Happy birthday to me. Today marks 71 years on this planet, a mixed blessing.
I’ve exceeded life expectancy for most males on either side of my family. I’ve helped raise a family, done a lot in my work life, earned enough money to retire early, and generally enjoy good health — both me and my extended family.
There are, however, downsides to being aged. My brother reminded me of one negative earlier this afternoon when he called to wish me a happy birthday. I regaled him with my latest tale of questionable customer service.
Brother Clair pointed out, correctly, that we’ve been around long enough to remember when this sort of thing was unacceptable. Businesses bent over backwards to please customers. They were courteous to a fault and made things right when they failed.
It occurred to me, as my brother talked, that younger generations cannot recall such a time. Their life experience is so-so customer service and they are happy when it isn’t outright terrible.
Alas, I am not satisfied when businesses drop the ball. Today was just the latest example.
By way of background, my son, upon exchanging my Kia back to me after I’d gotten the oil changed and driven him home, where my wife’s car that he’d borrowed was trapped in a garage with an electric opener and no electricity, noted a screw plunged into the tread of the Kia’s driver front tire.
This revelation came just before 6 p.m. Friday, the day after the huge storm and on the cusp of a Labor Day holiday weekend.
Our family timing was impeccable, as usual.
I rushed to the Westwood Monro Tire and was greeted by a disturbing scene of an employee chatting with someone in the lone car in the parking lot. I got out and he joked about me perhaps having called their customer service and been told to come right over, no waiting. It’s an inside joke based on more poor customer service history.
This time, he could not help me for many reasons, most of all the facility having no power and, besides, they don’t put plugs in tires, preferring to sell you a new one.
The tire still was holding air, so I drove home and planted the vehicle to await opening of businesses Tuesday.
My lengthy to-do list for today (I can’t afford to take a day off from demands, even if it is my birthday) began with calling about tires. I had done preliminary online research over the weekend and was going to default to the long-time local business less than a mile from my house.
I called at 9:40 a.m. and got a message that all were busy, but to leave my name and number and they’d get back to me. I am writing this sentence at 3:09 p.m. and still no call back.
It was time to move to Plan B, so I scoured other web sites and got distressing price news, all high. Then I called Walmart because they had listed online a Goodyear tire in my car’s size (235 65 17), at a lower than low price.
I got no answer on the Walmart auto area direct number, but a woman finally broke in to ask what department I wanted. She said something encouraging like “I will try to see if someone will pick up.”
The phone rang, and rang, and rang some more. I was on the call for nearly three minutes, determined to wait them out, when the call was aborted.
So, I pulled the cover off the orange Mustang GT and drove up to Walmart, passing the other tire place along the way and, yes, they were open, just apparently not returning calls to long-time customers.
The in-person experience at Walmart was much better. I was waited on as I walked into the place, they had the tires in stock and an appointment was made for noon Wednesday to install them on my Kia.
Supposedly the whole thing will take an hour or so and the wife will accompany me to do some shopping while we wait.
Hopefully things will go swimmingly Wednesday. But I am not counting on that happening. I wasn’t born yesterday, you know.
Sam Ross Jr's site 