The Saga of the Office Furniture

On September 14th we received an advertisement from Office Depot. They were offering 20% off plus free assembly, plus no interest for 18 months. It sounded like a pretty good deal to us, especially the free assembly part. It's not expensive furniture, mind you, but decent looking and servicable for our needs. We ordered two computer credenzas with hutches, two bookcases and one lateral file. On September 16th the furniture was delivered by Office Depot's delivery service and the boxes were placed in our garage. The assembly person was scheduled to assemble the 7 boxes of furniture on October 4. On October 3rd, we cleared out the old furniture in the office, gave away some things, and broke down the computers. The books and pictures were stacked in the guest room. On October 3rd I called the assembly company to confirm their schedule and was told we were scheduled for the1-5pm slot on the 4th. I was told by Impact (the assembly company) that it was about a 10 man hour job and they may take two days to complete the job. On the morning of the 4th, we cleaned the room thoroughly so the furniture would go into a nice clean room. We waited. No one showed up or called. After 5 pm I called Office Depot and was told I would need to call Impact (the company doing the assembly) and reschedule.

On the morning of October 5th I called Impact and was told the earliest they could reschedule was for Saturday afternoon, October 7th. We brought in card tables and set up our computers. On the 7th we waited. About 4:30pm we received a call from the person assigned to assembly our furniture. He said the earliest he could make it to our house was 6pm. Also, I was told that since the boxes of furniture were delivered to our garage, we would have to move the boxes into the office ourselves - that they weren't allowed to move boxes of furniture. Keep in mind that we have 7 boxes of furniture - approximately 10 hours of assembly to be done. We also had plans for the evening. I was told since we wouldn't be available that evening, we would have to call on Monday to reschedule. On Monday I called the store manager at Office Depot and told them to come get their furniture. I explained the situation and was told they would get an Office Depot employee to come out and assemble our furniture, but we would have to wait until Thursday. Thursday morning two guys from Office Depot showed up. First they moved all the furniture into the office, and then told me that 2 of the boxes that had been delivered were not the right pieces. They proceeded to build the two bookcases and the lateral file. When they built the credenza base, two screws came through to the top of the desk, so that was unusable.

By this time I'm a wild woman. I was told that Friday they would return with an unblemished credenza base and the boxes to build the other credenza and hutch. This morning they arrived with a credenza base and hutch, but no boxes for the other unit. I got a call from Office Depot delivery service saying they will deliver the other boxes on Wednesday. There will still be assembly required. Hopefully, by Thanksgiving, our office will be furnished and organized again, but at this time, I'm not taking bets.

I still have my computer on a card table. It's been nearly a month. I don't think I'll ever allow myself to go into an Office Depot store. I'm sure my heart would stop beating out of fear.