I have had several situations occur recently that have wasted my time and money. All of these have occurred with me as a customer. Customer service has long been a passion of mine, so as a customer concerned about my time and money being wasted, I implore us to refuse to accept poor service.

The first situation occurred with the purchase of a new refrigerator and ice maker for our beach rental condo. Our nine-year-old refrigerator and ice maker died at the end of August. (We could discuss why an appliance would not last more than nine years, but that can be the subject of another blog.)

I purchased a new refrigerator and ice maker August 31st and it was delivered a couple of days later. The ice maker was defective. The store offered to replace the ice maker and refrigerator, and scheduled the delivery. Since we do not live in the area, we had to make a special trip to accept the delivery, which wasted our time and money. The delivery was scheduled for September 15th.

We have thirty days from the order date to purchase an extended warranty. Although I am not a fan of extended warranties, since our previous refrigerator only lasted nine years, we may purchase the extended warranty. It occurred to me that we only have about fifteen days from the delivery of the (hopefully) working appliance, not thirty, to purchase the extended warranty. Since the first fifteen days of this time period were “used up” by replacing the defective appliance,and since this was outside of our control, it seemed that the order date could be adjusted by the store.

I called the corporate office of the appliance, and spent twenty minutes of my time trying to have this problem rectified in our favor. All that did was waste more of our time (and since time is money, our money) since the answer was “no.” So, the customer is at the disadvantage.

Another situation occurred when I went shopping on Saturday for a few items that I needed. Unfortunately, many other people also went shopping on Saturday. When I finished locating my items, I went to checkout. At least half of the checkout registers were not staffed, and the checkout line wrapped around the store twice. So, my time was wasted waiting in a very long line. I can hear you thinking that the store cannot find enough people that want to work. I consider this management’s problem. Managers need to find creative ways to entice people who need jobs to want to work in their stores. Not doing so is wasting the time (and money) of customers. This is a similar problem to that of the restaurant that half of its tables “closed” to customers because they do not have enough servers. Again, management’s problem. Why should customers have to wait thirty minutes or more to be seated and served, wasting their time, because the restaurant is understaffed?

I did not name the places of business in these situations, since these problems occur in many places of business. My purpose is not to give negative information about particular stores. I am asking customers to refuse to accept poor service, especially poor service that wastes our time and money.

My fifty-seven year friend Judy was wise beyond her years. I remember her saying many years ago, “Waste my food, waste my money, but do not waste my time.” For time is a non-renewable resource. Once lost, time cannot be replaced. If we need more money and we have more time, we can make more money. But once lost, time cannot be replaced.

Think about how often our time and money is wasted, and the real cost of that. Refuse to accept it. Let’s give our time and money to businesses that deserve it.