Another repair story

Several months ago, and no I don't know when despite writing about it, the gasket on my freezer (the new freezer that my husband picked out and bought while I was out of town) quit sealing, causing it to snow inside.  I was sure the unit was under warranty.  Husband Tom said not.  Each month it got worse inside my freezer.  Tom bought some sticky substance that he put around the bulging gasket that stopped a huge majority of the snow, but didn't stop the problem.  It finally got so bad that we couldn't remove the ice container, and the ice would just freeze into one big berg.  I stopped cleaning it up, and let hubby take over that job.  Eventually, it got so bad that you couldn't open the door without ice falling all over the floor.  That apparently motivated Tom who discovered the freezer was under warranty, and called and made a service appointment.

Last Friday, Travis the service man arrived.  My service time was between the hours of 8-12.  At 8:10 I take Darcy to school, and we had reported this information to the phone girl who assured us we would get a call before he arrived.  Travis did call, and he did arrive a little before noon.  He asked me what seemed to be the problem, which sort of annoyed me since we had told them the problem was a bad gasket, but I was too excited to have my snowing stopped that I just responded cheerfully.  

"It's not bad. I've seen worse" was his response when I told him it was snowing, and he jumped back when the ice poured out and on to the floor. 

"Who put this stuff on here," he asked me looking at Tom's repair job.  I told him my husband did it to cut down on the snowing.  Immediately, Travis began pulling it off and throwing it up on top of my refrigerator.  I thought it a little cheeky, but since he was repairing my freezer I let it go.  He then declared it a faulty gasket that was missing a magnet, got on his cell phone, called and discussed the issue with a mystery person, hung up, turned to his computer and said, "I can come back next Friday between 8-12, or if you want I can come the Monday after that at whatever time span you would like."

What?  I have never had a service man come to my house and not repair the problem. I said this out loud, and Travis just shrugged.  "I had to order the part."  I told him Friday and explained my time issue between 8-8:30.  Travis assured me it would be him returning, and that I wouldn't be his first stop because of where he lived.  "Either way, if you are my first stop you will receive a call the night before telling you that you are the first call of the day."  He typed some more on his computer and asked me to take an online survey that consisted of three questions.

1. On a scale of 1-5 how friendly was our service repair man?  I gave him a 5 because he was friendly.
2. On a scale of 1-5 how courtesy was our service repair man?  I gave him a 5 because he was courtesy.
3. Do you have a compliment, complaint, or other comment?  Please type in the space provided.  I typed in, "Would have liked to have had my refrigerator fixed today instead of a week from now, but oh, well."

While I was taking the survey on Travis' notebook computer he was wandering around my kitchen.  He was very interested in a container of wasbai peas that I had on my baker's rack.  We had a conversation about them.  I offered him some, but he declined, calling me "ma'am", which I ignored.  I finished the survey, commented on how it never asked if I thought Travis did a good job, he typed on it some more and printed out a receipt which he asked me to sign.  His labor for the day came to $214.00 and the order part was $187.46.  I owed nothing because of my warranty.  I signed, he thanked me, told me the part would be coming to the house, told me to take it out of the box and lay it out the day before so it would be ready to go, and left.  He was in my kitchen less than ten minutes.

Fast forward to Thursday night.  I had a message on my machine from the repair company telling me to call this 800 number because my appointment need to be rescheduled.  I was not a happy woman upon hearing this message, so I will admit I wasn't the nicest person to the Indian man on the other end of the 800 number.  He told me my appointment needed to be rescheduled because they were waiting on the part.  I told him that the part was sitting at my house.  He thought that great and told me they would see me tomorrow between the hours of 8-12.  I should have hung up then, but I asked him why the hell they sent the part to me, and then tried to reschedule because of a lack of parts.  He was nice.  He told me that I was suppose to have called when the part came in.  I argued that Travis had not mentioned that.  He kept talking, saying a bunch of nothing, and finally I just said, "Thanks" and hung up.

I laid out the part, a piece of gasket that was already laid out inside the gigantic box that arrived on my doorstep.  I wish I had taken photos of the freezer at this point because the photos above were taken with Tom's mock repair job.  After Travis removed that the freezer was five times worse in the snow department, and I had made everyone leave it alone so that Travis could see. On Friday morning at 7:45 when Darcy and I were just getting around to getting dressed for the day, the phone rang and an automated voice told me that I was the first caller of the day, and that a service repair guy would be coming at 8:00.  WTH?  Had I not had this discussion with Travis?  Had we not talked about how I would know this the night before so that I could arrange transportation for my daughter?  Luckily, we have another family two streets over that goes to the school, and Darcy arranged a pick-up.  I dressed and at 7:52 a new repair guy, not Travis, was ringing my doorbell.  7:52 is not 8:00 and I am a stickler for time so I was not a happy woman when I opened the door, and he asked the loaded question, "Hello ma'am, how are you today?"

I launched into an attack, telling him I wasn't very well at all because blah, blah, blah, and don't call me ma'am. He was very kind, offering to step outside while I drove Darcy to school, telling me he was sorry for the confusion on time, etc.  He deflated me as quickly as I had inflated, and we got along just fine.  He moved out of Darcy's way so she could pack her lunch, and she headed off to school.  I made coffee and watched him work.  He had to first defrost my freezer with an electric steamer.  I told him I was sorry and told him why it was so bad.  He asked me if Travis had been the first guy.  I said yes, he nodded his head, and muttered, "He's an idiot" or words to that fact.

It took him an hour to repair the gasket.  He was very good.  He had to use a steamer to clean out the ice container so that he could remove it, and he went ahead and steamed out the entire freezer.  He made sure to put a towel down so that it would catch the water and ice, and he was very good at cleaning up afterwards.  I took the same survey again and rated him high.  His bill for the hour of work?  Labor: $200  Parts: $187.46  I certainly hope that they don't charge the insurance company twice for that one same part, and frankly, I was thinking that Travis might have overcharged on his labor for ten minutes of nothing.

Later during the day, I noticed that the ice maker was now not producing nor making any producing noises.  I got out the instruction manual and read that it could take 24 hours for the ice to make after being newly installed or being shut off.  Since the repair guy had shut off the entirerefrigerator/freezer for an hour I was willing to give it an hour, but I wasn't too hopeful.  Turns out I was right.

Saturday morning, after a call from hubby, the third repair guy showed up at our house.  The motor to the ice maker was frozen solid.  Surprising!  This guy had the part on board his truck and he replaced our bad motor and was out the door in under thirty minutes.  His labor cost, on a weekend, was $179.  The part was $145.37. 

To fix our freezer issue it was a total of $925.83 (charging the gasket part only once).  $593 was for one hour and 50 minutes of labor.  Moral of the this story?  Make sure you purchase insurance on your electronic appliances.  Hubby earns big points for doing just that!