Can I rant on here?

I went to Home Depot and bought a gallon can of Dry-Lok cement paint (white) and had it mixed to gray on September 9 and went home and started using it within the hour. I was just dipping my brush right in the can and painting the porch without pouring it out. When I had used about half the can and stuck my brush in I noticed that the bottom was very thick and had not mixed well, it was still white. It was almost dark so I put the lid back on and planed to return it the next weekend and continue painting the porch. In the mean time (9-14) my wife had a baby boy through c-section. I didn't get a chance to return the paint until 9-21. When I went in to return it the lady at the paint counter (not the same person who mixed it for me) could only point at the sticker on the can that states mixed paint is nonrefundable. She was either incapable or unwilling to listen to the fact that the product was not correct when I left the store. I tried to tell her that I fully understand they can't take paint back because I chose the wrong color, but this was an unusable product. she continued to offer to remix the can for me and did not seem to understand that once half of the gray was gone, remixing it with the white clumps on the bottom of the can would not make the right color. The half can that I had already used dried darker that the other 6 gallons that I had previously used (I had painted most of the patios a few weeks earlier and came up a little short, this gallon would have finished it off). I asked to talk to the manager thinking that I could simply explain this. The first thing she asked was why I used half the gallon before bringing it back. I explained that I hadn't poured it out to notice, I was just dipping my brush in the can. Furthermore I would have liked to have the 1.5 hours back that it took me to paint that part of the porch the wrong shade. From then on the only thing that she could focus on was that I didn't bring it back on the same day (9-9). I told her that they close at 6:00 on Sundays and I didn't discover the problem until dark. She then asked me why I didn't bring it back on the week in between like I was in fourth grade. She then told me that if I had brought the paint back on September 9 she would have given me a new gallon. I thought that this was really insulting. I could have told her that I just spent 4 days sleeping on a couch in a hospital room 50 miles from home. I could have told her that every spare minute I was taking care of my new son and wife who can barely shuffle around the house. But it is none of her business, she would have just thought I was making it up and I new she was lying about giving me a new gallon if I had returned it on 9-9 anyway. I asked if there was another manager in the store or anyone else that I could contact. She told me no that she was completly in charge. I left and went home and called on the phone to find out that she was the assistant manager. The manager got on the phone and listened even less than the other two had. I tried to explain the situation. I Tried to tell him that I would not go throught all of this trouble to "steal" half a gallon of paint. I tried to tell him that I would gladly eat the $20 if someone would just listen to the whole situation and give me an explanation as to why they can't return paint; that would have satisfied me at this point even if I didn't agree with the explanation. He finally agreed to exchange the paint just to get me off the phone and treated me as if I was a bigger nuisance to him than the first two people that I talked to. I did get the paint replaced after a third 17 mile round trip to the store. But somehow I was more irritated than ever to be made to feel as if I was trying to get one over on them, and they were benevolent enough to give me a gallon of paint. I guess they think that I would make three round trips to get $10 worth of paint after having bought thousnads of dollars of materials from them when building the house last year. I have always liked Lowes (across the street) better. It is neater and cleaner, and you can get help in there more often than HD. I only got to HD occasionally because they are cheaper on certain items. I hate to say that I will NEVER go there again because these two "managers" will probablly be gone in a couple of months. But I can say for sure that it will be a good while. If you got this far, thanks for reading all of this. I know this doesn't apply to the HD in your home town, but I feel better.

I use a squirrel cage mixer in a cordless power drill. It get the bottom and sides scraped clean and causes a nice vortex action that makes short work of it.

And yeah, HD disgusts me too. Surly employees, no help, two registers open and thirty 'supervisors' standing around in the orange vests marveling at the long lines of steaming customers. Go to Lowes.

I have not been in a Wal-mart for about 6 to 10 years. We do not have HD or LOWES.

Cheap stuff will burn you to often,
SDE

Chuck Rannacher Painting
Since 1985.

A few months ago the news of HD's abysmal customer satisfaction rating, low stock prices, and huge reverses in sales was a pretty big deal. They got a new CEO who made a lot of sincere sounding talk about how hard they were going to work to earn back their customers' trust, etc. Well, talk's cheap, of course, and I didn't figure to hold my breath waiting for HD to become customers' paradise all of a sudden. But this actually might be a good time for you to take your story to the corporate offices level---things usually do work pretty well for fifteen or twenty minutes after one of those kind of shakeups.

All the best, Stan

I had that happen for a customer last year, owners wife decides walmart will save money and they wanted me to get the paint there, custom color, the guy could not match a pair of socks, not his fault, just did not have the knowledge for what he was doing, heck people were asking questions while I was waiting, lady was looking for mapp gas for here husband, no one knew, I helped em out, the walmart employees thanked me, but in the interim 5 gallons of paint was mixed and not the correct color, of the same pain the wife bought at a different store with the mix tag on the lid. Well, I promptly returned it, no way I could put that on the wall, although it was a good color, it was wrong, I said mark it down slightly someone will grab it, it will sell, was glad to get out of walmart.

I use supply houses as much as possible and I have always used an old school paint supplier for every job, he took the sample I provided and spent over 2 hours making a match for the color, in the texture I needed. I told him they were sold on price not quality, dickered a bit with him and for 3 more dollars per gallon, how could anyone complain ? It does pay to avoid those big box retailers whenever possible. I did a fence job back in July, including some stairs and a gate + concrete work. They did not have enough fence panels in stock, said they'd inter-store order them, extra trips for me, took em 2 weeks to not do that, I told them they had best deliver em to my site, 2 more panels than what was paid for, I picked up 20 bags of quikcrete, well the skid had some busted or damaged bags, I ended up with over 30 for the price of 20, so used the damaged bags first, had 10 good ones left over, thye just seem screwed up, they can waste a lot of your time, heck I even gave the customer the order to phone in with the quantities and their item numbers, customer pays direct and I don't mark up the material, just get paid for hauling it, said they can't do that, so I got to the store,said they could do that, people can just be a royal pain to deal with. I try to do my part to set things up to be easy, spent a good part of a saturday, just getting a small amount of material, they wasted hours figuring out how to get the panels I needed, had a guy with me, had to pay him. The bottom line with these places is to be one step ahead of them at all times know what you need, call and make sure they have it, or not deal with them, I hear ya, it can get to anyone. I used to purchase thousands and thousands of dollars of materials from suppliers and fabricators when in the commercial and heavy construction industry, even with all the chaos, dealing with a regular supplier is just so much different than these darned big box retailers, they have ruined to many old school hardware stores, supply houses etc., the ones that are left get most of my business.

Anyway congratulations on the new son! What did you name him and does he look like his dad? Put a pair of coverals on him and snap a picture so we can all see him. Forget sending the cigar, I no longer smoke. Hope ma is feeling finer than a frogs hair too. Is this the first?

Home Depot used to brag about giving a guy a refund on a set of tires that he didn"t like. The store didn"t event sell tires but the manager gave him his money back.

The corporate office should be contacted and advised that those in charge of the HD that you are going to didn"t seem to get the corporate policy memo. Be polite but convey your frustration.

Everyone has a bad day but it sounds like these two managers should be negotiating their next salary increase someplace else.

• HD contact us page