Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Why I hate Kirby salespeople


When I was in 5th grade, my mom and stepfather at the time bought a house. We lived in that house for 15 or so years. In that time period, we had a neighbor move in and we became really good friends with that neighbor. Then in early 1998 my mom sold the house, and everyone moved out. I remained friends with the next door neighbor, and I am now living in that house. (next door to where I grew up) Our friends are still the owners, so my landlord is a really good friend of mine. I love the fact that we are such good friends, but sometimes that good friendship can be annoying.

Sometime on Monday the Kirby vacuum people called my landlords house to set up a demonstration to see if they could sell her one of their vacuums. So she says sure, come on out. Well they get out and want to clean her carpet. The problem is that in 90% of her house there is no carpet. Its all ceramic tile or hardwood floors. So she says well you can go to our rental house and clean a room there. Doesn't call me to ask if I am interested or anything like that. She just sets up an appointment for 6:30pm for them to come and give ME a demonstration. Well around 3:30ish she calls me and tells me that she has someone coming by the house around 6:30pm to come and clean the living room capret upstairs. So I need to move the couch and get everything out of the living room. (ok remember now I am 4 days out from having a baby) Thank God the only thing in the upstairs living room is the couch, otherwise I would not have moved anything. She didn't tell me that they were there to give me a demonstration of the vacuum or anything else, just that they were going to clean my carpet.

So 6:30pm the guys show up, and he starts his demonstration. Scarlett (my landlord) doesn't come up to watch the demo, I get to do that. Well part of the stupid demonstration is participating in cleaning. I got to vacuum my ceiling fans, vacuum the carpet for a bit, vacuum my couch (they wanted to vacuum the matress, but I was NOT taking them to my bedroom, or any of the kids bedrooms either) and other misc. things. at 7:00pm it was time to start putting the little ones to bed, yet for some reason none of them wanted to go to bed. Could it be the strange man in my living room with the neat silver shiny thing that makes tons of bubbles (oh thank you so much Hudson for showing that to my kids - and showing them that they can pick up the bubbles and rub it all over them and what not because it is a safe product. I finally got Mickey, Isa and Lana to bed, now I just had Andre, Jordan and Johan. Johan was well behaved and sat right beside me on the couch watching the guy work. Andre and Jordan would not calm down. Jordan did her chores, then sat on the steps enthralled by all the things this stupid vacuum can do.

(did you know it comes with a leaf bloweer attachment, a pipe cleaner/blower thing in case your sink gets stopped up you can blow that clog right on out of there. It also has a bulletproof motor that if you accidently suck up a dime or other coin, it wont hurt the motor, it will actually just get bent in half? He showed us - which if he was smart he would have known you dont show something like that to kids like Andre, because that is the quickest way to not make a sale. Because if we bought the stupid vacuum he would go around blowing the pipes, and bending change)

Andre on the otherhand was like a kid in the candy store. He couldn't sit still. He was all over the place asking questions and just really getting on my nerves.

It was now 8:30pm and guess what, this guy is still here. I now want to send the older two to their rooms for bed and I wanted to go downstairs to my room to just veg and get ready for bed. I also had some tv shows on TiVo that were calling my name. He has yet to start cleaning the carpet too.

Now its 10:00pm and HE IS STILL HERE. And my kids - THEY ARE STILL UP. Jordan NEEDS her 11+ hours of sleep otherwise she becomes the evil devil child in her attitude. I kept sending them to bed, and they kept making their way out. We had company, so I really couldn't threaten them like I wanted to, LOL. It was about this time though that he gave me the price sheet. Do you know how much these stupid vacuums cost? $1684.00 PLUS TAX. That is over $1700 for a freaking vacuum. Who spends that much money on a vacuum? I mean I understand they are neat vacuums, and they may last a long time, I don't know. I understand they get crap up off the floor that other vacuums don't. But really my $45 vacuum from walmart gets the big stuff off the floor, and my floor *looks* clean. Isn't that all that really matters? If you can't see whats in/on the carpet who cares. If I vacuum and you come over, it looks like my carpet is clean. And really, its all about the appearances now a days isn't it?

I felt bad for the guy, as he did all of this, and I am not buying one. I never intended to buy one, and if they had called me to set up an appointment I would not have agreed for that reason. Let him find someone who really is interested. Plus I am moving to Honduras in 8 months. I don't need a $1700 vacuum to vacuum up a cement floor which I can SWEEP. ($1700 comes to L32,130.00. Can you imagine spending 32,130.00 Lempiras - the honduran money - on a freaking vacuum? That is almost what my wedding rings cost.)

It wasn't until 11:00pm that the guy finally left. I was so tired and so irritated and Andre and Jordan were still up. I could have smacked everyone, LOL. Plus my living room floor was nice and clean, but then you could see a line going into my dining room and hallway where he stopped, so that is always nice too.

4 comments:

MadMad said...

Whoa! That must be some vacuum!!! Now, if it just made dinner, too...

CancunCanuck said...

Oh man! He could have at least finished the job, lol! I wonder how many he actually sells?? That is INSANE. Any idea what $1700 USD could buy me here in Mexico??? I could get a CAR. A lovely, old, VW Beetle runs exactly that price.

Karen said...

I feel your pain. We had a water softener salesman here yesterday. His piece of equipment cost $5400. (Okay that didn't sound good.) And on the phone he said it would 45 minutes. Three hours later he packed up. I. Hate. Salespeople.

So did I mention that if you place an order from The Rocking Pony now...

Just kidding!

It was a bit rude of your friendlord to do that to you. She should have at least showed up for the event and freed up your time. And given you enough notice to clean up. It isn't like you dont' have 7 kids or anything.

Heather said...

4 days post birth??? and your landlord still set it up? she is a sucker and you had to pay, but i was crying of laughter of the thought of andre blowing up all you pipes, lol!