ drive it in the dark!” - Away I went.
Surprisingly uneventful going back over to TSC for the mower. Pulled in there, and Jessie, the manager I’ve been working with, was actually out at the mowers in the front of the store and waved to me when she saw me.
I parked out of the way, walked over, and she said she’d just paged a guy to come out and load the mower for me: “I started it last night, just to be sure everything was ok.”
John unlocked all the cables holding it down, hopped on, turned the key…nothing. Turned the key again…nothing.
Ok, they’ve drained the battery, so they’ll either have to charge it or install a new one. Another delay.
Lifted the seat of the mower…no battery. Not only no battery, no cables. Checked the mower next to it, same thing. Someone had come in overnight, clipped the cables and stole all the batteries, nearly a dozen mowers - all but one; for whatever reason, one mower on the very end…untouched.
Options would be finding a mower at another location, or having my location order one in - a delay either way, and I didn’t want to have to take another day off work to repeat all this.
“Let me make some calls,” Jessie said, “We’ll figure something out, give me 15 minutes.”
She came back out in a bit and said, “Ok. Our next closest location is 30 miles away. They have one in stock. You can drive over there and get that one if you want.”
“I don’t want.”
“I didn’t think so. Ok, that mower out there that still has the battery, that one’s $200 more than the one you’re trying to buy, same cut, better mower. I can cut you a deal on that.”
“Ok, what’s the deal?”
“John, get that mower loaded.”
“Wait, what’s the deal?”
“Just trust me.”
We went back inside, she started ringing things up on the register, numbers flashed by, credits appeared and disappeared and appeared again, and finally she said, “There, that’s what I’m charging you.”
I looked at the register, and it was $200 less than the original mower, so considering the price of the one I was getting, a $400 difference.
“And I’m giving you a gift card when $50 on it.”
End of the day, I ended up getting a $2400 mower for $2000, which was $200 less than the cheaper mower, and another $50.
I’d still rather have my time back, but I do think she went out of her way to make sure I was happy, considering the circumstances.