Jan 06 2009
apparently the beyond doesn’t include reading or customer service skills
so i got ben a smoker for christmas, one of the little bullet-looking ones. to go with it, i ordered two probe thermometer/timers - one for the meat, one for the ambient - so that he could know the temp without opening the door and letting all the smoke out. i used dan as my personal smoker guru and he told me to buy these pyrex ones, and since he's gone through a million different varieties of timer and currently owns 4 of these, i figured he might be right. i found them cheapest online at bed, bath & beyond and in hopes of avoiding shipping costs went to the store. no luck, of course, so order them i did. ups brought the box on the 16th (maybe - the week before christmas anyway), i opened it to find two oneida thermometer/timers staring at me. UG. i called customer service and the lady said that they couldn't ship the right item until they had those back, so it would be speedier for me to return them to the store. alright. so that thursday (before we're leaving on friday, my first day with nothing to do all semester) i get to go out amongst the shoppers. i was in the store for probably an hour, and honestly, i'm not even sure why. you would think no one had ever returned anything ever, let alone someone who'd ordered online (what? the interwebs? huh?) and needed a new item shipped. anyway, eventually it got sorted and the order was placed for the correct timers (again).
skip to our eventual return from holiday festivities and new car innards and we once again have a bed, bath, and beyond box. ben is all excited cuz now he can smoke something (i had to wrap up pictures of the freaking things for him. lame.). except that we open the box and -you guessed it!- oneida thermometers. my head almost exploded. but it was new year's eve, so calling was futile, so i waited until friday. this oh so charming woman didn't seem to think it was at all strange that this had occurred. she said she emailed the warehouse to make sure they check the box and make sure they're pyrex. shouldn't they do that in the first place as, you know, a basic part of their jobs??? then she wanted to make it very clear to me that i needed to get the crappy thermometers back to them, otherwise i'd be charged. she did at least clear the shipment of the thermometers i ordered before they get the wrong ones back. wench. so anyway, they have mailed something to me again, so i guess we'll see. but i certainly don't plan to order anything online from them again. third time's a charm, right?