Why I'll never shop at Home Depot again

It was supposed to be simple, really. Replace an old shower door with a shiny new one. They sell shiny new doors at Home Depot, so off I went to check this little task off my to-do list. What followed was anything but an assurance of the competence of the Home Depot customer service department.

July 12
I arrived at Home Depot armed with exact measurements for my shower and ready to purchase a custom-order shower door. I found the one I wanted, a frameless pivot shower door by Kohler. "This will look great in our bathroom," I thought to myself.
After locating a Home Depot staffer to help me complete my custom order, I asked what I assumed was a fairly straightforward question (this would prove to be an incorrect assumption upon numerous occasions in the weeks that followed): "How much is this door?"

Incompetent salesperson: "Well, let's see. The book here says it'll be between $226 and $484."
Me: (dumbfounded) "That's an awfully big window. Can you tell me how much it will be for a door that fits these measurements?"
Incompetent salesperson: (looking at my measurements) "Well, let's see. The book here says it'll be between $226 and $484."
Me: (wondering if I'm talking to a robot) "Ok...well can you tell me how long it will take for me to receive the shipment?"
Incompetent salesperson: "Well, let's see. The book here says it'll be about 12 days...but it usually takes 3-6 weeks."
Me: (wondering if I'm being filmed for an upcoming episode of America's Funniest Home Videos) "Can we narrow that down a little and find out exactly how long it will take to ship to my house from your warehouse?"
Incompetent salesperson: (surprisingly satisfied by his stupid answer) "Oh, sure. Just as soon as you place the order, we can tell you how much the total is and when it will arrive."
Me: "So you want me to give you my credit card number, place the order, and then you'll tell me how much I was charged and when it will arrive?"
Incompetent salesperson: (failing to see the irony) "Uh-huh."
Me: (really wanting to help him understand) "If you purchased a new car, and you asked how much it would be and when you could have it, and they told you it would cost between $15,000 and $30,000, and you could have it in 3-6 weeks, and that they would give you more exact figures after you paid for it, would you be okay with that?"
Incompetent salesperson: (blind to my illustration, and chuckling) "Well, no..."
Me: (leaving) "Nevermind. I'll just order it online."

July 13
Placed online order, scheduled to arrive at my house by July 20.

July 17
Happily surprised to find my lovely, frameless pivot shower door has arrived.

July 22
After recruiting some help from our friends Brian and Mandy, Justin and Brian begin installation of our lovely new shower door. They are stopped short at step two, however, when they find the left door jamb is warped. With door pieces scattered across the bedroom floor and only the right door jamb put in place, installation screeches to a halt, and I call Home Depot to remedy the situation.
After spending approximately 30 minutes on the phone with the customer no-service representative, who assures me that it will take 3-4 weeks to ship a replacement part, I make my fourth and final plea to speak to a supervisor. The customer no-service representative, having had it with my demands, happily and finally transfers me to a very chipper supervisor.
"No problem," says the over-eager supervisor after I explain my situation and insist that the part be expedited to me so that I can complete the installation. "We'll go ahead and get that in the system and you'll have that part by Thursday."

July 23-26
Called Home Depot daily to get a tracking number so that I'd know when my new door jamb would arrive. Promised, four times by four different customer no-service people, that someone would call me back with that information. Thursday came and went. No call. No door jamb.
I'm mad.

July 27
No call. No door jamb.

July 28
Call, again, to check the status of my order, which was supposed to arrive two days ago. The department that could give me that answer, of course, does not work on Saturdays. Can I call back Monday?
No, I cannot, I tell the seventh customer no-service representative I've spoken to in six days. I insist on being transferred to a supervisor.
Supervisors, I learn, are heavily guarded by the phone monkeys that answer my calls. After repeatedly being put on hold, I'm told that a supervisor named Natasha is working on my order and will call me back with a tracking number by the end of the day.
The end of the day arrives. No call. No door jamb.

July 30
At 10:30 a.m., I call again to check the status of my order. I'm told, again, that Natasha is trying to locate a tracking number for me and will call me back. I express my sincere disbelief that anyone will call me back to the customer no-service representative on the other end of the line. She promises I will receive a call by this afternoon.
At 2:30, I call back. Representative #9 tells me no, I cannot speak to Natasha. She's actually on the phone right now with the warehouse trying to get information about my shipment. I refuse to hang up until I get some concrete information. This does not make #9 happy. I'm placed on hold, where I proceed to sing along with the hold music that I now have memorized. When #9 returns, she tells me that Natasha was able to find out that my door jamb shipped via UPS on Friday (it was supposed to arrive Thursday, I remind her!) and that it's going to be a while before she can get me the tracking number because the warehouse is trying to locate it. No, I cannot talk to someone at the warehouse directly, #9 assures me, but I really should let Natasha call me back. After some assurance (which, from Home Depot, is really no assurance at all) that I would receive a call back by 10 p.m., I begrudgingly hang up.
10 p.m. arrives. No call. No door jamb. I call back and am told again that the note on my account says the part shipped via UPS on Friday and I should have it by Thursday (a week after I was originally told it would arrive!). I wonder aloud to customer no-service representative #10 why they know when it shipped and when it will arrive but cannot give me a tracking number. #10 doesn't know, but tells me someone will call me tomorrow.
Sure they will.

July 31
Call Home Depot Direct and am connected with the eleventh customer no-service representative I've talked to in 10 days. #11 doesn't know why Natasha didn't call me back like she said she would, but reminds me that my records show that the part I'm waiting for shipped via UPS on Friday and should arrive by Thursday. After communicating my extreme displeasure with how this situation has been handled, and pointing out to #11 that eight people have told me I'd receive a call back and that has yet to happen, I decide I have wasted enough time with Home Depot, and since UPS is trustworthy and they have my shipment, I'll just wait it out.

August 1
New doubts have arisen since yesterday and I'm beginning to wonder if we'll ever use the shower in our master bathroom again. To alleviate my fears, I call Home Depot again, sure that they'll have a tracking number for me by now so I can see for myself that this part is on it's way. Customer no-service representative #12 confirms that I am being shipped one door jamb, weighing approximately 2 pounds, and it is scheduled to arrive via UPS on Thursday. Still, I am perplexed that they can have all this information, and no tracking number. But I have better things to do than listen to this same awful hold music anymore. I don't know #12 personally, but she sounds nice enough, so I take her word for it and hang up, anticipating the arrival of the part that will complete our shower door installation tomorrow.

August 2
Delivery day is here! After spending most of the day out of the house, I return at around 4 p.m. and am excited to pull into my neighborhood behind--can you believe it!?--a UPS delivery truck! My excitement crumbles as the truck speeds past my driveway and on to another house where some other homeowner is surely receiving their package on time.
Within minutes, I find myself on the phone with customer no-service representative #13. I am determined to get to the bottom of this.
#13 pulls up my order and happily tells me that the package is at the local Estes facility and is scheduled to arrive at my house tomorrow morning.
"Estes!" I exclaim. "I was told this part had shipped via UPS last Friday."
"No, ma'am," replies #13. "I'm showing here that it shipped via Estes from the warehouse yesterday, it just arrived at the local Estes location in Kennesaw, and it's scheduled to be delivered to your house tomorrow morning."
I insist on being transferred to a supervisor. #13 complies, and I am put on hold. When the supervisor picks up, she is at a loss to explain (a) why I was told my shipment would be expedited and that I would receive it a week ago when it didn't ship until yesterday, (b) why I was told it shipped via UPS on Friday and it actually shipped yesterday via Estes, or (c) why I was told eight times that someone would call me back and no one did.
Meanwhile, I am looking at a map online that shows me the local Estes facility is less that a mile from my house. I get a tracking number from the supervisor and look it up while she's on the phone with me. The error message on Estes' website tells me that no such order number exists. The supervisor, whom I have insisted remain on the line until I track this package myself, puts me on hold and calls the warehouse that shipped my part. When she returns, I am given a new tracking number, one that works this time, and I confirm that, indeed, my door jamb is sitting at the local Estes facility, less that five minutes away.
I bid farewell to Home Depot and call Estes. Can I come pick up a package at their location that I was told just arrived there? I am told I most certainly can. I give them the new working tracking number from Home Depot and they promise to pull it off the truck and have it waiting for me.
When I arrive at Estes just minutes later, I'm told to pull around to the dock where a truck will unload my package. "Truck?" I wonder. "It's just a little 2-pound package. Why do they need a truck?"
My question would soon be answered. What drives up to my Blazer is not a door jamb, but a whole new frameless pivot shower door. The whole thing. Not a replacement part. A whole 50 pound door. And Estes can't release it to me, because though the shipping addresses match, the tracking number on this package does not match the tracking number on their shipping invoice. This is quickly resolved as I show them the initial tracking number I was given, which does match the one on the shower door.
In total disbelief that after all this, I still received the wrong package, I open the bottom of the box and notice that, because they sent a whole door assembly, there is a new door jamb in this package as well. Since that's the part I need, I sign for my package, load it up, and bring it home.
Less that two hours later, the door jamb from the new shipment has been put in place and my new shower door is fully assembled. The old door jamb is loaded back into the box with the new door that I just picked up from Estes, a package that neither Home Depot nor Estes have any record of.

August 3
I return to Estes and explain to them that the tracking numbers on the shipping invoice and the package don't match, that Home Depot was supposed to ship a door jamb and instead shipped a whole door, that I got the part I needed and put the old part back in the box, and that I want to refuse shipment and send this door back to Home Depot. They laugh, apparently familiar with Home Depot's antics, and tell me that I would be surprised how often stuff like this happens. (After two weeks and more than ten phone calls, I don't think I would.) The kind dock supervisor at Estes unloads my duplicate shower door, and I drive away, happy to be done.
After calling Justin to explain that the shower door saga has come to a close, I return home to log an account of this debacle in order to discourage everyone I know from ever ordering anything from Home Depot again.
But I was interrupted, just moments ago, when a truck pulled up in my driveway. Not a UPS truck, not an Estes truck...this was a shipping company I've never heard of. And what were they delivering, you ask?
A frameless pivot shower door, direct from the Kohler warehouse.
I refused shipment. But now I wonder if maybe I'm caught in the twilight zone. If I leave the house, will I arrive back home to find piles of frameless pivot shower doors stacked at my front door? I'd like to point out, as well, that Home Depot still hasn't called me like they said they would. And I still haven't received the 2-pound package containing my new door jamb.
Welcome to my one-woman boycott.