Last week I had the pleasure of taking a sort of miniature vacation.  I wish my schedule had been a little less hectic this summer so I could have gone with my brother to the UK and continental Europe; however, instead I could only spare a few days and chose to spend them doing what I rarely ever anymore--play computer games.

A number of my crew from ONEsite headed down to Dallas to attend the annual QuakeCon computer gaming convention.  Some of our group have been attending for years and year, but this was my first year.  It's been quite some time since I've been a hardcore gamer.  I played an awful lot of games in high school, but even though my free time ramped up considerably in college I found myself playing less and less.  Furthermore, I had developed a gaming website and slaving away on it took away a lot of the enjoyment I had for playing games.

Anyway, QuakeCon was a terrific experience.  I would definitely go back--especially once Starcraft is released.  We found ourselves playing a lot of the old Starcraft.  We arrived Wednesday night and stayed through Sunday.  I took my Macbook and it performed exceptionally well.  Windows runs incredibly fast on it when using BootCamp.  We primarily played games which were 5 to 10 years old.  They just don't make them like they used to!

Here's a shot of the Bring Your Own Computer room.  You can't see our group in this shot, but Thad's blog has a photo where you can see my back and Josh's forehead.  The room is much more impressive with the lights off.

After Sanjaya told Simon Cowell to sing "Shining" Happy People and not Shiny Happy People I performed a search to see how many people have made the same mistake.  I am glad I did because I found this terrific movie clip.  The Shining, Kubrick's classic suspense/horror film has been turned into the trailer for an inspirational comedy called Shining.  Simply phenomenous.

Well, nearly two weeks ago I bought several pieces of office furniture from Office Depot. Fortunately I am a patient person, because the overall experience has been horrible.

I went to the store on a Saturday and found a desk, file cabinet, hutch and bookshelf which I quite liked. Each piece had multiple tickets indicating it was in stock. I took one slip for each piece and went to the front of the store and then waited twenty minutes for a stock clerk to check on the availability in the back. Whoops, it turns out they don't have any in the store after all! No problem, surely they have the pieces in another store nearby... or so you'd think.

After the clerk tells me that no nearby stores have the pieces (I don't believe she even actually checked) I am offered the chance to buy the pieces online and have them shipped to me. At this point I've moved from the checkout counter to the customer support counter and the manager places the online order for me. For some strange reason this takes another 20 minutes... fortunately the delivery fee was a very reasonable $20, which I considered to be a bargain considering I was buying ~$1000 in furniture.

I then have the manager check on arranging the free assembly which was a special of the day. By the time he's finished I have easily been in the store for over an hour, even though I had decided what pieces to buy in the first 5 minutes.

Finally everything is taken care of and my furniture is due to arrive on Thursday and be assembled the following Monday.

Thursday comes and goes with no word from Office Depot. Friday passes by as well. I decide to call the 1-888 number on Saturday to check on the status of my order. The friendly automated robot tells me that my order is currently 'Processing' and is due to arrive at my house on Friday, March 2nd (this was Saturday the 3rd when I called).

The robot asks if I need anything else and I ask to speak to a customer service representative. I am patched through, only to hear a recording saying that "No representatives are currently available due to Office Depot being closed for the holiday. Office Depot will reopen on Tuesday." I found this message quite strange considering there was no Holiday that weekend--unless the Jewish holiday of Purim counts. Perhaps the message was left over from President's Day a few weekends previously. Either way, it was just one indicator of how inept Office Depot is.

I call my local store and the nice representative asks if I have called the national number. I kindly explain to her the Purim situation and she patches me through to her manager. He proceeds to spend 10 minutes or so checking on my order and notes that supposedly my order has been placed on a carrier, but he was unsure of what carrier and could not locate a tracking code or update. He states that he's exhausted the limits of powers and will file a form to escalate the situation to the Office Depot escalation team. I am promised a call within 24 hours.

No one calls on Sunday...

On Monday the assembly crew arrives at my house and I inform them that the order was never delivered. Hey Office Depot, I hope you still got charged for that assembly crew. Maybe that'll teach you to manage your supply chain and keep contract workers abreast of deliveries not being completed before they arrive to assemble furniture.

On Tuesday morning I call the 1-888 number and the automated system informs me that the order is still due to arrive on Friday the 2nd. I again ask for a CSR and this time speak to a real human. The human was very nice and informed me that they could not locate my order but would escalate the ticket and I would get a follow up call that morning. I don't get any calls from Office Depot that day.

On Thursday evening I decide to call Office Depot again. My order is still due to arrive on the 2nd. The new representative is a little more clued in to the problem. She states that there was an availability problem in the warehouse and she is rescheduling my delivery for Wednesday the 14th.

I protest to her about how poorly Office Depot has been treating me. She offers me a $25 discount for consolation. I protest again, especially at the measly $25, and ask if there is a manager I can speak to. She says that $30 is the highest she can go. I resign myself to the $30 discount and the nearly two week delay in delivery and annoyance of rescheduling the assembly. I'm too nice.

I am considering canceling my order just to show Office Depot that they can't treat customers like this.