Waiting For Service Technicians is the Worst

I get chills just from hearing a phrase like this - "your technician appointment is between 10am and 4pm next Tuesday". Waiting for a service technician, installer, delivery, etc has to be one of the worst things in the world.

This morning I had to do exactly that.

I had to make a service appointment for a broken piece of furniture that I had just bought a couple of weeks ago.

It was actually a little absurd. No joke, my service appointment was for "between 10:58am and 1:58pm". This particular company goes on to say that they're "an all day delivery company" and ask that someone be home all day in case of "an unforeseen delay".

I don't know about you, but I can't just take a day off of work to wait at home for a service person to show up.

They have an online system that "continually updates" the progress of your appointment, which is pretty nifty. I give them credit for that.

When it works.

This morning, I woke up and the website estimated 11:06 for my appointment.

So I got up, showered, and took the dog out. I checked again, and my time had changed to 12:39.

Ok, I figured, they must have gotten delayed somewhere. So I ate breakfast and checked again. This time it had been pushed all the way back to 2:08pm.

At this point, we're going to have a problem.

I go on the air at 3pm. If the service person shows up at 2:08, they're going to have to work pretty quickly to wrap up for me to be to work on time.

I then reloaded the web page and the time had changed again...to 2:35.

Now, we're talking about a real problem.

At this point I was debating what to do - do I call my boss and see if the beginning of my shift can be covered? Do I call the company to find out exactly what's going on and let them know that I'd have to reschedule? Do I hop in my car, go to work, do as much work as I can, and then come back home for 2:30?

As I was debating all of this, I heard a truck pull into my neighborhood.

Guess who it was? And it was only 12:16.

Of course this was a good thing, I wouldn't have to scramble to figure out what to do about work. But it was also kind of obnoxious, what's the point of a state of the art delivery tracker if it doesn't work right?

So I got my service call done, it's thankfully over with, I got to work with time to do all of my pre-on air duties, and I was in time for a weekly meeting. But it definitely wasn't without some agita.

At this point, actually, I'm excited - I can't wait for the followup survey that asks me about my experience. Believe me, they'll hear all about it.

What are some of your service tech, delivery, installation nightmare stories? Tell us in the comments!