I want to relate a story that a couple of you may clearly relate to and see the irony of. Riley, are you paying attention? Let me begin with two illustrations for your referral throughout this journey (the story revolves around knob 1 and knob 9: So, we bought a new combi microwave oven. The first time in use, we consulted the Dutch users manual and quickly discovered that there were mistakes, so we switched to the English one which was fine. There are two dials on the front (see above), left is the ‘function’ knob to choose the oven-,grill-, microwave function etc. The right knob is the ‘selection’ knob that you can choose settings within a particular function. For example in the microwave function you can select different defrost programs. One of us would read the Dutch instructions and the other turned the dials. “Turn the selection knob three clicks to the right and you’ll see ect, ect”. Over and over we turned, nothing happened and nothing to see (of course not, we had not selected a function). “You are reading it wrong, let me read”. “Ok. you turn”…nothing. Finally we turned to the English directions: “Turn the function knob three clicks to the right etc. etc. Aha! See? Function knob not selection knob to start with, without choosing a function, nothing happens. “I told you it made no sense”. All is well that ends well and we had no more confusion. Of course we couldn’t let it go, nothing more fun than playing the smart Alec, pointing out other people’s mistakes. We filled out the contact form to the company and wrote that they had mislabeled the function knob, calling it the selection knob in several places but that the English directions were correct. We gave an example about using the microwave function and selecting the defrost menu. Of course all communications with the customers’ service was in Dutch except the free translation of the word for nonsense, see further down. In the answer the lady explained that because you can select things with the function knob it was ‘freely’ translated as being the selection knob. We wrote back to thank her for the answer but that the names of the two knobs were simply mixed-up saying, “Your answer is nonsense, freely translated: bullsh*t”. This mail was answered by yet another person ,“ Thank you for your mail. Did the explanation from my colleague help you by the defrosting of the refrigerator?” Huh?!?— So we wrote back: “Ooooh, it is a refrigerator that we bought? We thought we had bought a combi-microwave oven. That explains why the apple pie wouldn’t bake”!!
Good grief what a palaver!! Don't they know what they are selling and how it should work!! I have a word for people like that but it's too rude to include here - maybe you can guess what it is though.
It is so obvious that the knobs are correct if viewed from the rear of the oven. To use the oven around cut a hole in the wall and use the oven from the other room or the outside of the house. Jerry P.S. Did you get the model that switches from oven to refrigerator and back with the turn of a knob?
good story and it make sense... thanks for sharing!... hope the cs sent you another email with the right info then.. Happy Maundy Thursday!
I think many companies have generic answers for the many e-mails they get. So it's a case of pressing the "right button" which generates the particular response, or in your case, "the wrong one."
Sjoerd I looked up combo microwave and convection oven. Looks like a really handy kitchen appliance.. I had no idea there was that combo in one unit. Let me know how you like it. Would it be possible to review your experience after a few weeks of use. Thank you for posting this new product .
Thank you everyone for your remarks. During the entire exchange I never became angry, rather found it all so silly that I laughed. It would have been very funny were it not so sad. I mean the quality of folks they have manning the call centres really made me scratch my head in disbelief. Throughout the entire message exchanges the original point was never reacted to. We alerted them to mistakes in their users’ manual so that they could possibly take steps to make corrections. Oh well. Pac, I can give you info now about combi-microwaves as there was a Whirlpool model built into the wall when we bought this place. It gave up the ghost when it was 19 years old, so we chose this one. https://www.coolblue.nl/en/product/841984/etna-cm350zt.html It is a mid-range one in terms of price. It does all that we want and more, it does things that we will never use. There are also other models that can even steam things among other functions. Selecting one may require research. The machines are quite handy, I will say that. Here is the microwave in situ. Be advised, built-in models are more expensive than the conventional counter top models sadly. We use this thing to warm things up, make cookies and defrost meat and veg. It works well for those tasks. If you have more questions, just ask.
This was a very funny story Sjoerd. I can particularly see you and your Bride taking turns at reading the instructions "correctly" to each other. That does sound like a very handy appliance. How well you handled the phone call reminded me of the old phone prank joke.... And maybe you and your Bride??..... And just for corny me ... Enjoy the lovely new appliance!
Mel— well, it was funny to us. There was no fone calling though, it was all via e-mail. Chuckle. Mate, I loved the cartoons. Especially the last one. I really liked that one. Haha— you make me laugh. Cheers for those. Riley— Thanks. They are handy to pull open, and the soft close keeps me from making noise. Btw— the refrigerator is built-in as well, to the left of the microwave.
Looks really nice as builtins. Thank you for the pic. Your kitchen is designed to be functional and has an updated clean design.
Ta Pac. That design works well for us. Simple folk like simple, functional design. Chuckle. Our home has a modern character and is, in a way minimalistic with straight lines. That built-in thing is fine but built-in appliances turned out to be more expensive than regular ones. I did not like that.
I have a question. Is that a Staffordshire dog on top of the lovely cabinet at the left of the photo?
Jane, you get a gold star. Well spotted, you. They were inherited from the Bride’s family. It is a pair.
Cute staffords… dogs , cats, horses, family and lastly plants are the centre of my universe. What more could you ask for. Sjoerd I’m afraid my kitchen will take us all the way back to the 70’s. It’s tiny and I guess u could say 70’s minimalistic in the loosest term even though I remodelled. Yet it’s so functional with easy triangle access …to get to any appliance in less than a few steps large counter space and breakfast bar and super garden window above the sink to grow ???
