I’m back….as promised with a second post today. Be warned, I am having one heck of a bad case of the “Mondays.” Gee…who would think that is even possible when you work from home. LOL!
If you are new to my blog, I promise I am not always as negative as I sound in my two posts today, but I REALLY need to vent. Not only do I need to vent, but so does my attic…literally…which is where all my frustrations of the day are coming from.
I do all my work in our walk-up attic, which lucky me, is an attic where 2/3 of it is finished space giving me a small office nook, and another kind of small room which I use for all my crafting. Normally I consider myself quite the lucky lady that I have this space all to myself to do with as I please, but today it had me in tears!!! While the rest of our house has forced air heat and central air, the attic rooms honestly have 2 FAKE vents, making it appear, to an unsuspecting buyer, that this FINISHED portion of the attic has heat and air conditioning….Too Bad “Holmes on Holmes” doesn’t come to Wisconsin…. he would probably love to see a home where someone went to the trouble to put “fake vents” in a room, and then market it as a finished attic with a bedroom and large walk-in closet….
Well, what happened today is not technically the house’s fault….but….if there weren’t fake vents in the attic I wouldn’t need to have a portable heater to use the room in the winter, or a portable air conditioner for the summer. Today it was 90 degrees outside, and I guarantee the attic was reaching close to 100 degrees. So I hooked up the $300 portable room air conditioner which I bought just last fall and used maybe 3 or 4 times, and the thing starts beeping at me. So I pull the owner’s manual out, open to “troubleshooting,” expecting to see some simple answer….but of course I have the light that is blinking that means I need to call the service center and have a technician come out and fix it.
Ok, that seems simple enough. I figure it sucks that I won’t be able to create today, but at least the air conditioner is under warranty, and it should get fixed in the very near future. I couldn’t have been more wrong!!! All started out fine, the lady gets my model and serial #’s, and even gets me a repair ticket #, then the bomb hits….She said all she needs is the ORIGINAL PAPER RECEIPT FROM THE STORE WHERE I PURCHASED the air conditioner. At first I thought no problem, it should be right here with the owner’s manual….but it wasn’t. So then it just had to be in last year’s tax receipts…..but it wasn’t. So that put the whole process on hold. The lady tells me all I should need to do is call the store where I purchased it and if I paid with a credit card they should be able to look up the transaction and just print a new receipt.
Fine, I called TARGET, I got transfered, I talked to Someone in India, was told I could go to the store provide them with my credit card and ID and they would print a receipt. Drove to the store, was told they “can’t” print me a receipt for anything more than 90 days ago, I ask to speak with management, as I had printed all my credit card info showing the date, and store where the purchase was made (unfortunately that was not enough detail for proof-of purchase for HAIER AMERICA, it had to be the ORIGINAL store receipt), and I wasn’t asking to return the air conditioner or for a refund (as I purchased it more than 6 months ago, and just needed a receipt so HAIER would honor the warranty). The BOY (not man) at the counter calls the manager who refuses to come down and talk to me and instead I can hear her telling him to just tell me “There was nothing they could do, they do not have access to past transactions.” Wouldn’t the IRS like to know that they can not recall transactions from 6 months ago (since their corporate office also told me there was NO ONE in the company that could provide me with a new receipt, because they DO NOT keep the details of transaction)? If they got audited they could be made to show detailed transactions from 10 years ago!!!
So I call my credit card company in the off-chance there was something they could do with their buyer-protection service. I have to say everyone at the credit card company was not only IN the U.S. they were all VERY friendly, and there were no less than 3 people who actually went out of their way to try to help me try to find a way to get this whole thing resolved. Unfortunately no luck…
Even with all the additional info the credit card company armed me with I still spent over 4 HOURS on the phone with a countless number of Target employees, including 2 managers, who all gave the same bottled answer, “I’m sorry we do not have access to that information.” A high level manager at the corporate office even admitted that this was a problem that she had been trying to work on for over a year to be able to RESTORE the ability to recall transaction information for people in cases such as mine. When I told them this just didn’t make sense….We could all SEE that I had paid for the item, but yet no one was willing to do anything to make this right!!! She and several others said that ultimately it was my responsibility to hang on to the receipt. I understand that I did, in fact, lose the receipt, but I provided them more than ample information to get a new one. I even asked several of the people if they had ever lost a receipt, and every person I asked said yes, everyone loses a receipt at some point. So then they should have understood my frustration, and I provided more than enough information (thank you again to my credit card company)…gee…I think the only thing I didn’t provide them with was the color of the underwear that I wore on the day I bought the air conditioner. 🙂
When I realized that no matter how many managers I pleaded my case to (and even cried to 2 of them) NO ONE was going to take 5 seconds out of their day to help someone who made an honest (and lets admit MINOR) mistake. I know, this seems like ridiculous lengths to go to for a $300 air conditioner, but money is TIGHT these days, I can’t buy another one, and this one is supposed to be under warranty. I called HAIER again, and thought that if I told them everything I had gone through for the past 4 hours that they would have a heart and accept all the credit card info I provided, and know that there was no way anyone would go this far out of their way for a $300 air conditioner, but I got a very rude man who claimed to be both the Supervisor, and Top Manager in charge, and said there was absolutely nothing he was willing to do without the ORIGINAL receipt, and when I mentioned the air conditioner was in my office he quickly jumped all over me and said that since it was used for COMMERCIAL USE there would be NO WARRANTY anyway. Seriously…..this is a HOME OFFICE????
SOOOOOOOOO sorry for the rant, but I gotta say I am actually a little broken hearted right now. I have been a DEVOUT Target addict for well over 10 years. They have gotten a very large percentage of my income for many many years! I thought they were the greatest place in the whole world to shop (my wedding registry was even there)…..Now I gotta tell you the thought of ever walking back through the doors of any TARGET makes me ill. I don’t think I can…..Which really sucks since they always have lots of cool stuff. ( I know they didn’t make the faulty air conditioner, but they are the ones refusing to give me the stupid piece of paper I need to get HAIER to fix or replace it.) It’s easy to say I will never purchase HAIER products again, but no more Target really hurts!!! I mean what has the world come to when someone like me can provide an OVERWHELMING amount of evidence that I purchased the air conditioner and the date I purchased it yet everyone tells me “Too bad, so sad, suck it up and stop calling us, because WE DON’T CARE.” Normally I would admit to being a Drama Queen, but everything that happened today was ridiculous, and I think I have the right to be disgusted, but if anyone out there thinks I am in the wrong or did something wrong (besides misplacing the receipt) please let me know….because I would really like to find a reason not to personally BOYCOTT Target. (don’t worry I won’t make anyone sign a petition to boycott with me, because I am sure many of you love Target the way I did for so many years…..)
So on to the Project I promised, and you were so nice to read (or at least skim to get down to the picture). At least this pretty card makes me smile, so hopefully you will too. I used a technique called Black Magic….or in this case, brown magic. This is so simple, but so dramatic at the same time. Simply stamp a mostly solid stamp using white ink on dark colored paper (can use any paper, but the results are more dramatic when on dark paper.) Then color over the image with watercolor pencils or (like I did) use beautiful Prismacolor pencils, and if you want a little more POP, highlight your images with a white gel pen.
Project 10 of 365: Black Magic Watercolor Trio (I also submitted this as part of Splitcoast’s Technique Lover’s Challenge)
10 of 365: Black Magic Watercolor Trio
Click HERE to open my Stampin’ UP! store in a new window so you can purchase any of the Stampin’ UP items used in this project or any other project. Your purchases help support this crazy ride to complete 365 projects in 365 days. You can also support this journey through donations made by clicking the DONATE button in the upper right column of the blog. I accept donations of any amount….even $1.
Supplies:
Paper:
- 6×12 Ruby Red Texture Cardstock (108697)
- 3 3/4 x 5 1/2 Cameo Coral (105566- multipack which includes the chocolate chip also used)
- 3 1/2 x 5 1/4 Chocolate Chip
Ink:
- Whisper White Craft (101731)
Stamp Set:
- Watercolor Trio (wood mount-117050 or clear mount-120084)
Accessories:
- 1″ Chocolate Chip Satin Ribbon (retired, but your could used the grossgrain ribbon)
- White Gel Pen (105021)
- Snail Adhesive (104332 or Refill 104331)
- Prismacolor Pencils (non-Stampin’ UP!)
Hope this inspires you to create. Sorry again, for the rant…..but like they say, sometimes you just feel better if you have someone to tell about it….
I PROMISE to start my next post with a POSITIVE message 🙂
Be Back Soon!
Stampin Betty
Crafty Betty 