Satisfaction (Almost)

While we’ve been waiting for our mattress mix up to be straightened out with the mattress company, we’ve been busy working at the J. Strom Thurmond COE. 

We spent two days driving almost 200 miles inspecting the “Steel Rangers”, the self service pay vaults at many of the unmanned facilities located all around the lake.

We inspected the stickers on the vaults and also ascertained that there were pay envelopes located in the envelope dispenser slots.  Some of the stickers are worn or damaged, plus many had tape reside on them needing to be cleaned off.

Not a big thing, just a little issue, but taking care of these small items keeps the COE parks, boat ramps and day use areas in tip-top shape.

Yesterday, I called the mattress company again.  I informed the representative that I stopped payment on my credit card.  I was then told to expect a call from a supervisor.  Lo and behold, a couple of hours later, I did get a call!  :cO

I again explained the issue and this gentleman not only apologized repeatedly, but wanted to fix the problem immediately.  He offered  to overnight the correct size mattress and to send an upgraded, more expensive one at no additional charge.

The icing on the cake was he would include two special foam pillows too, as a further apology.  Marti and I wondered if he would be true to his word.

At 4:30 this afternoon, the FedEx truck pulled up with a large box containing the new mattress.

 

It was much larger than the previous mattress box, as was the rolled up mattress.

Cutting open the roll, the mattress folded out and began to inflate.  Funny to watch.

It is the right size and much thicker than what we originally ordered.  I’m  thinking it will be a real good night’s sleep for a change.  Won’t miss that Sleep(less) Number bed at all.  ;c)

As to the wrong mattress, I’ll be taking it to Goodwill tomorrow to donate it, and get a receipt for it.  All I have to do is snap a picture of the receipt and email it to the mattress company.

The almost?  No apology pillows were in the box.  Maybe they are coming separately, but that isn’t much of a worry for me.

That pretty much wraps up that issue, now we’re looking at our last week of workamping.  Plus, there’s much to do to get ready to roll.  After being stationary for six months, we have lots of things to pack up and remember where we carry them.

I have an appointment next Friday to have four new tires put on the rear of the Journey, the tires are aged out, they are more than 7 years old and the sidewalls are starting to show cracks.  (I replaced the two front tires just before we hit the road in 2011).  Don’t want to have a blowout on the road.  (Our next door neighbor had a rear tire blow out on his motorhome and it did $20,000 worth of damage).

An oil change on the generator and a good overall wash will be done, too.  Once we’re rolling, I’m going to stop at a Speedco shop and get the CAT diesel engine oil and filters changed.

We’re not looking forward to getting back on the road (too much)!

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The Ball Is In Their Court

The mattress saga continues.  With no resolution, let alone satisfaction, in sight.

Since Mattress Insider sent us the wrong mattress, a short queen instead of the full size queen we ordered (and verified three times with them that we we ordered a full size queen before the order was placed), we have not heard back from them on how they were going to correct their mistake.

I called their customer service line three times, talked with representatives who all promised to call me back with a solution (none ever did), so I took matters into my own hands.

I contacted my credit card company, explained the problem and had them reverse the price I paid for the mattress.  Now we’re waiting to see if we hear from Mattress Insider.

We’ve decided to use the mattress, the company promised a 100 day return policy if we’re not satisfied (that’s an understatement).  I used a couple of foam pieces from our old Sleep(less) Number mattress to wedge the too short mattress in place.  It’s better than setting up and putting away our pull out couch every day.

We have only a short time left on our workamping job before we need to head out to Missouri on 1 April.  Hopefully, something will be resolved by then.

Plan B (you know I always have one waiting in the wings) is to order a new mattress from a different company, one I should have chosen in the first place.  I chose Mattress Insider over the other company because its factory is in South Carolina vs. California for the other company. 

It will be interesting to see how this all works out.  At least right now, we’re sleeping on a free mattress.  :c)

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Always On A Saturday

We’ve had quite a busy week here at our workamping job at J. Strom Thurmond Lake COE.  We enjoyed every minute of it and probably will miss the work when we leave here in about two weeks.  The experience has been wonderful and we look forward to coming back for another three months in October.  Remember, there are about five million boundary line pins out there and we’ve only found about 300.  ;c)

With all the tasks we’ve been involved with, we’ve had little time to do any work on the Journey.  One item we’ve put off for way too long was replacing our lousy Sleep(less) Number mattress with a good, conventional one.

The problem we’ve had is the middle of the mattress dips down and you are constantly rolling towards it all night long.  No matter what inflation number we’d set it at, it was just uncomfortable.  Many mornings, I’d wake up with a very sore back, not what you want when you already have a bad back like me, and this mattress touts how good it is for folks with a condition like mine.

Opening up the Sleep(less) Number mattress, you can see the two individual air chambers and the gap in the middle.  Nothing we tried helped and a call to their customer service said to just keep the mattress fully inflated to the highest number.  That defeated the whole purpose of the mattress and if I wanted to sleep on something that firm, I’d just lay on the floor.

 

After much research and good recommendations, I decided to order a mattress from Mattress Insider.  I followed the website instructions, carefully measured my mattress and determined it was a full size 60” x 80” queen.

I ordered the mattress online.  Shortly after the order was placed, I received an email asking me to double check my measurements to ensure I wanted a 60” x 80” full size queen.  I did and responded to the email that was correct.

A day later, I received a phone call from a customer service rep following up my measurements, triple checking that it was the right size I wanted.  Yep.  Pretty impressive.

The mattress came in a big box, weighing about 70 lbs..

Opening the box revealed the rolled up mattress.

Before I could unroll it, I had to remove the Sleep(less) Number mattress and dig out the air pump mechanism from under a cabinet next to the bed.

Much better, empty space and about 30 lbs. of useless weight gone.

Next, we placed the mattress on the bed foundation and started cutting open the packing tape holding it closed.

Once it was freed from the packaging, we rolled it out and it began to inflate to full size.

Pretty impressive, until something didn’t look right.  It appeared to be a little short.  My tape measure proved it.

After all the checking, rechecking and checking again, the company sent me a Short Queen, 60” x 75”!

I called the customer service number, they asked me to email them pictures of the mattress with the tape measure showing the size, which we did.  I was then told that I’d have to wait until Monday when all the managers were back to work to see what they will do.

For one thing, I can’t deflate and re-roll the mattress to send it back, plus I wonder how long it will take to have them ship me the correct one?  This is going to be interesting.  The Sleep(less) Number bed is already in the dumpster so I guess we’ll be sleeping on our pull out couch for a while until the right mattress comes.

Always on a Saturday.  You’d think I’d learn.  We’ve already decided that when we travel, we won’t travel on weekends, not only to avoid traffic, but if we ever need help, say something like a flat repaired, we’ll have a better chance getting fast service on a week day. 

Now I think I’d better do maintenance and upgrades to the Journey on weekdays, too. ;c)

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