Saturday, June 26, 2010

The Saga of Leo’s Laundromat

Posted by Laura / 1 comment » / , customer service, life, money, people

I really don’t like doing laundry. Especially when we have to pay to use the machines. It’s a real drag. Until we can afford to move into a place that comes with a washer and dryer, though, we’re pretty much stuck with the apartment complex’s machines (expensive) or a laundromat (more work all at once, but less expensive). We’ve tried three area laundromats, trying to find the one that would work the best for us.

One laundromat was in a city a couple of miles away. It was… okay. Sketchy and old, but cheap. Unfortunately, our very first time there, we ran into disaster with one of the machines. We ended up with some snags on some of our work clothes. The clothes were salvaged, but that was the last time we ever went to that laundromat.

The second is one that Johnathan went to relatively frequently before I moved, and it was our laundromat of choice for a while, for being 24-hours and less expensive than the machines at our complex. It seemed that there were often many broken machines when we were there, though, which made things hard when you need three of washer size A and only two are functioning, particularly if someone else is already using them. So we kept looking for our perfect laundromat.

Johnathan found Leo’s.  We gave it a shot because it seemed newer than the other two places and, hey, it was worth a shot, right? They had a card system which served to simplify things as far as needing quarters. The washers were newer and faster, and there were more of the larger sizes. The dryers were faster. Heaven? We thought so. We saw their ads for laundry drop-off service, and an idea started to form. It seemed extravagant, though, so until a post on Get Rich Slowly about outsourcing parts of your life, we didn’t really consider it. The post talked about how outsourcing daily tasks (cleaning for some, cooking for others, etc) could be financially beneficial in the sense that it frees the person from the hated task, and he or she regains the time that would otherwise be spent on that task. It seemed like an endorsement for us to go ahead and try the laundry drop-off service that was offered. So we did!

The first time we tried it, we had to buy the bag. That was $5, which isn’t really so bad. Then it was about $25 to have the load done. We left it with them and went on our merry way, intending to pick it up the next day. We picked it up and took it home. We were met with a bit of an unpleasant sight when we started to unpack the clothes. A lot of the clothes had mysterious stains on them that looked like grease or oil stains of some kind. We had some irreplaceable shirts stained and some of our work clothes. I was not happy. In fact, I was livid. We took the clothes in, or rather Johnathan did, and talked to the people there. Ultimately, he ended up on the phone with the owner of the place, who offered to send the clothes off to be claimed for insurance (which meant we’d get a lot less than they’re worth and be out the clothes), or we could let one of the attendants try to get the stains out and he could offer us some credit. We took the latter since it meant we might be able to wear the clothes again. The girl was able to get the stains out for the most part, so that was a satisfactory resolution.

The next time we brought in our laundry, nothing went wrong. Hurrah! Unfortunately, the next time we brought the laundry in, we were informed that we couldn’t drop laundry off after 7PM. Really? That seemed odd. The attendant explained that his coworkers would accuse him of not doing his work if we brought it in after that, because he wouldn’t have time to complete it before closing. Well, we thought it was a stupid rule, but accepted it and went home with our full bag of laundry. We dropped it off the next day and got a clean bag of clothes back. A person could get used to that!

Then we had another problem. We dropped off and paid for our laundry to be done and got back… a bag of unwashed clothes. It didn’t get done. This was apparently due to a miscommunication where one employee put the bag in the wrong place and the other didn’t bother to check whether the work had been done. So, more fussing to make sure that the load got done. Then we would get our clothes haphazardly folded. Overdried. Not even folded at all, on occasion. Smelling like no detergent was used.

The last straw came in two parts. The last time we dropped off our laundry, the lady asked Johnathan if he was “the one who tips.” He kind of gave her a funny look, and she went on to say that, oh yeah, people tip all the time! This statement doesn’t jive with the first, since the question was, “are you the guy who tips?” He said he would talk to me about it. I should state now that I think tipping for a service that we are paying for is stupid, so I was absolutely against tipping these people for the consistently inconsistent service we’ve been getting. I tip servers at restaurants because I know they don’t make even the minimum wage that everyone else is paid. I think tipping as a rule is stupid except for when exceptional service is given, and the people at Leo’s Laundromat were certainly not giving it. I mean, we still haven’t gotten all of our credit for our original problem because apparently only one employee even knows how to use the computer. Our name is in the system something like ten times because nobody knows how to use it and apparently nobody cares to learn, either. These people were not helping their case.

We were going to drop off a load of laundry on Monday, and the same lady with the tip comment was there. The first words out of her mouth were not “Hello” or “How’s it going?”, but “Did you talk to your wife about tipping?” Johnathan restrained himself from saying what he really wanted to say (“HOW RUDE!”) and just said, “You know what? Nevermind.” And then we became former customers.

Being expected to tip for a service that we are paying for is a bit ridiculous. I don’t tip the guys who change the oil on my car or the service technician who comes to install internet service at my apartment. I am not tipping for inconsistent laundry service that I am paying for. It is an advertised service that they don’t even do very well. We won’t be going back except maybe to use up the rest of the money on our cards if we absolutely have to do that. We won’t be going back otherwise. We’re going back to the 24-hour place with the creepy lady who asks too many personal questions because at least we know what kind of service we’ll get there.

I’m sad that it happened this way. I still don’t like doing laundry because it takes so long and, well, I just don’t like doing it! But if it means we know our clothes are cleaned, unharmed, unstretched and we don’t have to tip someone for a service we’ve already paid for, I’m for it. We’ll look out for another service, but I’m not hopeful we’ll find any reasonable alternatives. The owner of that laundromat was so nice, but I have to think he must be really disconnected from his property because things there are not exactly running smoothly. It’s a great idea, and their machines are nice, but would I recommend it to anyone else? Not a chance. The swank machines are not worth the headache of dealing with the staff.

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