All our representatives are currently serving customers. Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line and your call will be answered by the next available Sears representative. Musak. Musak.
Good morning Miss Awwwshel. (It's pronounced O-shell.) Sorry Miss Awshel.
I would like to check on the status of a light bulb for my oven. I was promised that a replacement would be mailed to me in November free of charge since the original burned out after being turned on once--in April. It is now January, no one has called me nor has the bulb arrived.
Let me check on that. Are you still at the same address and can you confirm your phone number and address again for me? Musak. Musak. It appears that order has been cancelled. But we can order one from the manufacturer and have it mailed to you in February. The cost will be $67.99 but we will give you a discount of 10 per cent since you have waited patiently this long. Now your credit card number please. And with shipping and handling, the total is $87.30.
You're kidding right? Why was the original order cancelled? The light worked exactly one time in a range that had been freshly installed in my new home. I also bought three other major appliances and have been a loyal customer for over 40 years. I don't think I should have to pay anything.
I am sorry for your frustration ma'am. No there is no one else you can talk to. Yes, I am in the Philippines, your call has been routed here. Is there anything else I can help you with at this time? No I can not stop the Musak. If you would like to give me your email address we would like to send you our daily specials. And have you considered applying for a Sears Mastercard?
*****
Like a jilted lover--an outstandingly faithful one, at that--the thought that I will not be ending my days in the embrace of my favourite retailer is gnawing away at me. My feelings are bruised and my head hurts from wondering how we came to this impasse. Especially when I was not allowed to present my side of the story. I was cast aside as casually as yesterday's paper.
The tale of the delinquent oven light has become something of a joke in my household. My husband and I carry it with us everywhere we go in its little plastic bag with a sticky note of
pertinent details. I have committed the range model and serial number to memory and know it was manufactured in Mexico. No retailer, appliance repair store or electronics expert has been able to produce a replacement. The ethernet is no help. The fabulous extended warranty purchased in my dreamy state of acquiring new appliances does not cover bulbs--even if they never lit up. The No Lemon Policy does not apply.
My calls to the Sears store where I purchased a kitchenful of stainless steel and the Enhanced Protection Plan were unhelpful, if consolatory. However it does not sell bulbs. No, it does not know who would sell one in our area. Would I mind waiting while they transferred me to Appliance Repair? Musak, Musak, Philippines.
And, it is a very odd little bulb. I have to assume it was designed by drug-addled trolls and marketed to the appliance industry with the subtlety of an Israeli terrorist. We have a hunch that if we ever get a replacement it too will expire in short order; nothing that tiny and delicate should be trusted in the hands of ordinary folk like us who turn our ovens on frequently, sometimes we even broil things. It does not look sturdy enough to endure a season of Christmas baking if we even have a bulb by next December.
The inanity of it all affected my usual polite telephone demeanour. Sadly, the frustration brought out a side of myself that I don't really like. By the time I had been re-routed back to the third Philippino woman, I had lost control and was raising my voice at her. That just made both of us feel bad so I acknowledged defeat and signed off.
I am not into retribution but I have considered skulking in the Sears appliance section until no one is looking and stealing a bulb from a floor model. But theft is theft after all even if it would be somewhat justified.
In the end, I had to give up in my quest to have a bulb mailed to me free of charge. Like the lover who has decided to move on, Sears is turning its back on my faithfulness. Apparently there is no value in my years of spurning the duelling calls of Wal-mart and Costco. It will be a clean break. Even though Sears has all my numbers (repeated many times during the final beseechment) it doesn't ever call. My hopes for rapprochement seem about as likely as my husband turning into an elf and undecorating the tree.
If it was a test of wills, Sears won. If it was about continuing a worthwhile relationship then they lost.
I keep having this old-fashioned yearning for some sensible problem-solving Sears employee to call me and just sort it all out with the click of a couple of keys. Her name would be Stella or Marjory and she would have worked for Sears for thirty years and know the system inside out. She would brook no nonsense, give both the company and I a stern head-shake and tell us to make up. Then she would send me an oven bulb.
Alas, that does not appear likely. I fear all the Stellas and Marjorys were made redundant by an eager, inexpensive Philippean workforce and are now serving up coffees and Timbits during their split shifts. So I will have to do what any battle-scarred refugee of the retail wars would do. I'll badmouth Sears to any and all who will listen. I'll write caustic testimonials on their websites. And then I'll put the Sears card through the garburator and move on. A little sadder over something that was and should have continued on. Oh Sears.
