Episode: 3613
Title: HPR3613: Man buys cheap Adirondack chair
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3613/hpr3613.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 02:10:59

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3613 for Wednesday the 8th of June 2022.
Today's show is entitled, Man Buys Cheap at a Rondack Chair.
It is hosted by DNT and is about 8 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is an anecdote about buying a cheap long chair and trying to get a part replaced.
Hi, this is DNT with another episode of Hacker Public Radio that nobody asked for.
Here I want to just tell you about something that happened in the past week or so that
sort of gave me pause and I think maybe it's interesting to just tell you what happened.
I purchased from one of the hardware stores here in the U.S. chair that's called an
Adirondack Chair.
It's a popular style of chair.
It's got like a, it kind of leans back a little bit.
It's pretty comfortable and according to the Wikipedia article on Adirondack Chairs,
it was popular in an area of New York State called Adirondack Mountains, I think, where
were some of those places where people would go to rehab from tuberculosis and one of
the things they liked about it was that the arms of this chair were such that it would
kind of help you open up your chest a little bit.
So I guess that means it's good for COVID times as well.
I ordered this unfinished Adirondack Chair and it was damaged, one piece of it was damaged.
So I used to work at this hardware store actually a couple of years ago and I remember that
when that happens, one of the things that we would often do is if a customer could just
bring back the one part that was missing and we might open another box in the store
and just get the one part they need so that they're on their way.
And then we would just put a sticker on this box with the damaged part that we put back
in or maybe we didn't, maybe we just threw the damaged part away.
And in the end, because this product came from what they call a private brand, which
just means a brand that's owned by the hardware store, that means the store would just get
credited for the damaged product.
So the whole product would just end up in the dumpster and the store wouldn't lose any
money with it because essentially it was its own money at the end of the day.
So hoping to avoid that, to avoid the whole product ending up in the bin, I called
them up, well actually in the box comes with a sheet of paper that asks you not to go
to the store and return the item if it's damaged to an instant, call this number.
You call this number and they say, oh yeah, sure, well the first thing they do is they
kind of suggest you instead take it to the store and I'm not sure why they do that, but
they say that you will get the issue resolved much faster if you just take it to the store
and get a replace there if there is stock at the store.
But there is the option also to contact the manufacturer and the manufacturer can send
you just the part that was damaged.
So I thought, well that sounds good, I would be willing to wait a little longer if this
whole thing just generates less waste.
So I took, they said seven to ten days before the manufacturer would send me the replacement
of the part and then okay, no problem I went on about my life and I kept getting emails
something like every two days and email came from the customer service person telling
me that oh you know they still haven't responded to my email to them then being the manufacturer
of the product.
So you know and kind of like nudging me to ask me if I want instead to just go to the
store and swap it out there and I just kept going like, well I mean they said seven
to ten days and I was kind of wanting to say, well do you want me to take it to the store
because if you do just say so.
And so anyway, in the end, yeah they sent me another email after I think it had been
one week since my first contact with them and saying again, oh they haven't responded.
I just want to check that you haven't returned it at the store and yet the whole time for
me the question is like well do you think they might never respond is this why you keep
pursuing this even though I already said that I wouldn't wait.
So then yeah I typed out a response saying like well you know we already knew from the
beginning that it was going to be faster to take it to the store so nothing's new with
that and I basically meant to ask look like if it's easier for you if I just go to the
store, sure just say so.
And then before I finished typing in I thought well you know what the damage is really
quite simple and I could probably just clamp the piece back together and just drill a
hole and put in a long dowel rod with some glue and it's probably going to be stronger
than ever would be otherwise.
And so I decided oh you know I'm just kind of I'm going to try to do that see how it
goes and if it goes well I'll just reply and say you know I forget it I fixed the part
just just let it go.
But then of course before that could happen I did get a response from the manufacturer
and then guess what the manufacturer is a company in Vietnam and they had put the part
in the mail with FedEx.
This one ridiculous piece of wood was being shipped from Vietnam to the United States
because the part that came in the box was split.
So am I crazy to think that this is pretty insane and it's probably absolutely normal
this is probably how it is every time you return something or need to get a replacement
part.
I guess yeah I just think I don't know something's very strange with all that really makes
you think whether you should buy this kind of thing like whether you whether anyone should
buy an 80 dollar Adirondack chair from one of these big hardware stores.
Anyway I just thought I could share this story and you know maybe it's not of interest
to hackers but I wonder what hackers might think about it.
So thanks for listening and tune in tomorrow for another episode of Hacker Public Radio.
Bye bye.
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