Thanks Lowe's for Canceling My Order

The other day my daughter reminded me that I had created this blog site -- she was sure that what I was ranting about to her would be of interest to lots of people.  The topic of that rant has not yet been written up -- Amazon gives us everything today but is going to leave us with nothing...

BUT, today I would have had to recant.  Today, in my love-hate relationship with Amazon I'm feeling  the love.

I have a rental property and the tenants needed a new range and so I suggested they go and choose one and let me know what they wanted.  Last Saturday after weeks of study they let me know and I ordered a new 4.9 cu ft Whirlpool electric range in white from Lowe's  for $419 using their 1-800 number.  I was pleased at how easily the order was placed and gave a good review when I was automatically taken to a survey at the end of the call.

On Saturday evening I received a phone call from their automated delivery system saying the range would be delivered the next morning between 9 and 11am and was told I'd be kept up to date via text on any status changes.  I was quite impressed and let the renter know what to expect.  I was feeling very good about the state of retail in the USA and thought that maybe Amazon wouldn't put everyone out of business after all.

But, unfortunately, this is that was the end of being impressed...

When I had not heard anything by 2pm on Sunday I called the 1-800 number and was told that the person would check on what was happening with the order.  After sitting on hold for 20 minutes the person returned and told me they'd have the person at the store look into where the truck was with my range and call me right back.  Some time later in the day a man called me from the store saying he was so-and-so at Home Depot -- quick correction to at Lowes (what a bad mistake to make...).  He said that in fact the range was not actually available at their store and was going to be shipped from the distribution center to the store within 3 to 7 days and then they would send it to me.  His only explanation for why I'd been told to expect it on Sunday was that the system shows the item to be in stock in the store when it is actually at the distribution center and available to the store but that that doesn't actually make it available to them to deliver to me.  Well, this did not make me happy since my renters were expecting the stove that day so I told him I'd have to think about whether I wanted to leave the order in place.  In the end I decided it was the deal I wanted so I would just wait.

Then, the next Tuesday I received a call from Salem, N. H. store manager saying they didn't have the range and she was going to cancel the order.  I asked her why I was getting a call from Salem, N.H. when it was ordered from the Woburn, MA store.  She said she didn't know why it had been ordered form there but it had and they didn't have it so she was canceling the order and that was the end of it.

I was shocked at her lack of concern for loosing a sale but was so confused and did want the range so I called the manager at the Woburn store from which it was supposed to have been ordered.  I talked to Luke, a store manager at that store and he was apologetic and expressed concern for my inconvenience, which sounded more like the customer service one expects.  He agreed to look into the situation and call me back.  An hour or so later he called back and said that he didn't understand why but the range had indeed been ordered through the Salem, N.H. store and the best he could do would be to cancel that order and re-place the order through his store.  I asked how soon he could get it to me and was unhappy when he told me it would be 7-10 days.  I asked if there wasn't something he could do to make up for the inconvenience and he said no but if I wanted him to re-place the order he would be happy to.  I told him I had to think about it and hung up the phone.

I called Home Depot and was told they don't have any ranges for sale on the floor so there would not be anything they could get to me any sooner than a week.  He suggested maybe calling Best Buy -- what a surprise that was!  I took him up on his suggestion and called the largest Best Buy store around.  Again I was told that it would be over a week and to get the one I wanted they had to order it form Whirlpool and it would be delivered in 2-½ weeks.  I hung up in shock and dismay.  I sat and pondered what to do and finally called the renter and asked how quickly they needed the range.

I explained what had been going on and how frustrating the experience has been.  We talked a bit about how retail is basically all moved on line even if you are interacting directly with a store and how far downhill customer service has gone and I bemoaned the birth of Amazon as the cause of all of our woes.  At that point the renter suggested that maybe we should check Amazon.  I begrudgingly agreed to look so we logged on and quickly found that the closest thing to what we were trying to order was a 5.3 cu ft Whirlpool electric range in white for $469.  This one was higher rated than the original and has a self-cleaning oven, which the other did not, AND could be delivered in two days!  We selected the delivery time right on the website and clicked to pay using my Amazon credit card (5% discount) and viola, we were done.  Three clicks and five minutes on Amazon accomplished the task.

So, yes, thanks Lowe's for canceling my order.  I'm sorry you couldn't see that what you were doing was going to force me to Amazon, which in the end is probably going to put you out of business.  Sad as it makes me to say it, one begins to wonder why anyone would shop anywhere else.

Advertising Prescription Medicines Should be Banned

Why is it that Hannah Kroeger was arrested for dispensing medicine without a license at her health food store in Boulder, Colorado back in the mid 70s but now it is okay for every other advertisement on TV to be about some new amazing cure that you need to be sure to find a source for. Yes, there are some possible side effects, said in a blissful tone by a caring voice, but no worry, once you contact your doctor and ask for the medicine you'll find out if its the right medicine for you. So, the doctors' phones ring off the wall, their waiting rooms are full, people are self-diagnosing and finding it easy to convince their doctor they have the symptoms -- after all the doctor is busier than ever because the advertising has filled up the waiting room so now there really isn't any time to find out what the patient's real problem is.

What ever happened to waiting until a person actually felt ill and contacted a doctor before the diagnosis is made and the, very possibly dangerous, drug prescribed. Why must people who just want to sit and watch a show be subjected to suggestive messages that could apply to just about anyone just to help the drug industry pay for the drugs they develop. We all know that the cost of health care is through the roof and that many people's lives are increasingly unmanageable because of abuse of prescription medicines. Millions of unnecessary prescriptions of handed out, filled, and paid for by insurance companies and Medicare every day. Why is it that we as a society support pushing people ever deeper into this insidious cycle of problems.

Call for Bans on Advertising Known to be Addictive Products

Several (actually many) years ago I threw a nearly-new carton of cigarettes in the trash with a vow to my 2-year old son to join the ranks of non-smokers. I wrote a congratulations message on the refrigerator, joined the nearby health club, and looked forward to spending the money I'd once spent on cigarettes relaxing in the sauna, swimming, biking, and getting strong. I looked forward to regaining some of the strength of my youth, smelling better, and no longer feeling pangs of guilt as I exposed my baby to second hand smoke. I had always enjoyed smoking and been incensed that anyone would think it their right to tell me I couldn't smoke at my desk at work (yes, in those days it was normal for people to have an ashtray on their desk...). But, then I realized I tended to cough more than other people. There were increasing numbers of places where I couldn't go in comfort because smoking wasn't allowed, and my locker at the baby lesson pool stunk when I opened it after a lesson. I knew it was a dirty, smelly, dangerous habit. Eventually, after I caught a cold that wouldn't go away, reason got the better of my addicted mind and I threw that nearly-new carton in the trash. I felt good right away. I was glad that the hospital had a help line that I could call if I got the urge to get a cigarette. By the time I'd dialed the number the urge had usually passed and I was able to quit, one cigarette urge at a time.

The most challenging obstacle I met during my battle was advertising of Virginia Slims cigarettes on the back cover of magazines. Here I'd convinced myself to quit because I wanted to get healthy, to look better, to feel better, to be more active. But look! here is this gorgeous ballerina with her toe shoes, tied up to her calves with a beautiful silk ribbon sitting on the edge of the stage smoking a cigarette. Why could she manage to be healthy and glamorous and still smoke. Surely I could do that too! I remember catching myself with these thoughts and forcing myself to remember it was only advertising by an unethical industry trying to make a buck without concern for the destruction it caused along the way. I managed to fight off the urge by calling the help line.

I was ever so thankful that advertising of cigarettes had been banned from television and I was very glad for that because I knew that if a simple picture on the back of a magazine could have the level of impact on me then even the help line would probably not have been able to help me in my battle if I had encountered the so much more suggestive advertising media of television. Of course, now that I have been away from cigarette smoking for many years these adds have no pull on me at all, nor would television advertisements. I am no longer addicted to nicotine and can't be fooled into thinking there is anything good about smoking.

So, now to the reason for this posting...

Imagine being addicted to alcohol and wanting to sit down and watch the ballgame on TV. Every couple of minutes you are made very aware that all the cool kids and the people who are having fun at the ballgame are drinking the king of beers (or some other brand). During the holidays you need to make things cheery with this wine or that drink. All summer you need to cool down with a wine cooler or a beer. If you go to a fine restaurant your meal is obviously not complete unless you order such and such wine or if you want to eat fried clams at the clam shack you can't possibly enjoy them without a beer. Well, I've known plenty of non-drinkers and they seem to have fun at ballgames and to enjoy dinner too. They stay cool in the summer -- probably cooler! AA and other recovery programs are good at helping people learn to ignore advertising messages but it must take the strength of a giant to participate in society let alone watch a ballgame.

Consider someone who can no longer afford to go any to the ballgame because they have lost all their money gambling. They turn on the TV because that's all they can afford to do and are bombarded with scenes of a poker chip dancing its way around the casino and finally coming to rest in the cleavage of a very busty waitress. Or a couple entering the casino and leaving their old stodgy work clothes at the door. You have to give credit to the advertisers -- they are very good at their craft. And, if a person doesn't have a gambling problem then advertising is just helping remind them of their options. But, if a person is fighting addiction to gambling, laying around wondering about how to get back on their feet and enjoy life again, how much more likely are they to decide that just one more trip to the table couldn't do that much damage.

What is so difficult for me to understand is WHY did cigarette advertising get banned but not other known addictive substances and activities? These addictions cost this society untold numbers of dollars in medical bills and lost wages. They tear apart families and corrupt young minds. So, WHY are these advertisements still allowed on television? I'm interested to know what you think? If you have evidence to support what you think so much the better.

It Takes Too Much to Become an Independent Presidential Candidate

Let's say you decide you want to run for president in the United States. It's a job that is supposed to be open to anyone who wants to try. So, a reasonable first question to ask is what do you have to do and when do you have to do it. Well, you have to find out what fifty-one different set of requirements for getting on the ballot are! You could just identify the most important states but that would allow you to miss some votes -- possibly okay. If you decide that not hitting all states is okay you could apply strategies for choosing the states to ignore such as identifying the states with the least likelihood of making an impact and then you need to identify all the different criteria that could cause one to have more or less impact such as how the electoral college is selected, how likely the population is to go for an independent, how likely they are to go for an independent with you values and qualifications. So, yes, there are ways for minimizing the cost. But, no matter how much you work toward minimizing the impact of selective state balloting, the main stream candidates will have the advantage.

In this election year in which barely half of each of the republicans and democrats support the chosen candidate one would think that there is finally ample room for an independent such as Michael Bloomberg to enter the race with a true possibility of winning. The problem is that an independent doesn't have the party machine behind him/her to help understand and achieve ballot status in the individual states. It seems to me that given the lowered costs of communication and increased availability of national level media, and idependent candidate for president should be able to find in a central cite a set of criteria to meet for achieving balloting status and, upon meeting that criteria, be placed on the ballot of every state.

The criteria could very well be a combination of all criteria from the 50 states and Puerto Rico. The required date for declaring could be the earliest of all the states. My issue is not with the fact that there are a lot of criteria but rather that centralizing this information would allow independents to run on a more even footing with party candidates. If we don't do something along these lines the only other solution would be to create a third party called the "independent" party, that essentially did this job. But that would not achieve the same objective of leaving the race truly open to all who meet the qualifications and can muster enough support to get on the ballot.