My grandmother had had some problems with her plumbing and had Roby's Plumbing out for an estimate. In what appeared to be an honest mistake her name Ching had been misspelled as Chink on the estimate write up. Being 91 years old and a first generation Chinese woman who moved to America in the 1940's, she is quite sensitive to this word and wanted to get the spelling rectified. She first tried calling the company, but as she is terribly hard of hearing, she could not appropriately communicate with them over the phone. At this point, she asked me to approach the company to ensure the racial slur was removed and her name properly spelled. At this point, we still assumed it was a typo and that the company would be horrified when they realized what had happened. I fully expected Roby's to quickly change the misspelling as well as, at the very least, apologize to my grandmother. This would not be the case.
First came a phone call from Larry (service manager) in which he kept repeating the racial slur even after being informed of its offensive nature. His defense was he did not know it was offensive, which seems valid, except that I had to continuously tell him to stop saying it.
I then set up an office meeting, printed off some articles regarding the word 'chink' (as he did not seem to be aware of its racist nature) and headed out to the office. I asked that my grandmother, as per her request, have the opportunity to speak with whomever had made the mistake and that the company put something in writing, apologizing and assuring her that that word had been removed from all correspondences and files involving her. This seemed reasonable and simple from my end but, once again, I had over-estimated the employees of this company.
Larry continuously said things like it's only one letter and insinuated it was not a big deal, he told me that there was no reason for my grandmother to come speak to him and that he didn't know what to put in a letter to her (indicating to me that he would not do it).
As if the situation was not frustrating enough, at this time another employee, John (who blatantly refused to tell me his name when asked), walked into the manager's office, where I sat with Larry having what I thought was a private discussion, and interrupted our meeting to criticize my actions and my grandmother's feelings. He said things such as it wasn't a big deal, it's only one letter and, even though I repeatedly said that my grandmother wanted to continue to work with the company as she believed it was an honest mistake, John (and Larry later re-iterated) declared that perhaps the company didn't want to work with her (for no apparent reason other than her want to raise awareness regarding a racial slur being printed).
I have never, in my life, been subjected to such unprofessional and, frankly, insulting behavior. I was not at all hostile in my approach and calmly asked for what I thought to be the bare minimum in such a situation. I simply wanted to clear things up and was instead insulted further, talked down to, interrupted, and wholly dismissed by the employees of this company. Not to mention that they felt my request for an apology was enough to withdraw their estimate and not perform the work. The lack of remorse, care, and the insensitivity regarding an elderly, minority woman and an ethnic slur was appalling.
To be fair, I did manage to reach Brad Roby, the owner, on Monday and he agreed to write something to my grandmother, apologizing and assuring her that the word would be removed. Though I commend him for doing the right thing, I am still writing this review because people deserve to know the caliber of employees this company has retained and the quality of customer service you can expect to receive at the Indianapolis branch.
