do not mess with me!

Somehow, without being aware of it, I signed myself up for an assertiveness training course. The problem with this course is that the situations are arising left and right in my real life. I have been channeling my inner Ricky and dealing with them in a very assertive manner. Of course, the case may also be that the world is full of incompetent morons, and I happen to be running into more than my share of them. I'm choosing at this point to lean toward the assertiveness training possibility.

It all started several weeks ago when I foolishly thought it would be a good idea to ship some books media mail through the United States Postal System. I should have known it was a bad idea. It certainly was. Of the four boxes we shipped, two of them have not yet made it. I have now spoken with individuals at three different post offices, my own mailman, and a number of other individuals throughout the postal system. None of them know much of anything about anything. So far, eight of the books have been returned to me. Unfortunately, those eight books do not actually belong to me despite the fact that they are the same titles that I shipped. If my own books do not arrive, I will be keeping these ones. I have yet to yell at anyone in the postal system, but I'm pretty sure that time will be coming. Very soon.

Because I am hopelessly high maintenance, I wanted a new door at the back of our house. A special order door. So I took myself over to the Home Depot and ordered one and paid for it. They told me I would be called when the door came in so that I could schedule delivery. The next day they called me and told me that they couldn't place the order for my door until I paid for it. Um, you mean the door that I paid for yesterday? Called the credit card company. Yep, the door is paid for. I had to go back over to Home Depot on a Saturday afternoon to get the whole thing straightened out. Apparently, they had two identical orders in the system for my door-one I had paid for, one that simply was in error and needed to be deleted. In order to make it up to me, they offered free delivery. Perfect. We scheduled it up for October 9th, the day after the door was scheduled to be in the store. When I queried what would happen if the door came in early, they told me I would be contacted to reschedule the delivery. Fast forward a few weeks. The door is delivered to the store on October 1st. No one calls me. I happen to be in the store on October 5th and ask about the status of my door. Surprise! It is in the store. I arrange with the Pro Desk for delivery on Thursday. They tell me it will be at my house between 8:00 and 5:00. Thursday comes, and we stay home all day long waiting. Surprise! No door. At 4:45, I call Home Depot, and no one answers the phone in any department. For four phone calls. Finally, on the fifth call, I get someone in doors who tries to transfer me to the Pro Desk and promptly hangs up on me. On the sixth call I talk with someone at the Pro Desk. Did I mention it is the man in charge at the Pro Desk? I explain the situation to him, and he tells me my door was never on the schedule for delivery that day. What??? Seriously??? I tell him it had better be delivered first thing Friday morning, and he has the gall to tell me that deliveries can't be scheduled after 2:00 pm. When I begin yelling and yelling and yelling some more and inform him that they can just go ahead and give me my outrageous sum of money back and I'll go get my door elsewhere, he indicates that there is some possibility they can get it to me the next day. I, however, will need to call first thing in the morning to find out what time. Sure enough, 7:30 am, I am back on the phone with Home Depot. My door will be at my house probably around 11:00 or 11:30 but certainly by noon. At noon, still no door. I am livid. I call Home Depot again and ask to speak with the driver of the delivery truck. They inform me that the truck is on its way. When I ask what the estimated time of arrival is, they say 12:15. At 12:15 a truck (not a delivery truck, mind you, but the little trucks that you can rent for $19 per hour) arrives at my house with the door. It is apparent that the gentlemen delivering my door have simply taken their aprons off, jumped in the truck, and driven the 15 minutes that it takes to get from Home Depot to my house. I'm certain they left the minute I called. I have not been back. They will be receiving a scathing letter from me shortly.

Last Friday when I came out to get in my car at the Target parking lot, I found a big scratch on the rear bumper and panel over the rear tire on the driver's side that certainly wasn't there when I arrived. After assessing the situation, I determined that the car that scratched my car was not parked directly next to me but just across the roadway area in the spot next to the one directly behind me. Their white paint was scratched onto my car, and my silver paint was scratched onto their bumper. And they were sporting the corresponding scratch. What do you do when you scratch someone's car? Well, you park somewhere else, of course. I was furious. I decided to wait and see what happened when they came out. Within a few minutes they did, in fact, come out. And got in their car with not so much as a word to me. So I decided to confront them and point out to them that I was pretty sure it was them who had scratched my car. After looking at me dumbfounded for a minute, the man did admit that it was them. He gave me his card (which indicated that he is a pastor, for crying out loud), and I asked for his insurance information. Then I remembered that I had my camera, so I took pictures of his car, his license plate, the scratch on his car, the scratch on my car, and his insurance card. He said he would pay for the damages or go through his insurance company if the estimates were higher than he was willing to pay out of pocket. He then requested that I take the car to a specific auto body shop owned by someone that he knows. I'm just hoping that he follows through on paying for the damages and that all goes smoothly, so that we don't have to get the insurance companies involved

Anyone else out there want to mess with me? I'm tired of poor customer service, incompetence, and rudeness. I will take you on!