Who Am I?

I am an avid runner and have been running since I was 15 years old. I began running low to medium distances while on my high school track team, running the 800 meter and 1600 meter races (I was a sub 5 miler and a 2 minute 800 runner). In addition to the track team, I also joined the cross country team. After high school I still wanted to run and decided to start doing road races. I have probably ran a couple hundred 5k races (16.29 PR)along with many 10k's as well. In 2009 I decided to step up my game and try to tackle my first marathon. I will be honest; the only reason I did this was because my father ran a few and I wanted to show him that I could do what he did. I trained poorly for my first one and regret it. If you are going to run a race, train like you want to win. I still continue to run marathons and other distances as well, and every race is a chance for me to better myself.
I started this blog to hopefully communicate with other runners and to shed any knowledge I may have about the sport that can help other runners. I believe running is the best sport and can be a great stress reliever. I encourage all runners to spread the word of our sport and show people why running is so good and why the community of runners has such great people. You can follow me on twitter @byrne1324 or find me on facebook- Shaun Byrne

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Random Friday: Years Of Hell


This week’s random Friday is a mixture of a rant with a bit of a happy ending. Too better understand this story I need to take you back a few years to Nov. 2010. My girlfriend of the time Amanda and I were talking about marriage. I asked her to give me an idea of what type of ring she wanted. So one November night we happened to be at the mall and walked by a Kay Jewelers. I told her we should go in and take a look just so I could get an idea of what she likes. I had no intentions on buying a ring from Kay’s. If you live in Pittsburgh you know the Clark Building is where you want to go for jewelry. Anyway, we are looking at rings and she finds one that she is in love with. A sales person comes over to us and shows her the ring. As much as I didn’t want to buy it from there I could see this was the ring she wanted. I tell the salesman I will be back at a later time to pick it up. He then drops a bomb on me that the ring is on sale and the sale ends that day. So now I am in a dilemma do I buy the ring in front of her and put her through the stress of knowing I have it, but not knowing when she is getting it or do I pay hundreds more and come back later. Needless to say I purchased the ring that night.

I ended up giving her the ring in December. Remember the months because that is the key to this story. Oh ya, when I purchased the rings I was given certificates. Anytime I spentover $300 I would get a $100 taken off the bill, but they had to be used before the end of July. So in July we went out and decided to use the certificates and bought our wedding bands, once again wasn’t planning on buying them there but who could pass up a good deal? Around that same time a diamond fell out of my soon to be wife’s ring. The store happily fixed that problem and we thought nothing of it. That is until 3 months later when her main diamond fell out. So quick run down here, she only has been wearing the ring a total of 10 months at most and I already had to have it fixed twice. I would like to tell that was the last time with any problems with her ring, but it happened 3 more times over the next few months. I was absolutely livid and called the corporate office to see if there was anything that could be done. I was told I could not get a refund, but they would continue to fix it. Luckily the people at the store are not like corporate and felt so bad for us that they took the same ring out of the case and gave it to her. We were so happy and thought finally the problems will stop. Why wouldn’t you think that after getting a brand new ring? Well, a few months later and a stone falls out. This time when I called corporate they told me this is the first time it has ever been fixed. I replied with “No, this actually the 6th time in less than 2 years.” Apparently since she was given a new ring it was if they wiped the slate clean and we were starting back at zero fixes. They ended up giving us a $100 credit. Not much for the amount of gas I spent just driving back and forth to the store.

Amanda and I got married in August of 2013. From the time she was wearing the ring until the day we got married I would guess it was in a total of 9 times at least for service. Every time it went in I would call corporate and bitch. Most of the time the answer would be, “we are fixing the problem”. I would always ask to speak to someone high up and every time they would tell me that the person is unavailable. So now remember 9 times in a little over two and half years. So after we get married we pull out the wedding bands, which have not been worn in 2 years. I think it took all of 3 months before a diamond fell out of my band. At this point what do you do but laugh. I take it to the store and they fix it. Just so you all know, the whole time this was all going on we still took our rings every 6 months to get inspected and cleaned. A few weeks after I got my ring back we were back in the store for a stone falling out of my wife’s engagement ring AGAIN. At this point I am boiling and every time I called corporate I would make it maybe 30 seconds before calling the person on the other end a dickhead or asshole. Finally someone comes up with the brilliant idea that my wife can trade in her ring and get a new one. At the time I thought this was a great idea, until I talked to the manager at the store. He then informed me that they would only be giving us credit for the amount I paid for the ring. Now remember when I bought the ring it was on sale, and now it was over 3 years later. The price of gold had gone up and let’s just say if you paid $1000 for a ring it would now be selling for $1300. Do you see a problem here? I called corporate again and explained why would I trade in a ring and have to get a smaller size ring or get a ring similar and have to spend more money. Why should I give them more money for a problem that I did not do? Needless to say corporate was not helpful and when I brought up getting a lawyer involved, the person on the other end of the phone said and I quote “Lawyer up”. Who even says that? My wife wasn’t about to get a new ring because in her mind that was her ring and it had meaning to her. We could have taken the ring to another jeweler to get fixed but once again we would be out money of our own pockets. At this point you realize you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. We did hit a nice streak for about 9 months or so until January of 2015 with no problems. It’s pretty sad when you have to say 9 months is a good streak. So quick rundown to refresh your memory.

Engagement ring is bought in Nov. 2010 serviced 8 times and swapped out once before we are married in Aug. of 2013.

Wedding bands are purchased in July of 2011 and not worn until Aug. of 2013. 3 months later a stone is missing from mine.

Wife’s engagement ring goes back in for service for the 10th time early 2014.

You still with me on this one people? I know it’s a lot to take in. So now it’s January 2015 and a stone once again falls out of my ring. I take the ring to get fixed and I decide not to call corporate because, well what is the point? I know exactly what they will say at this point. I pick the ring up at the end of January. In February my wife notices we are due for our annual 6 month inspections. We both go into the store and here is the best part. When we walk in the store now the employees know us on a first name basis and say “oh no, not again” before even saying hello. This time though we are laughing and telling the sales lady it’s just for the inspections and mine was just returned to me a few weeks ago. She takes our rings and starts to go over them. She then proceeds to tell us that she is keeping BOTH rings, because both have loose stones and need to be sent in for repairs. I was dumbfounded how in the hell does this happen when I just got the ring back? What do you even say? I just shook my head and said okay. The next day you better believe I was on the phone with corporate again. The first phone call ended in a quick 2 minutes with me calling the gentleman an asshole. The second phone call I speak to a woman who couldn’t believe how many times my ring and my wife’s ring was fixed. I am a bit different from my wife and even though the ring may be symbolic, I would rather have a ring that doesn’t need fixed. I asked could I please trade in my ring and get a ring without diamonds. Kay’s policy is a diamond for a diamond. Basically if you have a ring with diamonds, you must trade it and get another ring with diamonds of double the value. So once again they are saying, you can trade in your ring but you’re going to give us more money also. The lady and I went back forth and we came to an agreement that if it happened once more I could trade in my ring and get a ring with no diamonds. On Monday this week I received a phone call saying my ring was ready to be picked up. I was at work so Amanda went to pick it up. When she got to the store they informed her that they were not satisfied with my ring and sent it back again. So another wasted trip, and on top of that my wife’s ring still wasn’t in and should have been. Now tell me if you agree with me on this? I took it as my ring going back as another time it needed to be serviced, therefore I wanted a new ring. I called corporate and the lady I spoke with was not trying to hear that. She kept telling me that this happens because rings are fitted and stretched out. Awesome, only problem is neither of our rings were ever fitted. We got lucky and they fit right out of the case. I tried to compare the rings to a car and told her there is something called the lemon law for cars. She came back with like a car the rings need serviced every so often and this is normal. After 30 minutes of bickering back and forth she says “I feel you just want a new ring”. My answer was “No shit I want a new ring, I want a ring without diamonds so I don’t have to deal with this shit.” She explains the whole trade policy and I tell her it isn’t going down like that. No way in hell am I losing more money. I had to explain I didn’t care that I would be losing out on the deal. For some reason she kept thinking I wanted a cheaper ring with no stones and wanted a cash refund to make up the difference. That was not the case I just wanted a plain white gold ring. Finally they agreed and on Tuesday I went to the store to pick out a new ring and pick up Amanda’s ring. So now at least we are only back to having to go to the store for her ring.

So the point of this story is Kay Jewelers sucks, not the store employees but the corporate employees and if you were ever thinking about buying anything from there I would rethink that.

6 comments:

  1. Oh man, so sorry you've had to deal with all this. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you that this is the end of it all!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Sarah, I am going to play the odds and say it won't be though. It's like a big game to us now. Will you wake up with a stone missing? I don't know but it's exciting to look and see stones still there

      Delete
  2. Good to know. Dirty, rotten, dickhead assholes!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow what a story! I'm glad I didn't buy from them. Dan went to Jared and I've had 0 problems in over a year and theyre great to work with. I've also heard that Clark building is the best, so random lol! Sorry you had to deal with that!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am happy to hear you had 0 problems. I wish I could turn back time and go to a different store first and ask her to show me what she liked. Lol. Funny thing is my friend said to me "you should of went to Jared"

      Delete