Cover...

Two Saturdays ago I went to the local truck accessory store and ordered a tonneau cover for the Tundra. It’s one of the flip models that still gives access to the bed without dragging the entire cover off the truck. At $900 installed the price wasn’t awful and the salesman doing the ordering said they could have it there on Tuesday. Not wanting to take a day off to do the installation, I scheduled the appointment for last Saturday, thinking that would allow plenty of flex time in case the parts were delayed in transit. And of course that’s where the plan went off the tracks.

I show up at 9:00 on Saturday for my appointment that should have taken about an hour to finish up. At 9:45 I see the truck back in the parking lot – without the cover. The sales guy comes over with that “yeah, we’ve got a problem” look on his face and tells me that the warehouse only shipped the box of hardware and not the cover itself. Strike 1. I’m annoyed by this point, but he promises that he’ll have them overnight ship it on Monday and they would be able to do the installation on Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday rolls by and at noon I call to make sure the second box has actually arrived. No way I’m driving halfway across town for no good reason again. This time, the story was that their truck from Texas had been stuck in the overnight ice storm, but that they were expecting it any minute. At 5:00 I called back and was told that they still hadn’t located the truck, but that they promised they could do the installation today at 1:00. Strike 2. I call back at noon today and ask about the missing truck and now get a story that my second box is actually on a truck in California and it probably won’t be in until next Monday. I’m steaming by this point and at times like this that it’s good telephones haven’t evolved the capability to let callers reach through the phone and bitch slap people on the other end. Explaining in as calm a way as possible that I was leaving on Saturday morning for the holiday and that I would just find a dealer in Maryland and have one waiting on me up there next week, I told them to just cancel the order and recommended hiring someone in their warehouse who knew something, or anything really, about warehouse or inventory management. Strike three and they’re outta there.

At 5:30 this evening, the store manager called back and really, really promised this time that they would have the item on Friday and could install it in the afternoon and that they’d knock $100 of the cover and $50 off the installation. They only thing I’m holding my breath for at this point is strike 4. Here’s a tip, don’t try to cry the blues about how hard it is to manage a warehouse in December to someone whose job description at one time included “Serves as a senior supply manager.” I’ve been doing it for almost six years and to be honest, logistics just ain’t that hard.