Aspen Exteriors, I Do Not Apologize for My Rudeness

Last April, after Kelsey's and my house was decimated by hail,  I chose a company called Aspen Exteriors to fix the siding and roof because they would give me $1000 to put a sign in my yard, and my deductible is $1000.  I didn't bid anyone against each other.  I clearly should have, but I didn't. Aspen hasn't been a horrible company to work with. They certainly aren't a good company, but they at least do good work when they finally get around to doing work. The main problem with Aspen is that the employees themselves are unreliable morons.

Every single one of them is a moron.  Especially all of them.  They are the biggest of the morons.

The day Kelsey and I left for Houston Aspen dropped off a bunch of siding.  They sided the house last Thursday.  While they did this, they brought in a giant dumpster.  They put the dumpster in our driveway.  The dumpster should have been moved on Friday. This would mean the dumpster would no longer be in our driveway. Instead, here's what Kelsey and I came home to on Sunday:

What you can't see from this picture is the dumpster sat in the middle of our driveway. Both of our cars were in the garage when we got home. It took us ten minutes to back one of the cars out of the garage. We had one inch of clearance on both sides of the car as it backed out. The other car was sufficiently trapped.

I called three people from Aspen on Sunday and left messages telling them to please move the dumpster. I called personal cell phones, so I know they got the messages. I did not get a call back. I called someone at 8:50 this morning and was told, "I really can't help you until we open at 9:00." I politely told her that I could care less when they open, and she is going to help me right now. I told her I left three messages with people from her company yesterday, and no one seemed too concerned that my wife and I could not get our cars out of our garage.  I told her because of this, I don't really care if she isn't on the clock.  She told me she'd take my information and let someone know about it at 9:00. I should expect a call back.

I did not get a call back. I called them back at 10:30. A woman named Shirley answered. I explained the situation. She said, "Oh...is this Jay? Let me transfer you to Sarah." Because it mattered who I talked to? Who is Sarah? She got back on the line a few minutes later and said, "Sarah is out at lunch right now. She'll call you back." Of course Sarah is out for lunch at 10:30. After starting at 9:00, she was probably famished from all that hard work she had avoided.

Sarah did not call me back after lunch (or her lunch lasts until past 2:30pm). I called Aspen back one more time. The lady did not apologize for the absent service or the fact my wife was trapped at home. She started to babble, so I told her, politely, the following: I don't want to hear any of more of your stupid excuses.  There is a damned dumpster in my driveway that should have been removed last Friday upon the completion of your work. The fact it has been there since last Thursday is inexcusable. I'm pissed off, and you people don't seem to understand that. If the dumpster is not removed by the time I get home from work (which was in forty minutes), I'm going to start billing you for the use of my driveway (which I don't think I have any legal right doing).

I then listed some thinly veiled threats and hung up.

Luckily, the dumpster was gone before I got home.

That said, to spite the Aspen folks, we decided to use the hell out of their dumpster. We had big boxes of garbage in the basement and a leftover entertainment center that didn't sell at a garage sale. All of this was thrown away. We told our neighbors we had a free dumpster for use. They threw away half of their house I think. Another neighbor threw away spare drywall. Kelsey went to town today, being trapped in the house and all, and threw away stuff I didn't even know we had. Not to mention, she cleaned out our freezers, fridge, and pantry and got ride of an unreal amount of food. The dumpster started to overflow with junk:

I think there is probably a lesson to be learned here in all of this.  Yeah, probably.