Pacesetter Story: The Unlockables
Ima Myself
go away. Most are good reads.
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The Unlockables
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Hi -
I don't mind if you include this on your site, but I would like to
withhold my name and e-mail address, because Pacesetter did something
nice for me and I'm pretty much reporting what I experienced. I don't
think it would be cool to rip on them after they helped me out.
I purchased a home a year ago, and recently the inside handle on the
kitchen storm door broke, leaving the door unlockable. I knew the
previous owners had bought a lot of stuff from Home Depot, so I went
there in search of a replacement. I found no doors at all for which
the handles looked remotely like mine. I even bought a completely new
handle kit, but the screwhole measurements didn't match up. Honestly,
I really wanted to replace the broken piece with the correct part, so
it would match the front storm door. Plus, these doors looked pretty
cool with the clear plexiglass handles (my outside handle was good,
and I didn't want to replace the entire assembly).
I examined the door very closely hoping to find the manufacturer's
name. I finally found a small sticker that said 'Pacesetter Corp.',
and got on the Internet to find the company. Funny enough, the first
link I came to was your site (and I thank you for pre-educating me....
I needed it).
I then went to the main Pacesetter home page, and could find no
central contact info (or customer service number, as I was hoping
for). If you wanted to contact the company, it all seemed geared
towards generating a sales lead, with a form to fill out. I wasn't
about to do that. I was pleased, though, to find a .JPG image of my
exact storm door in the site, so I knew I was on the right track.
I found that they had a local outfit here, and called them the next
day. The lady was very nice, and was able to pull up my address which
was on file for the work they had done for the previous owner. She
told me she'd send me the part free of charge, although I offered in
fairness to pay (after all, it wasn't me who had originally bought the
doors). Her response about charging me for the replacement part was,
"They never do" -- I thought this was cool and generous.
Unfortunately, almost 60 days passed and I didn't see the new handle
arrive in the mail. I called again this morning, and I think I talked
to the same woman. She pulled up some notes to show that the order
had been placed, and should have shipped. She said she would resubmit
it, but then mentioned that they stock the part locally if I wished to
drop by to pick it up. I jumped at that, and got directions to their
office.
She mentioned that they were hard to spot, and she was right. They
were kind of buried back in a warehouse-office complex, and had no
distinguishing sign. I noticed a Pacesetter truck outside and knew I
had the right place. Inside, the office was very interesting. There
was no sign of a receptionist or secretary in sight (and I never saw
the woman I talked to -- it was obviously NOT a retail storefront. I
was instantly reminded of my favorite movie of all time, "Glengarry,
Glen Ross". The tables were meeting hall-style foldouts, with metal
folding chairs. The wall decor SCREAMED 'high-pressure sales' -- tons
of posters and charts of salesmens' monthly figures, including one
that was like a dartboard, with one salesman hitting the bullseye!
One of the marker boards had a note with instructions to quit
contacting a particular individual -- who knows if this was because
the lead was a 'deadbeat', or if maybe they had threatened to sue?
With only one person mentioned, I figure it must have been some
extreme case, or else they wouldn't care.
Thru a window to an adjacent office, I noticed a slick-looking guy in
heavy conversation with an individual -- couldn't tell if it was a
staffer or a sales lead. He didn't acknowledge my presense, and I
didn't want to knock on the door to interrupt. About a minute later,
two guys in casual dress clothes came in the door, looking like they
had just come out of the field. I figured they were sales guys.
Thanks to your site (and the atmosphere of the place), I was very much
on guard mentally.... haha. One of them immediately shook my hand and
asked my name. Now you know the difference when you meet an average
person and shake their hand, and when you meet a ravinous wolf and
shake their hand..... haha. I knew I was being sized up immediately.
I was nice, and mentioned that I was there to pick up a part for the
storm door. One of the guys said he'd check on it and disappeared
into another room. The second guy cranked back in a chair and started
pitching me, asking about the home, what I had and didn't have. I
still was nice and told him that the previous owner had done it all,
and that I wasn't budgeting anything towards home improvement in the
coming year.
Finally, the slick-looking guy I had seen in the office came out with
a box with my parts (I had figured him as a manager or something). He
asked my name, shook my hand, and showed me the complete door handle
assembly. I identified the broken piece, but he handed me the entire
box. I offered again to pay, but he declined and thanked me for
stopping by. I tell ya -- with three of those guys standing around
me, it reminded me EXACTLY of that scene in "Predator 2" where Danny
Glover is in the alien ship at the end, and all these predators come
out with their boss and surround him. You think they are just about
to kill him when the leader predator offers Glover an antique
flintlock pistol as a token of respect and lets him leave the ship. :
) I got home, repaired the door, and am most pleased.
I'll close this by saying again that my intention is not to rip on
Pacesetter here, because I really feel they did me a favor which may
have saved me the cost of a whole new storm door. I had not heard of
Pacesetter before researching the door or finding your site, so this
was my first experience. I do want to say that the environment I saw
at their office brought a chill to my spine and made me thank God that
I'm in a profession where I struggle to keep up with the needs of my
clients (instead of the reverse). When I was in my late teens, I got
sucked into a 'fast-paced' sales position for a local gym chain that I
quit after 2 days, when I saw the 'bait' followed by the unscrupulous
high-pressure tactics they were using to reel in memberships. You
simply have to give up any semblance of conscience or morals to harden
yourself to screwing people on a daily basis for a living, and I got
the impression that the sales staff as Pacesetter were living under
that kind of environment. God bless them.
Thanks for the ear, and I wish you the best.
Editor's note: This post has only been altered from the original
version to remove the sender's name and e-mail. Spelling and grammar
have not been corrected.