A tale of two customer service departments...and 5 desks!

In our attempts to finish buying the furniture for our new office, the husband and I decided to head on over to Target to look at some desks for his DJ equipment. Naturally, we found one we liked in a gorgeous expresso brown wood, plus picked up a desk for my sewing machine, and headed off home to get to work building it. What we didn't realize at the time was what a saga this was about to become.

Monday night...Desk #1 - Got it home and found there was a big chip in the top of it. Popped it back in the box to take back to Target.

Tuesday night...Desk #2 - Took the first desk back to Target, explained the problem. Left a few minutes later with a replacement. Husband gets the desk home, starts building it and comes up the stairs cussing up a storm to ask my opinion on why one of the pieces doesn't fit. Realized it was definitely drilled on the wrong side/upside down. Now, for those of you that have built your own furniture, you know that if the holes don't match up, there's no hope!

Wednesday morning - Called Target's guest services department. Very nice man tells me that he's going to call my local store and have them pull a replacement piece out of another box for me and that I should just go over there with the one that's messed up to exchange them.

Wednesday night...Desk #3 & #4 - Arrive at guest services in the store to pick up my furniture part. Very helpful associate pops off into the warehouse to go get me a "correct" one. Comes back with a desk box, opens it up and pulls out the piece...which is also drilled backwards. Tells me to stick around for a minute while he pulls the last one they have in stock (which of course means that I have to use that time to buy toothpaste, dishwasher soap and browse some jewelry...after all, I'm in a Target store!) The guy returns from the warehouse with the last desk in that color, opens it up and yes, you guessed it, it's drilled wrong!! Yeah, big ooops. Fortunately, they had the desk in another color, which I opted to take...on the condition that they opened it up and checked that the piece was drilled the right way around (which it was). Thinking all was well, I'm then told that I actually have to go home and get the half-constructed parts because they need those to give me the exchange. Grrrr! Stupid stoned factory dude putting holes in the wrong side.

This morning...Desk #5 - Shoved all the half built pieces into my car and made the security guard help me carry the desk into the store at 8am this morning when they opened. Desk #5 had my name written on it in Sharpie and was waiting for me. It's sitting in the back of my car now just waiting to be built tonight. I guess time will tell if we've closed that particular chapter of desk buying!

At the same time, I did use this as an opportunity to build my karma points by calling Target, and the furniture manufacturer, to let them know that there was a manufacturing problem with the desk and both customer service people were so incredibly grateful that I brought it up. So, if you see a desk recall notice in Target, think of me. =)

As much as I love that store, 4 times in 36 hours seems like it might be pushing it a little bit don't you agree?!