How many?

Recently, I was finally able to purchase a projector and screen for my media room. Since I've wanted one for about 7 years, this was a pretty momentous occasion at our house. First, we got the projector. It took about 2 weeks to come in. Next, we painted the room. That was a day or two. Finally, we ordered the screen once we knew exactly how large of an image we were going to project. That arrived a week or so ago.

In between getting the projector and the screen, though, the projector started acting weird. It wouldn't always come on reliably. Naturally, I took it back to Best Buy to exchange it for one that works. If you haven't ever read the fine print on the back of your Best Buy receipt, now would be a good time to learn this lesson. Apparently, you can only return projectors within the first 14 days, and I was just outside of that window.

I went round and round with the customer service girl, and she kept telling me that there was nothing they could do. Finally, I told her that she had better go find me someone that could make me happy. The manager came out, and agreed that they would try to repair the projector. If the projector could be fixed, all would be good. If not, then they would replace it. A reasonable arrangement.

That was three weeks ago today. At the end of the first week, I got an email from the Geek Squad telling me that the tech needed to speak with me. Apparently, he had been trying to reach me all week, but somehow they had the wrong phone number for me. Of course, I had given them my number when I left the projector, but the number they had on file was not even close. I have no idea how they got such a completely wrong number.

I called the guy, and he told me that he couldn't get the projector to mess up at all. Of course. He told me that he was pretty sure that the problem was the bulb, and that he would replace it to fix the projector. No problem. I asked how long that would take, and he told me that it would be a few days. Okay.

Another week went by. I stopped by the store to see where things stood with my projector. No update. Later that day, though, the website was updated to show that parts had been ordered. This was the second time that they had apparently ordered parts according to the parts of the ticket that I can view over the internet. I figured then that it would be another few days.

Here it is another entire week later. Still no projector. Still no update. I called Best Buy this morning to get a status update. The girl that answered said that parts have been ordered. I gently told her that I could see that for myself online. I told her that I wanted to know how many Geek Squad agents it takes to change a lightbulb. She chuckled a little, and said that sometimes it takes a while to get parts mailed.

Seriously? Is there anywhere in the US that you can't mail a package to in about 3 days? I told her that I needed someone that knows more about the situation than her to give me an update. She said that they would have to call me back, so I gave her two hours.

That time is about up, so we're moving on to phase two of my plan. Phase one was patiently waiting for them to do their job. Phase two is that I make them just as annoyed about my projector as I am. I have vowed to call them twice a day to check the status until my projector is returned. Let's see how long it takes before they get tired of hearing from me because I know that I'm already was past being tired of waiting on them.