Summary: the owner was inexcusably rude
I couldn't find an unusual bulb at the big box stores; they suggested Kansas Lighting. I had dealt with them once before in person and they'd been helpful, so I was utterly unprepared for the treatment I was about to receive. I called and a woman answered who tried to help, but she seemed to be misunderstanding what I wanted (I wanted a CFL or LED; she thought I wanted a standard, discontinued incandescent). Once we cleared that up, she put me on hold and a man picked up.
I told him clearly what I wanted and he seemed to understand. But he was VERY quick to make the blanket statement that the wattage-equivalency/base size combination I was looking for did not exist at all, despite the fact that I had actually found one (of the wrong shape). He then started explaining to me that ceiling fans have some sort of 60W "limiter" - although I never understood why that was relevant to the current conversation. I told him MY fan had "75W" stamped on the bulb socket; he said, "No, it's 60W." When I said mine was 75W, he said he couldn't help me and hung up.
I called back to complain to the manager. Turned out he IS the manager (and owner). Crying by this point, I told him he'd been rude. He unapologetically told me he hadn't. I said that I felt he'd implied I was lying. Again, he denied it and told me "Ma'am, please just take your business elsewhere." I was upset enough by this point to make the empty threat that I'd take my friends too. He snapped, "If they're anything like you, fine!" and hung up again.
At this point, I determined to write the owner a letter about the execrable behavior of his employee, but I figured that, given their behavior, they'd never give it to ME. So I asked my father-in-law to get the owner's info. He called them and "Bob" answered. Bob turns out to be both the owner AND the manager I spoke with this morning. When he heard it was about a complaint, he fobbed my father-in-law off on the female employee. She started spelling out the owner's last name (which, by the way, is listed plainly on the BBB's website), and Dad could hear the owner interrupt her in the background, after which she said she couldn't give out any more information.
In summary, if Bob really is making it a policy that he doesn't want any customers "like me," which I would describe as courteous, even-tempered, curious, astute, but not fully expert on the subject, it suggests he only wants either customers with encyclopedic knowledge of lighting OR those who are stupid and rude.
If it's the latter, it's no wonder he's short-tempered. read more
