If Something Can Go Wrong, It Will


November 24, 2014

Our kids don’t often get time off from work to come home for Thanksgiving. This year, we are looking forward to having them here for a home cooked meal. Eagerly awaiting their visit, we decided to get a new Samsung stainless steel, French door refrigerator. Our beige one was years old and didn’t even have a water filter. A new one would be healthier with filtered water and would match the other appliances we have already replaced.

The delivery was scheduled for last Saturday, while I was at a bridal shower with my cousins.

Cousins Shower

We had a great time, and I drove home anticipating seeing our beautiful new Samsung refrigerator, assuming all had gone well with my husband in charge.

And here’s where things went afoul. He said the freezer temperature, set at 0 degrees, wasn’t dropping. It was staying steady around 68. Bad news.

By now it was dark out. I snatched the phone and called customer service for the Best Buy extended warranty. After ascertaining the appliance wasn’t in demo mode (where it lights up for store display but the cooling apparatus doesn’t work), the agent scheduled service for Tuesday morning.

Tuesday! This was an emergency. A brand new appliance wasn’t working properly, and it’s before a holiday. I have not bought a turkey for Thanksgiving yet. I dare not buy one until this problem is diagnosed. I have to tell you that we were disappointed in this delayed response.

thanksgiving

The green beans that were in the freezer defrosted and I tossed them out. Regarding all the appetizers I’d planned to serve our kids, we have cooked them and are eating them as we go–mini quiches, spinach and cheese stuffed mushrooms, parmesan potatoes and more. Thankfully, I hadn’t kept any large meat packages in the freezer.

Frozen Food

As for Thanksgiving, I’m afraid to get a turkey until the serviceman gives his verdict. I also want him to check the refrigeration unit to make sure that part is adequately cooling. I stuck a couple of wine bottles in there and they got cold, so hopefully that section is okay. Still, if we need a replacement, who knows when they’ll schedule it to arrive. After installation, it takes 24 hours for the appliance to get up to speed. I think I’d wait until after Thanksgiving so we don’t lose the stuff in the top section.

So after he tells me what’s what on Tuesday, I will either buy a fresh turkey, if any are left, or an already cooked turkey breast. We are fortunate to have one of those mini refrigerators in our laundry room, crammed with all our perishables from the old fridge. I could possibly make room for the poultry but not much else. As for the green bean casserole, I’ll get the beans from Winn Dixie on Thursday morning if available. I have the sweet potato ingredients and can make that from scratch on Thursday too. But then, where to put the leftovers?

We are unsettled by this disruption to our routine, not like after a hurricane when you might expect a power failure. You don’t expect a new machine to have a major failure. The Best Buy warranty service should have sent someone out immediately this morning instead of making us wait. Keep watch here, and I’ll let you know the outcome in the Comments section.

Hey, I can count this as one of my holiday disasters. The only other time something bad happened was when the dog ate my broccoli cheese casserole prior to a family gathering.

We’ll eat out if we have to for the rest of the weekend. Being together is what matters.

I hope YOUR Thanksgiving is a joyous one! And I thank each and every one of you for following my blog and supporting my work.

 

 




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0 thoughts on “If Something Can Go Wrong, It Will

  1. So sorry to hear about your woes with the refrigerator. We also just recently purchased a Samsung French door fridge and I am happy to say it worked perfectly right from the start—and the freezer reached zero in about 6 hours. I do hope you get your replacement quickly and must say you seem remarkably patient with the whole situation. But as you said, being together with family is the most important thing. Happy Thanksgiving.

    1. You were lucky. I am thinking we should have requested a replacement right away rather than waiting for a repairman tomorrow. But I’d rather wait until after Thanksgiving for a new delivery away. At least the top part works if not the freezer.

      1. You should definitely ask for a new fridge. These things ONLY happen on either a weekend or holiday time. You’ll get through it, but it is frustrating. Good luck.

  2. It happens all the time Nancy. We bought a Sears side by side 28 c.f. years ago. The day they delivered it I had them put it back on the truck. The body was all dented and the doors had problems. I called the agent I’d bought it through and told them they needed to have a new one at my place the next day.

    On the third unit we finally struck gold… of course they had to swap out one of the door from unit #2 to get us a complete functional fridge. Ten years later its still working like a charm.

    I grew up in the real estate business and learned early on from my grandparents (they owned a number of apartment buildings) that you don’t let the dealers or agents play games. Its your money and you deserve satisfaction for it.

  3. I bought a fresh turkey at Costco this morning. It fit into our spare mini fridge in the laundry room. I’ll have to get the green beans last minute unless I buy canned instead of frozen.

  4. Hang in there and enjoy the time with your family. And don’t stress yourself over what you could have or should have said or done. I believe that if something is wrong with a product I am entitled to get what I paid for, regardless of whether that is hard or easy for the company to do. But I have learned that they don’t always play by my logical script and respond as I would expect/hope.

    Years ago our refrigerator died so we bought a new one. By the time it was finally delivered we were tired of trying to save fast-spoiling food. The refrigerator was the wrong color! The delivery person actually asked what the big deal was. Then he was not happy when my husband told him no, you aren’t going to pop it right back on to the truck and leave us with all this food, you bring this one in and when you guys figure out which color is Black bring one of those back here and take this one. (On the [mostly] positive side, I bought a dishwasher from that store about a year ago. We got a lemon – the adjustable top rack handle supports weren’t strong enough and the handle kept dropping. Didn’t affect the operation, but hey, I want what I paid for. Every interaction this time was positive, from the repairman to the salesman who arranged for a new one, no questions, no arguments.)

    Hard to be patient though when we’ve made our plans and then have to keep improvising.

    1. I’m grateful the top section works, otherwise I would have demanded a replacement right away. But it’s incredible how some service people and companies just don’t care.

  5. We have had problems like that. So we found a long standing local store called Rosners. We got a stove that had a vent on the top and first thing I did was spill chicken stock and it went inside the vent and was behind the glass. I almost had heart failure. We called Rosners and had a new stove in two days. They charged a $l5 restocking fee. So I never buy appliances at Best Buy. I prefer the old fashioned service and the prices were the same as Best Buy and every other place we looked. When these stores get too big, they give less customer service. Hope your holiday manages to go well!!

  6. So the repair man was here and agreed we need a new unit. We went back to Best Buy. The salesman tried to get delivery for tomorrow but they are booked so it’s supposed to come on Saturday. We’ll see!

  7. Wow. I read your blog and couldn’t believe it. We are in the same predicament. Last Thursday. I woke up at 6:30 a.m. and found the freezer part stopped working on our fridge. I got my hubby up and together we squeezed most of the meat, veggies, etc. into the tiny garage fridge. We had three turkeys because Publix had a good sale. So we defrosted one and my neighbor let us put the other two in her garage fridge for now. We cooked another piece of meat and lost a few frozen veggies, too. So we went shopping for a new fridge. We purchased a Whirlpool – French door fridge with a bottom freezer in stainless steel. They didn’t come in beige anymore and I have an oven and a dishwasher in beige. Oh well. Both new too. Our biggest problem is the fridge is not arriving till December 17th. So we are stuck going through the laundry room to the garage every time we need to eat or drink for three weeks. We are now eating out on Thanksgiving. Good luck with yours. Happy Thanksgiving. Suzanne Baginskie

    1. That’s a long time to wait for your delivery. Is the model not in stock? The one that’s not functioning in our case is the brand new refrigerator. At least it’s only the freezer portion so we can use the top with the French doors.

      1. Nancy. Our home refrigerator ended up breaking down completely. We thought that the top still worked, but it slowly got warmer and we transferred what we could fit to the garage fridge. We went to Sears, no fridges to be delivered until after Dec. 24th. Then to Lowe’s and ended up in Home Depot for a dimmer switch. There we found a great sale of 40% off, free delivery and haul away. Well, none were in stock and they had eight coming in so he sold one of them to us. I have fears that it doesn’t arrive before Christmas. We are making due and I just can’t buy extra meat at the good sales for now. I just pray it works when we get it. I think you should demand a new one or you may have future problems. Happy Thanksgiving, Suzanne

  8. Your post made me appreciate my sturdy, reliable 11 year old Frigidaire. I’ve been wanting to replace it with an updated model, but hey! It still works perfectly. Think I’ll postpone it. And I definitely won’t buy a Samsung! LOL

    1. We got our replacement on Saturday and so far it works fine. I’m sure we’ll love it once this unpleasantness blows away and we get used to the new design. Hopefully, if you get a new fridge, it’ll be fine the first time out.