planned obsolescence January 8, 2009
Posted by saltcastings in All-purpose.Tags: GE front load washing machine, obsolescence, washing machine stabilizer, WSXH208A
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Our three-year-old GE washing machine [WSXH208A] went kaput this week. Well, not totally. When I cracked the case I quickly saw both stabilizers had snapped. The stabilizers are built just like a shock on a car to hold the drum in place while it spins. Fortunately both were easy to get at so I figured an easy repair. Called two places trying to track down parts and both responded the same way:
“Yep, about three years, that’s when these things typically break.”
If Rancho can make a shock for a truck that lasts for nearly 100k miles, why the heck are companies like GE using parts that are pretty much “scheduled” to break just outside the warranty timeline? The answer, it turns out, came to me from a GE customer service rep today.
After installing the replacement shocks last night, I was still having a problem getting the drum to rotate, so I called the company today to talk to someone about troubleshooting. Turns out I can order parts directly from the company, but if you have any sort of technical or operational question, they will only help arrange a service call to your home via their network of local contractors. The rep said they had no staff and no knowledge base to respond to technical inquiries of any sort. So if you have a question about their product, you have to pay them for the answer. Planned obsolescence. Lovely business model. For them.
The dryer that we bought at the same time has also been nothing but a headache. The possibility of me buying future GE appliances = zero.
Goodbye, 2008 January 4, 2009
Posted by saltcastings in Family.add a comment
I’ve been putting this one off for weeks now. Just not sure how best to sum up the year, I guess.
In the positive column, and in the simplest terms possible, I’ve still got my wife, she’s healthy again and the four of us got Lucy. We’ve been talking a lot lately about this time last year — the hospital, the doctors, the surgeries — how surreal it all seems now. Dawn found some old notes yesterday in her planner as she was transitioning her her new 2009 book that brought back some of the specifics. I still don’t know how she did it. I would have thrown in the towel weeks before. But her strength brought more joy to our lives than I could have ever imagined. The months between then and now have been some of the richest of my life. They’ve also been among the most challenging. If you’ve ever transitioned from man-to-man coverage to a zone defense you know what I’m talking about. What little hair I have left I’m sure will continue to recede in 15 equal increments so that I will be completely bald on Lucy’s 16th birthday, if not sooner.
This year Jack proved to be a proud, yet distracted second grader. Noah embraced Kindergarten with equal parts curiosity and skepticism. I think he’s actually having more fun than he lets on, but that’s Noah. February is just around the corner and my God, how are we going to pull off four birthdays in one month?
Don and Becky continue to be a huge and important part of our lives. I can’t describe the gratitude I have for their help this year.
2008 was also filled with more loss than I ever thought possible. Nana, Shawn, an old friend from West 30th in Kennewick. And Carol. I’ll never forget that call from Dawn, just days after Nana’s funeral. I said if anyone can beat the odds, it’s Carol. She wasn’t going to give up on her family and they sure as hell didn’t give up on her. Scott, Darla, Heath, Shawn, Jim, Judy – day in, day out, right there by her side. And she did. And she is.
I think it was Wendy who first spoke of the timing of Lucy’s birth and how it happened to coincide with Nana’s last visit to the hospital. Dawn and Nana happened to be a few floors apart for about three days, I think. At first I couldn’t believe my luck — the two most important people to me in the world, both in the same hospital at the same time. But once Lucy arrived it was obvious it had nothing to do with luck. You can see it in her personality today, the same sparkle in her eyes, the same laugh, the same sweet smile.
All part of Nana’s plan. I miss you so much.
What a year it was.
