At the crack of dawn on black Friday I went to Office Depot to pickup a deeply discounted HP computer system. I got in line at the “technology” counter and waited and waited and waited. Finally it was my turn to find out that I was in the wrong line. Luckily, the smiling informative face turned out to be the store manager. He walked me over to the proper line that was now snaked around the display shelves in a very odd shape*. He must have taken pity on me because he then walked me over to another terminal and proceeded to enter the order himself. It turns out they don’t actually carry the computer in the store but rather it has to be custom-built by HP. He made sure I had all the rebate forms (at least 10) and then we went over to the copy center counter where another very helpful person rang me up. Other than initially getting into the wrong line I had a pleasant shopping experience. Unfortunately that didn’t last…

I got a phone call a from a friend a few hours later. He had been over at Wally-Mart for five hours to get the $300 laptop deal. He was furious when he found out that the store only had 30 units and they had already passed the claim slips out to the first 30 people in line before the sale even started. He complained to no avail at the unhappy face in the Santa hat that they could have at least let everyone in line know that they had already unloaded all the laptops. Getting no satisfaction he headed over to another Office Depot to pick up the same computer system I did. He also had a pleasant shopping experience but didn’t actually purchase the system. He discovered that there was a hidden $99 shipping fee. He called me to make sure that I knew about the shipping.

I looked at all my receipts, rebates and system descriptions and sure enough it listed in small print that shipping was $99. That and all the rebates convinced me that I could get a better system without all the stinking rebates and hidden fees. So I headed back to Office Depot to get a refund. The smiling face soon turned upside down. I was informed that while they can place the order they can’t canceled the order. I asked to speak to the manager. He was no where to be found. They directed me to their technology guy and he took about 45 minutes poking around on HP’s web site to find where he could cancel the order. The cashier credited my credit card and after about 1.5 hours I finally had satisfaction. So I thought…

When I got home I confirmed that my credit card was indeed credited with the proper amount (it was). A couple of days later I received an email from Office Depot that my order was canceled. Good! Then about a week later I got a second email from Office Depot that my order was being filled! Not Good! I called their 1-800 number to see what was going on. The no-customer service representative was angry at me for asking him why they are filling a canceled order. He verified the status was canceled and had no explanation but was sure that it was my fault. I informed him that as far as I was concerned the deal was done and that there was no order. He said that he would get back with me if there anything I needed to do. Last Saturday night about 9:30 the FedEx guy shows up with a box! Office Depot had sent me the DeskJet printer from the order. I jumped on their web site and confirmed that the order still was canceled and then confirmed that they hadn’t charge my credit card. Now I am waiting to see if any other boxes show up. So what do I do with the DeskJet? I don’t want to take it to the store and start another mess of tracking the printer and I don’t want to pay the shipping to ship it back to Office Depot.

*The shape of the winding line of customers had struck odd. It immediately took me back a few years to a queuing theory course. Part of the course covered when there was a high demand for a limited resource and the queue's shape on performance. I’ll have to dig my old textbook out and refresh my memory. I remember the queues being straight or winding back and forth like at Disneyland. These people had formed a strange hybrid of the two with no apparent reason for changing the shape of the queue.