The Service Assistant obviously thinks he's a bit of a smart arse, but funny, he's not!
I got up early yesterday and had the car at the garage for exactly 8am as requested and handed over the keys. "right so, the car's been lurching when you're braking then?" he says, "yes, thats right, the brakes are binding" I tell him, in an attempt at sounding like I know what I'm talking about. "And can they possibly take a look at the clutch because the biting point is high again and its juddering in 1st and 2nd gear"....
He replies, in an exasperated 'my god, these females know nothing' voice... "we can't just LOOK at the clutch you know, without taking out the gearbox. We CAN take it for a test drive and see how it feels though" To which I haughtily bite back "I know perfectly well you can't LOOK at the clutch, you knew what I meant!"
I then toddled off to catch 2 buses home, realising that I had left my mobile phone at home and wouldn't be able to call Graham to pick me up. So I get the 1st bus to Union Street, nip into WH Smith and stock up on all the latest crafty mags, then wait for 20 minutes for a Porty bus - so that I can hang on in sheer terror as the driver obviously thinks he's wanted by the police and trying to outrun them. I have the cunning plan of getting off at the stop near Pamela's house and going round for a cuppy while I wait for G.
Anyway, I called the garage at 1pm to ask about the progress of the car. The girl on the other end of the phone informs me that they are currently working on it. So I ask what was wrong with it and she replies "the brakes!" WELL DUH!!!!!!!! So I ask her exactly what was wrong with the brakes and she told me that she couldn't tell me until the paperwork was through and that the mechanics were out for lunch so she couldn't ask them (so they're obviously not "currently working on it" then!!) I asked if she could give me an idea of when it would be finished, and again I get the tale about the mechanics being out to lunch yada yada yada. So I tell her that we have a hire car that needs to be back by 4 and if I need it for longer thenI need to give them plenty of notice. So I'm informed that it will definitely be done by 4.
Picked Willow and Scott up from nursery and school and went home to get G and Faith so that we could all head in to the garage. Called the service department and said "Its Debbi Robertson here, I'm calling to see if my car is ready" and smartarse replied "well, Debbi, if your car was ready we would have phoned you!" so I told him - in the same tone of voice he used with me that "the girl on the phone earlier said it would definitely be done by 4". He then came back to me and said "yes it was on target for 4 o'clock, so just head up now"
G dropped me, the kids and the 2 car seats off at the garage, I deposited the kids in the waiting area and wandered off to the service dept and was served again by smartarse. He told me that it was the brakes and they had "done all the brakes all the way round" so I asked what I thought was a perfectly reasonable question i.e: "what have you done to the brakes", so I was told that they had replaced the brake pads on all 4 corners. He said that the brakes would be softer so I would need to bare that in mind for the next couple of hundred miles until the brakes bedded in. He then started to explain to me in words of one syllable, how the brake pads make contact with the metal......, but I cut him off with a sharp "yes, thankyou, I know how brakes work".
I asked where the car was parked as I hadn't seen it on my way in, and I had 3 kids and 2 car seats with me, to which I was informed that "the bays go all the way round the back, so it's out there somewhere"
So, muttering under my breath, I slope off and have to try and juggle 3 kids and 2 car seats out to the car at the far end of the carpark. A very lovely woman offered to help, and we exchanged words about how they don't know the meaning of customer service.
So, now that I have that out of my system, I'll tell you about our new wee resident in the garden. We have a Tufty!! (for those of you whose memories don't go that far back, thats a red squirrel) Graham, managed to catch him eating an apple on the picnic table on the deck - isn't he cute?
1 comment:
that squirrel is just adorable!
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