A friend of mine recently purchased an excellent storage system for her spices. She puts them in glass test tubes and stores those in a test tube holder. She uses quite a few spices and now her cupboard isn't cluttered, and she can easily lay her hands on what she needs. She talked me into doing the same thing, just by how easily she can find what she needs. I find that I like cooking now, I use quite a few spices and the idea of making it easier to find what I need quickly sounds wonderful. In other words- I was sold.
Unfortunately, I purchased the test tubes from Lake Charles Manufacturing. I looked at the kits that were sold and decided like she did, that it would be better to simply buy the tubes and holder and simply put my own spices in them with my own labels. They were a good, fair price. My behind stings a little from the shipping-they charge 40% for the shipping. I think they "sell" them so cheaply and then ream you on the shipping. Here is where my backside gets truly red: Lake Charles Manufacturing does not ship on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday! In other words, if you want to get your order from them, make dang sure that you order it on one of the few days that they are open and shipping! How stupid to claim to be open seven days a week, but not doing anything that would constitute work. It would be as if Walmart claimed to be open seven days a week, but only let you buy things four of those days. Stupid, isn't it?
And there is a lot to be said for customer service also. I love buying Jarden Consumer Products- Mr. Coffee, etc.because I know that they stand behind their products and take care of any complaints in a very quick manner. They want your business and it shows.
That is not the case with Lake Charles Manufacturing. My contact with them has been terse, at best. They think that waiting four days to ship something is perfectly fair. Let's just say that we disagree on this. Four days! And then, as I am tracking the snail pace that my purchase is (finally!) making- I see that the package is averaging 60 miles per day. To borrow a description from Ron White- my package is moving at half the speed of smell!
I can't tell you how the tubes for my spices are-I probably won't know for another week at this rate. Ironically, the test tube holder, which came from twice as far away ( and for much less shipping) has been here for two days! Good thing that I didn't get it from Lake Charles Manufacturing, huh? If you need anything in the way of test tubes, or if you want to organize your spices to make cooking easier, don't buy from Lake Charles Manufacturing you'll thank me later!
I can't let this print without updating my conversation with Haley's supervisor. I called the company this morning and complained to the person who answered for customer service. After explaining that it would have been faster to ship by Greyhound Bus, Haley gave me a song and dance that would have done Fred Astaire proud. I explained that taking four days to simply process my order was unacceptable. The customer service person told me that if I had ordered more, or paid to upgrade my service, that they would be here by now. I asked to speak with a supervisor. The first contact with her I thought resulted in her hanging up,but it was a dropped call, apparently. After calling back, I was given a refund on the ridiculously over priced shipping. I still wouldn't use Lake Charles Manufacturing, though. I expect someone to treat my order as though it were important to them. These people aren't doing that.
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