Today’s Moron: The Home Depot Guy, Part 3

I know I said I’d end this, but it’s getting weirder.  Home Depot offered me a $50 gift card for my troubles. Send us your mailing address, they said. I suggested the giant company give that gift card to a local shelter for teenagers in crisis. That, apparently, requires more thought.

• This is Stephanie from Home Depot: “Nice idea. I’ve reached out to my colleagues in Canada to see how we can make that happen. I’ll have an answer to you tomorrow.”

She was pretty quick to offer me the fifty bucks earlier, when I was just a guy with a gripe. Now that the word has spread — and it has spread —  it has become more difficult for some reason. She wants to ”reach out to” colleagues in Canada to “see how we can make that happen.” I didn’t think it would be that complicated.

Tiresome.

Black October 19: Mum & Dad

Oh, this is a brutal one. Over the past few years, as we read about Elizabeth Smart, Elisabeth Fritzl, Natascha Kampusch, Jaycee Lee Dugard and other women who are held captive, a movie like this hits hard, being less about the supernatural and more about the super-real.

This is because it could happen. And watching it is less about escapism and more about documentarianism. Mum & Dad feels like real life — if real life is evil, squalid and dark, and full of fear.

It is not a complicated story. A young woman from Eastern Europe takes a job as a cleaner at an airport in England. On her first night, she is befriended by co-workers, another young woman and her brother, and is invited home after she misses her bus. This brother and sister live with their parents in a house tucked away at the end of the airfield, behind a high fence. Nobody notices this house. Nobody hears what goes on. And nobody knows who sleeps in the attic bedroom.

“I’m Mum.” “And I’m Dad.” Mum and Dad are not very nice.

This is a fast, harsh film about the atrocities of humanity. I did not expect to like it, but I did, despite its subject matter. It buries its hope, but the hope is there, and the eventual message emerges from a movie that could have been garbage (see the film Captivity as an example) yet is not. It’s an effective little movie that dances around its financial shortcomings and succeeds as a rare example of true horror.

• October is horror movie month at the Weather Station. I’m going through my DVDs and reviewing a film a day.

Today’s Moron: The Home Depot Guy, Part 2

I received this today:

Hi this is Stephanie from Home Depot Customer Care. I’m sorry about your experience in our store. I am disappointed to hear that your experience with our associate turned out as it did. We are making a lot of improvements in our stores, and your feedback helps.

If you would like to share the store location, feel free to send me an email to the address below. Again, I sincerely apologize for your experience. Please try us again soon.

Thanks,

Stephanie, Customer Care Social Media
stephanie_care@homedepot.com
Schedule: Mon.-Fri. 10:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Check out The Home Depot on Twitter, Facebook, & YouTube

My seven suggestions for “store improvements:”

1. Stop hiring assholes.
2. Stop hiring bullies.
3. Stop hiring liars.
4. Stop hiring slackers.
5. Stop hiring jerks.
6. Put a feedback form on your website.
7. And if a customer gets screwed over by a mistake your store made, make helping that customer your number one priority. Don’t treat them like an annoyance.

It doesn’t matter, though. When I said I’ll never shop there again, I meant it.

Anyway, I’ve given this topic enough ink. Let’s move on.