extreme_tooth_decay November 5, 2007 Share November 5, 2007 Well I decided to re-do the baffles in my sump this week end because several of them had broken and I also wanted to reposition them. The old baffles were the thin glass they cut for you at Lowe's. I found it was almost impossible to get the old baffles out because I had used too many tubes of silicone when I installed them. I messed with it with a razor blade and hammer for over an hour and just ended up making a mess, cutting myself, and stressing the tank badly. So, I bought a new tank for my sump. Then I bought 1/4" acrylic at Lowe's, which they cut for me thank goodness. I also bought some BRAND NEW silicone (2 tubes, just in case). So I get home and install the baffles. I noticed the silicone wasn't quite right...it was very hard to squeeze out of the tube, it was a little too cloudy, it wasn't as sticky as it should be, it wasn't as fluid as it should be, and it had no odor at all. So I tried the other tube...same problem. Well, I didn't let that bother me, and finished up the job. About an hour later I looked at the tubes of silicone...would you believe they expired in 2000? Unfreaking believable. So I went back to Lowes and talked to the manager. There were a whole pile of other tubes on their shelf with expiration dates from 2000-2003. The manager at Lowe's was completely un-apologetic. He just kept saying I should have checked the date on the tube when I bought it. So, due to the gross incompetence of at least one Lowe's employee, I had the joy of un-installing the baffles, cleaning the huge silicone mess, and re-installing them. Not to mention an extra trip, and an unpleasant talk with the manager. At least I watched him throw away all the expired tubes. And, he gave me one tube for free for my troubles. Whopee! Another lesson learned, tim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yauger November 5, 2007 Share November 5, 2007 DUDE thats horrid! I'm glad in the end you got things right but still the manager at the lowes should have noticed the expiration (thats their job!) and not you.... dude you should make a formal complaint... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnguyen4007 November 5, 2007 Share November 5, 2007 DUDE thats horrid! I'm glad in the end you got things right but still the manager at the lowes should have noticed the expiration (thats their job!) and not you.... dude you should make a formal complaint... I agree. Do what I do, write a formal complaint to their corporate office. Don't let this manager get away with it. It's his responsibility to make sure their inventory are up to date, not you. James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jason the filter freak November 5, 2007 Share November 5, 2007 I agree. Do what I do, write a formal complaint to their corporate office. Don't let this manager get away with it. It's his responsibility to make sure their inventory are up to date, not you. James HEY HEY woah, reatail enviroments are nuts, it is not fair to pick on a manager for an item not being correct, retails stores especially the ones the size of lowes have hundreds of thousands of items in inventory it's not possible to track that much stuff (at least for a single individual) also the manager may not have been a stock manager in which case he is in no way responsible for whats on the shelf, he might have been a personel manager or a section manager of a completely diffrenent section. Also managers rely on other employees to keep track of the items on the shelf they couldn't possibly in a store that size inspect all the items themselves. The manager did the right thing, he threw away the bad inventory, he tried to please the customer by giving them a free items, yes he should have apologize and been more understanding, but thats it. Yes the store should have done a better job of checking their inventory, but the consumer should be aware of their purchases. If you write a letter to the corp office, which I wouldn't blame you, don't single out the manager unless he was overly rude, instead mention that better control over inventory should be undertaken. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YBeNormal November 5, 2007 Share November 5, 2007 I disagree. Customers look to managers as representatives of the store. If the customer is politely pointing out an issue and the manager blows it off or tries to pass blame back to the customer, s/he has failed to do his/her job and should be reported. Also, the fact that a store could have thousands of items and your suggestion that this shifts responsibility for checking dates to the customer is absolute hogwash. Food stores also have thousands of items in stock and you wouldn't accept that argument from them, would you? Anyone wanna buy some 9-month old bologna? How about some two-year old eggs? Yummy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rrubberbandman November 5, 2007 Share November 5, 2007 HEY HEY woah, reatail enviroments are nuts, it is not fair to pick on a manager for an item not being correct, retails stores especially the ones the size of lowes have hundreds of thousands of items in inventory it's not possible to track that much stuff (at least for a single individual) also the manager may not have been a stock manager in which case he is in no way responsible for whats on the shelf, he might have been a personel manager or a section manager of a completely diffrenent section. Also managers rely on other employees to keep track of the items on the shelf they couldn't possibly in a store that size inspect all the items themselves. The manager did the right thing, he threw away the bad inventory, he tried to please the customer by giving them a free items, yes he should have apologize and been more understanding, but thats it. Yes the store should have done a better job of checking their inventory, but the consumer should be aware of their purchases. If you write a letter to the corp office, which I wouldn't blame you, don't single out the manager unless he was overly rude, instead mention that better control over inventory should be undertaken. errrrrrrrr.......slow down tiger.......lowes should not haVe ood caulk on the counter....if they are anything like my lowes....its getting harder and harder to find any employees in there to even talk to due to budgets which in turn are made even worse by the shareholders requiring lowes to perform better...but...i still like lowes better than HD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jason the filter freak November 5, 2007 Share November 5, 2007 i still like lowes better than HD. I agree whole heartedly there. I'm just saying it's really not just the managers fault Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
extreme_tooth_decay November 5, 2007 Author Share November 5, 2007 (edited) I don't know if it was the manager's fault that the expired product was on the shelf. It was clearly someone's fault. It's not like it was expired by 2 weeks or 2 months. It was 8 years expired! I'm not even sure that particular Lowe's location was open 8 years ago. It seems completely reasonable to me to have the paint guy check his inventory once a month or once a year to see if any has expired. Having product 8 years expired on the shelf is completely unacceptable. It is the manager's fault that he was completely unsympathetic and unapologetic. And I did tell him about all the time I had wasted, too. He just didn't care. All he had to do was say: "holy moly! that is really bad. let me throw that away right now and assure you I will find the responsible party and correct whatever flaw lead to this". But no, all he wanted to talk about was why I didn't look at the date when I bought it. I was about ready to pop that guy a couple times. :wink: Edited November 5, 2007 by extreme_tooth_decay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flowerseller November 5, 2007 Share November 5, 2007 I agree whole heartedly there. I'm just saying it's really not just the managers fault Rule #1. The customer is always right Rule #2. The customer is always right and we do not cast blame on our customer Rule #3. The customer is always right, we do not cast blame on our customer, and fix the problem to the customers satisfaction, PROMPTLY and politely. It automatically becomes the managers fault once he decides the customer is not ALWAYS right! In this case double fault once he learned there was more than the one expired tube on HIS shelf and repremanded his customer. There is nothing wrong with educating your customer, and they often become a much better customer, but we never cast blame on them or repremand them, even if they never watered the arrangement since they got it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gastone November 5, 2007 Share November 5, 2007 Rule #1. The customer is always right Rule #2. The customer is always right and we do not cast blame on our customer Rule #3. The customer is always right, we do not cast blame on our customer, and fix the problem to the customers satisfaction, PROMPTLY and politely. It automatically becomes the managers fault once he decides the customer is not ALWAYS right! In this case double fault once he learned there was more than the one expired tube on HIS shelf and repremanded his customer. There is nothing wrong with educating your customer, and they often become a much better customer, but we never cast blame on them or repremand them, even if they never watered the arrangement since they got it. hold on a sec... you mean they need water??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lletellier November 5, 2007 Share November 5, 2007 and my grandma wondered why I wanted my stocks out of lowes... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yauger November 5, 2007 Share November 5, 2007 i think the Manager could have handled this situation better, technically even him giving away a "free" tube of silicone is against store policy. his decisions was of poor judgment and should be reported, I'm not trying to be a butt head its just they are supposed to run a business and take care of loyal customers and he failed to do so... thats it, point blank... now if he had assumed complete responsibility and offered to correct the situation without blaming the customer then it would have been a completely different conversation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fab November 5, 2007 Share November 5, 2007 Write a letter to Lowe's management. fab Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phisigs79 November 5, 2007 Share November 5, 2007 Writing or calling wont do a thing. I called the main office and they said that they would call me in 24 hours to let me know whats up and never did. Basically i was trying to buy a fridge and they had a 10% off deal with no taxes for energy star appliances. Well i found one i wanted and they said they did have it in stock but said i could get the display (which was dirty and had 2-3 dents in the side) but would give me any more of a discount. Basically told me if i wanted a new one to get in the car and try to find one. Plus told me i would get another 10% off if i opened a credit card acct. Well i went to another store and only got 10% off but it was new. They said they didnt have other stores numbers and they ended up having the number right next to them written next to the phone. I still love my Lowes even though the appliance guys are jerks! Their excuse was they wouldnt make any money even though i saw on the computer screen what it cost them and they would still make money. HD is the worst of all. good luck trying to find any help and if you do they dont know anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
extreme_tooth_decay November 5, 2007 Author Share November 5, 2007 (edited) Writing or calling wont do a thing. Call me cynical, but I tend to agree. I think I've wasted enough time on this already. Write a letter to Lowe's management. fab I *was* talking to Lowe's management! now if he had assumed complete responsibility and offered to correct the situation without blaming the customer then it would have been a completely different conversation. That's all I was looking for...I was irritated enough already, I didn't need him antagonizing me further. I forgot to mention, he also asked me a couple times why I was making such a big deal over $9 worth of silicone. This was after I had explained to him how much lost work I had (and how much future work I had to fix it). Edited November 5, 2007 by extreme_tooth_decay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 November 5, 2007 Share November 5, 2007 C'mon, Tim, where's my picture to laugh at? I'm always the big complainer and either get asked not to shop somewhere again or get comped a lot. Hey, it's the squeaky wheel that gets the oil. If they were wrong and handled it poorly, I have always believed in letting them know it. If I were the manager, I would make it right, no doubt about it. And, they all have the ability to give things away or to reduce prices, it's up to the individual managers. And, it's absolutely the manager's fault that it's on the floor. It's their responsibility to monitor the stock in their department, putting something out that old is ridiculous. It's not like the stock doesn't get rotated all the time. It's like saying if they stock their shelves with tinted paint in cans labeled white paint, it's your fault for not opening it up and using some before taking it home. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treesprite November 5, 2007 Share November 5, 2007 Shoot, I didn't even know stuff like silicone had expiration dates on it, and generally, do people even look for expiration dates on things that aren't food, medicine, or batteries? It seems unreasonable to me, given what the general population does, to put the blame on a customer for not checking dates on that type of an item. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rrubberbandman November 6, 2007 Share November 6, 2007 I don't know if it was the manager's fault that the expired product was on the shelf. It was clearly someone's fault. It's not like it was expired by 2 weeks or 2 months. It was 8 years expired! I'm not even sure that particular Lowe's location was open 8 years ago. It seems completely reasonable to me to have the paint guy check his inventory once a month or once a year to see if any has expired. Having product 8 years expired on the shelf is completely unacceptable. It is the manager's fault that he was completely unsympathetic and unapologetic. And I did tell him about all the time I had wasted, too. He just didn't care. All he had to do was say: "holy moly! that is really bad. let me throw that away right now and assure you I will find the responsible party and correct whatever flaw lead to this". But no, all he wanted to talk about was why I didn't look at the date when I bought it. I was about ready to pop that guy a couple times. :wink: I think next time you could take jason with you to negotiate while you stand there smiling , showing some extreme decay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
discretekarma November 6, 2007 Share November 6, 2007 (edited) I am a retail manager. I can say that I think the manager was totally wrong. I don't think the manager can ever know if all the products are out of date or anything like that but like YBeNormal said, the manager of a store represents the company and if there is a mistake, the manager should take full responsibility for that mistake and make it better. Blaming it on the customer is WRONG even if it was the customers fault (which it wasn't). Companys rely on their management to represent their company right and this manager has done a poor job at that. Due to the way this manager handled this situation, Lowes now looks bad to me and at least a few others. I've seen many retail managers that get stuck in retail, hate it, and take it out on their employees and customers. I'd write a letter so they can deal with this manager if they choose. I also think the employees behaviors and performance is a direct result of their managers and if there is someone that isn't doing their job, it is that same managers responsibility to be training, counseling or getting rid of that employee and hiring/training someone that will be checking the expiration dates. I don't think it would take any more then a few minutes to write a letter to Lowes management (corp not store) and it may make your store a better place to shop. Even if they don't let you know what they are doing, they still may be doing something. Edited November 6, 2007 by discretekarma Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest beatle November 6, 2007 Share November 6, 2007 I think the big error of the manager is not selling expired silicone, it's that he was unapologetic. I can give a company so much more leeway if they at least put on a facade of caring and understanding that I can't see through. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now