Warming Up

In early November our spin dryer broke down. That's a first world problem right there, but I live in the first world so that's a big problem for me.

Also some of you will feel I should use natural drying methods like the sun, the wind and the radiators in my house, but I live on a cold wet island which only gets two days of sun a year, so that's not really practical

Luckily our spin dryer was pretty new - we bought it when we moved into this house, so it was still under guarantee. It is a machine made by the super expensive European manufacturer Miele. We figured that as we do a lot of laundry due to having two filthy children and one filthy husband that it was worth paying the extra. Also surely those machines would not break down quickly and if they did the faults would be quickly mended by a company keen not to damage its reputation as a luxury brand.

It has alas, not proven easy to get the thing fixed and today it felt a bit like the company was taking the piss. But here's the full story allowing you to judge who is the arsehole here.

Obviously it's going to be partly me (just by dint of writing a blog about it), but I feel I have been provoked.

In early November I rang up Miele customer services to say that the machine had broken down and we'd tried everything suggested on the website. I got through to an extremely polite European lady who was full of apologies, but did not seem to understand very much of what I was saying. I was pretty sure that I'd registered our washer and dryer, but she could not find us on her system and futhermore told us that our address did not exist. I was pretty sure it did exist as I was standing in it, but Europeans are very philosophical and challenging and it was good to be made to consider the fact that I might be fictional. Presumably this technique confounds a few people who immediately give up their complaint, due to their lack of actual life force.

It turned out that lady had taken the post code down wrong. I went through the address several times with her, and my name, but she didn't understand any of it. Perhaps she was fictional. The call, just to arrange an appointment, took 45 minutes and I wasn't sure that I had been properly understood. Indeed when an engineer did come round he had to ring me beforehand as he didn't have my house number.

The first appointment was set for several days in the future, maybe a week and a half, which was annoying as it meant we were reliant on the wind, sun and to be honest, mainly radiators to keep up with our drying.

Catie was more annoyed than me, but I was very patient about it, largely due to the fact that I don't really do laundry and she does.

The appointment date came along, but sadly for our damp clothes and more sadly for us in them, this was cancelled for no reason and rearranged for 1st December - about a month after we'd reported the problem.

I was away working for most of this time, so again, no skin off my nose. And that's all that matters.

December 1st came along and we were given a time slot and the engineer arrived right at the end of that slot, once I'd given him the address. He worked out the problem with the dryer very quickly but told us that he couldn't fix it because our devices were stacked and he was only one man and he couldn't lift the dryer down.

You'd think this might be something that they checked before sending one man round. The machines are made to be stacked and I bet most people stack them, but possibly Miele had never had a broken down machine before and were winging it.

The man was very nice, but not able to help us. He booked us in for an appointment with a two man team in another week and a half. That is today.

At least we'd have a fixed machine for Christmas, when I shit myself a lot more than usual so have a high turnaround of clothes to wash.

We were told we'd get a two hour slot texted to us the day before and I was hoping that it would be in the afternoon as it was the kids' Christmas concert in the morning, something I had failed to notice in the diary. Of course the text revealed that the engineer would come between 8.30am and 10.30am. That's not Miele's fault. And luckily I was able to get a ticket for the afternoon show, but wouldn't be going with Catie.

I went out early to walk the dog and waited for the visit. The tracker showed that we were number one in the queue, though didn't show where the engineer was with a little van on the map. Nevertheless, good news.

Except he didn't arrive at 8.30 or 9.30 or 10. Catie was home at 10.15am so I could have gone to the concert with her. He hadn't arrived by 10.30 but we were still number one in the queue. By 11.30 I was wondering if I might miss the afternoon show too so rang the number by the booking. I thought this would take me through to the man who was supposed to be coming (men actually - there would have to be two of them) but after a 25 minute wait (presumably caused by it taking that long to get the previous callers address wrong) I got through to a lady on the continent. I am pretty sure it was the same lady from early November. Again she was very polite and told me that appointment slots were only advisory and they couldn't always make them, but I pointed out that I'd been first in the queue for a long time.

She said she'd ring the engineer.

So here I was speaking to a woman who was possibly in Germany, who was calling a man in England to then ring me back to tell me where he was.

Another 30 minutes later I got a call apologising but saying that the engineer wouldn't be turning up as he no longer worked for Miele.

Which came as a bit of a shock as Miele had been texting me to let me know that he was coming and not bothered to ring me to say he wouldn't be making it. The fact that no one was coming now also suggested that they weren't ever going to send a two man team, so even if he'd shown up he'd have had to go away again.

Even though I don't do the laundry I was annoyed by now. I'd missed my kids' show for this. Surely Miele should know who is and isn't working for them and if someone stops working for them they should cancel his appointments. But maybe all their employees are fictional and they're just hoping no one will notice. I kept my temper pretty well, though insisted that this was unacceptable behaviour and the lady was full of the kind of apologies that you learn from a manual. She offered me another appointment on 23rd December.

Obviously that was unlikely to be ideal even if they could find a two man engineering team who were prepared to work on Christmas Eve Eve. We would not be around that day, due to it being Christmas.

I told her that she needed to do better than that and that I wanted someone to come over today or tomorrow. She said she'd get on to the team and get back to me. She did not get back to me.

Catie had been listening in and was impressed by how firm I'd been whilst remaining polite, but that she used to work in customer service and she knew that the thing you have to do is register an official complaint so that the issue goes higher up the ladder. Then everyone takes it much more seriously as they might get into trouble.

I emailed Miele customer service to do so and they emailed back saying that they would escalate this complaint and get back to me asap. They did not get back to me. (it's tomorrow now and they have once again emailed to say that the complaint has gone to the complaints team but nothing has happened).

Luckily I was pretty sure that no one would come today so I was able to see the afternoon concert, but I had been so exhausted by this process that I was hardly able to keep my eyes open. I am pretty amazed about how unconcerned this company is about their reputation.

I deserve all I get for spending more money than necessary on a spin dryer that is helping to destroy the planet and I am aware that the man who buys expensive white goods is not someone you're likely to have much empathy with.

But a few of you are also the kind of people who hate the environment and have spare money for high-end machines. You might think that waiting two months for a device under warranty to not get repaired is a bit too long. We'll see what Ian Miele comes back with, but he doesn't seem to be in too much of a rush to sort this and every day that passes means the single engineer who will turn up and be unable to repair the dryer because it's stacked, will be coming ever later in 2026.

Who will win? The faceless company that doesn't care about its entitled customer or the entitled middle-aged white man who wants to dry his pants more quickly?

Only time will tell.

Currently unable to update the History page on richardherring.com, but here's most of what I've achieved in 2025. Some projects remain secret! Why not sub to Substack while you're there and get my blogs sent direct to your inbox!?