A few weeks ago, Kaleb wrote to us with a tale of television woe. The Polaroid TV he purchased at Walmart on Black Friday 2008 simply died, and Polaroid wouldn’t perform warranty service without his receipt. All was lost, until a Walmart manager went above and beyond to save Kaleb from his defective television.

…Walmart? Above and beyond? That can’t be right. Let’s take a look at that email again.

We never heard back again from Polaroid. Tried to track down some executives in customer service there, using an email address guesstimator I found referenced on the Consumerist even, to no avail. I presume that Polaroid either actively hates me, or simply does not care. Or maybe they’re too busy not making Polaroid cameras.

But get this…a few days later, I got a call from the local Wal-Mart where we bought the TV. It seems that, although it took a little while, the emails I sent to Wal-Mart corporate actually *did* get noticed, and they had a manager at the local Wal-Mart call me.

He *honestly* seemed like he wanted to help. I know…freaky. And he went through lots of different “let me try this” on their apparently stone age computer systems with me on the phone. Eventually getting nowhere, but he said “we’ll keep working on it.” Which I figured was some analog of “we take this very seriously” so I wasn’t holding my breath.

But then it gets weirder. Or curiouser, whichever you prefer. They call me *again*. And this time, they tell me they found the receipt. Apparently, they actually had somebody, or somebodies, sit down and sift through all of their Black Friday sales and find my effing receipt for me. Then they printed it out, and put it in a nice envelope, and asked me when it would be convenient for me to come and pick it up.

*I know* [/craig ferguson]

Somehow I managed to traverse this wildly warped reality to the customer service desk at the local Wal-Mart, faxed it to the 3rd party service provider, who then apparently accepted it and JUST TODAY I got the UPS return label to send it in for warranty repair.

My mind is, like, on fire…man. I cannot even tell you how much I dislike Wal-Mart, granted their various shenanigans as have been well documented on the Consumerist and elsewhere. I have to plead guilty to a little bit of schadenfreude at cherry-picking their loss-leader on Black Friday to stick it to them a little bit.

But now…now…they have gone way over the top to make sure I am a satisfied customer. It’s like…I don’t even know who to dislike anymore. The evil empire of W-M…treating me like they care…like they value my business…like they’re human. It’s…just too much to take.

I…I… There’s a Target right across the street where we usually shop. I mean, Target sucks less than W-M, right? Right? DAMN YOU WAL-MART!!! DAMN YOU AND YOUR ACCEPTABLE CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!

Seriously. I don’t know what to do. In the words of the ever-wise Sweathog alum John Travolta, “I’m so confused!”

Anyway…it looks like we’re out of the woods. But I don’t know if I’ll ever be OK again. Some things just shake you to the core…make you question your basic beliefs.

Well, any organization can slip up and hire a compassionate and competent employee or two. We’re very sorry about Kaleb’s existential crisis, but delighted that he was able to get the help he needed to have his TV repaired.

(Photo: Clean Wal-mart)

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