This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3,613 for Wednesday the 8th of June 2022.
Today's show is entitled, Man-Buy's Cheap at a Rondack Chair.
It is hosted by DNT and is about 8 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The submarine is an anecdote about buying a cheap long chair and trying to get a part replaced.
Hi, this is DNT with another episode of Hacker Public Radio that nobody asked for.
Here I want to just tell you about something that happened in the past week or so that
sort of gave me pause and I think maybe it's interesting to just tell you what happened.
I purchased from one of the hardware stores here in the US chair that's called an
adirondack chair.
It's a popular style of chair, it's got like a kind of lean back, a little bit, it's
pretty comfortable and according to the Wikipedia article on Adirondack chairs, it was popular
in an area of New York state called Adirondack Mountains, I think, where there were some
of those places where people would go to rehab from tuberculosis and one of the things they
liked about it was that the arms of this chair were such that it would kind of help you open
up your chest a little bit.
So I guess that means it's good for COVID times as well.
So I ordered this unfinished adirondack chair and it was damaged one piece of it was damaged.
So I used to work at this hardware store actually a couple of years ago and I remember
that when that happens one of the things that we would often do is if a customer could
just bring back the one part that was missing and we might open another box in the store
and just get the one part they need so that they're on that way.
And then we would just put a sticker on this box with the damaged part that we put back
in or maybe we didn't maybe we just threw the damaged part away and in the end because
this product came from what they call a private brand which just means a brand that's owned
by the hardware store that means the store would just get credited for the damaged product.
So the whole product would just end up in the dumpster and the store wouldn't lose any
money with it because essentially it was its own money at the end of the day.
So hoping to avoid that I to avoid the whole product ending up in the end of the bin.
I called them up well actually the box comes with a sheet of paper that asks you not
to go to the store and return the item if it's damaged to an instant call this number.
You call this number and they say oh yeah sure well the first thing they do is they kind
of suggest you instead take it to the store and I'm not sure why they do that but they
say that you know you will get the issue resolved much faster if you just take it to the
store and get a replace there if there is stock at the store but there is the option also
to contact the manufacturer and the manufacturer can send you just the part that was damaged.
So I thought well that sounds good I would be willing to wait a little longer if this whole
thing just generates less waste.
So I took they said 7 to 10 days before the manufacturer would send me the replacement
of the part and then okay no problem I went on about my life and I kept getting emails
something like every two days and email came from from the customer service person telling
me that oh you know they still haven't responded to my email to them then being the manufacturer
of the product so you know and kind of like nudging me to ask me if I want instead to just
go to the store and swap it out there and I just kept going like well I mean you know they
said 7 to 10 days and I was kind of wanting to say well you know do you want me to take
it to the store because if you do just say so and so anyway in the end yeah they sent me
another email after I think it had been one week since my first contact with them and
saying again oh they haven't responded I just want to check that you haven't returned it
at the store and yet the the whole time for me the question is like well do you think they might
never respond is this why you keep pursuing this even though I already said that I would wait
so then yeah I typed down I'm a response saying like well you know we already knew from the
beginning that it was going to be faster to take it to the store so nothing's new with that
and I basically meant to ask look like if it's easier for you if I just go to the store
sure just say so and then before I finished typing in I thought well you know one the damage is
really quite simple and I could probably just you know clamp the piece back together and just
drill a hole and put in a long dowel rod with some glue and it's probably going to be stronger
than ever would be otherwise and so so I decided oh you know I'm just gonna I'm gonna try to do
that see how it goes and if it goes well I'll just I'll just reply and say you know I forget it
I fixed the part just just let it go but then of course before that could happen I did get a response
from the manufacturer and then guess what the manufacturer is a company in Vietnam and they had put
the part in the mail with FedEx this one ridiculous piece of wood was being shipped from Vietnam
to the United States because the part that came in the box was split so am I crazy to think that this is
pretty insane and it's probably absolutely normal this probably how it is every time you
return something or need to get a replacement part I guess yeah I just think I don't know
something's very strange with all that really makes you think whether you should buy this kind of
thing like whether you whether anyone should buy an $80 at a wrong back chair from one of these
big hardware stores anyway I just thought I could share this story and you know maybe it's not
of interest to hackers but I wonder what hackers might think about it so thanks for listening
and tune in tomorrow for another episode of hacker public radio bye bye
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