It's not a job-related TGIF today, it's a dishwasher that has caused a lot of undue stress in my life for the last week plus. Here's the culprit.
Our old dishwasher still worked and I had a hard time justifying the purchase of a new one. The old one was very, very noisy. With two new grand kids sleeping right below the old monster, we had to "time" the dishwasher cycles between naps and bedtime. If everyone was visiting, the dishes started to pile up pretty quickly.
Then I heard that today's dishwashers are silent. My sister says that she has to look for the light to see if hers is running or not.
I thought getting a new dishwasher would be easy. We've just put in new hardwood floors, carpeting and purchased custom furniture. All of that should have been hard. Even though it was hard to have our house torn up for several weeks, everything went smoothly. The workers were professional. They did the job right.
Off to Pacific Sales I went with my tape measure and the measurements of my existing dishwasher. I found a salesman right away and told him I wanted the quietest dishwasher available. His eyes lit up. Evidently the quieter the machine the more expensive it is. Of course. He showed me two machines; one American, one European. He suggested I buy the American brand which was more expensive.
It looked really nice had a lot of features that I hadn't asked for but that would come in handy. Like a third row that you can put knives, and utensils to wash. Out came the tape measure with a surprise. This machine is too tall for my space. I went clear across the store to measure the other one. It was slightly shorter but still 1/8" too tall. I asked the salesman about the height and he replied, "they're all standard". Of course they're not exactly standard since one was about 3/8" taller than the other one, but I guess we're splitting hairs.
Back home to re-measure. The second set of measurements told me that neither "standard" size machine would fit in the space. Back to Pacific Sales. Found the salesman who was rude and impatient with me, repeating his mantra, "they're all standard". He didn't offer any suggestions and couldn't wait to leave my company. Obviously I couldn't buy a dishwasher today. Back home, this time to my computer.
Yes, dishwashers are a standard height, 33-7/8". Yes, my space is 33-3/4". So, I asked Mr. Google for suggestions. Back came four model numbers each from a different manufacturer. There was one I liked. It was at Best Buy. Luckily Best Buy is closer than Pacific Sales. I went there, with my tape measure and my model number. A nice salesman spent a lot of time with me, looking on his computer. Unfortunately, he couldn't get the one I wanted any time soon. Back home. I called Pacific Sales, talked to a woman who told me that they had 26 of the dishwasher I wanted. Back to Pacific Sales to find, to my amazement, that the dishwasher I wanted was sitting right on the showroom floor and that the original salesman could have easily pointed this out to me. Anger aside, I bought the dishwasher and the saleswoman arranged for delivery and an installer to come out the next day.
If I'd only known that this was the easy part.
The installers called and gave me a three hour window. They arrived 5 minutes before the end of the window, of course. The head guy immediately jacked the price of installation by 100% due to electrical, plumbing and other things that he found deficient. OK, the dishwasher has to go in. They worked, drilled, hammered. They ran up and down the stairs. By 5:30PM, the dishwasher was still in the middle of the kitchen. The installer called and said that they had to finish their other installations today and that they had to go to Home Depot to get a pipe to finish our job. They'd be back later. Hungry and tired, our kitchen was trashed. Chips of stuff, dirt and water on the floor. They'd used, without asking, my pots and pans to contain water leaks that they'd created in their task. I just wanted them out of my house at any cost.
When I told them that they'd have to come back the next day, the installer yelled at me. I told him to take his tools and leave. Needless to say, they aren't welcome back. We called a plumber who finished the job 24 hours later. I sanitized the kitchen, put everything away and order was restored.
