dennis yang dot com

So..

One of the parts on my beloved Aeron chair broke:

I looked on their site to see if their products have a warranty, and.. they do! Woo! It says right on their site:

“The Herman Miller Warranty is a statement of our confidence in the quality of our products. It’s a straightforward promise to our customers that we stand behind that quality, 100 percent–100 percent of the time.”

Awesome.

Well, apparently “100 percent–100 percent of the time” actually means… “100 percent– some of the time” since when I contacted their authorized repair center, they emailed me back:

“The 12-warranty only covers the original owner, once resold the warranty would be denied by Herman Miller.”

Uh.. What? That’s kinda f’d up, no? I mean, yes, I’m the 2nd owner of this chair, but why should that make any difference as to the warranty?? The chair is still a G-E-N-U-I-N-E Herman Miller Aeron Chair as far as I can tell. I mean, yes, I could just buy the part.. but, this is about the principle of the thing at this point.. grr.

So, I wrote them a nice letter of my own…

Hello,
I am a happy owner of an Aeron chair. Recently, the lumbar pad on my chair has fallen apart, as you can see from this photo:

Anyway, I contacted Chair MD, and they informed me that your 12-year warranty does not cover me since I am the 2nd owner of this chair.

The label on my chair says:

Model # AE123AWB AJG1BBWP 3D01
Born-on date: 1999-05-18
Factory Order #: 493715

So, clearly, this chair is well within the 12-year warranty period, so I am writing to ask why it is that the warranty does not cover this chair. Is the warrantly less valid since I am not the original owner?

Isn’t it still the same chair?

I mean, if you buy a used car from somebody, the warranty goes with that car (and that makes sense).

Anyway, it’s really not the money ($65 for a new pad isn’t bad, I guess), but I really would just like an explanation, since the reasoning befuddles me.

Thanks!

Sincerely,
Dennis Yang

So we’ll see what they say…

Update:

Well.. I got a reply from Herman Miller…

Hello Dennis and thank you for contacting Herman Miller. We do have a 12-year warranty on the Aeron chair, but the warranty only extends to the original purchaser of the product when it is ordered through an authorized Dealership. The warranty does not transfer. I have included the verbage from our warranty below:

Regards,

Brandon McElfish/Herman Miller

Way to NOT ANSWER ANY OF MY QUESTIONS in my original email. I am fairly good at the google, and I was able to find that warranty information myself (as I explained in my email).

FAIL.

Honestly, I just want someone from HM to email me and say something like “Yes, we know our warranty policy is ridiculous, and we only stand by our products if you buy them from authorized retailers because we do not care about the re-sale people.” I mean.. yah. Come on.

If I am being ridiculous here, someone please tell me.

Update 2:

Ooo…

So, I wrote Herman Miller:

Hello,

Thanks for your reply!

As I stated in my original email — yes, I am familiar with your
warranty policy, so you did not answer my question.

I am simply inquiring as to *why* your warranty policy is this way?
Warranties for other durable goods like automobiles stay with the
product itself.

I am still sitting on a quality-made Herman Miller Aeron chair, no?

Thanks!

dennis.

And then they wrote back (super quickly, I might add…):

Hi Dennis, our original owner policy has been in place from the beginnings of Herman Miller as a company. I think you would find that there are very few products on the market where a warranty
coverage is passed on to the second owner of the product. That includes several automobile manufacturers.
Best regards,
Bob McAndrews
Herman Miller Inc.

Hmm.. that sounds like a classic “cuz that’s the way it is” answer.

Seriously? Wow.

I mean, I kind of expected more from Herman Miller, but… oh well. I mean, it’s not really the money, I can find a new lumbar support (a $65 part) on eBay for pretty cheap, but like, why have a warranty at all if you’re not going to honor it?

sure looks like fun.

ps. if you haven’t checked out Phoenix’s new album.. you should, it’s good.

pps. and their site has a SECRET section.

And.. now that you’ve enjoyed the podcast, here’s the whole summer mix all of its sound and fury.

18 tracks ranging from electro-dancey-indie to folky-country to some old school ska to some classics.. yeehaa giddyup.

Enjoy. And, happy summer!!!

So it’s officially summer now, and that means that it’s time for yet another mix.. But, I decided to do something a little different this time and actually make a little podcast to accompany the mix.

Unlike the ska podcast that I did with Mike, this time I recorded the entire podcast in GarageBand, which actually worked out quite well. I picked 7 songs out of the 18 that are on the whole summer mix, since I wanted the podcast to be only about half an hour..

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, so maybe I’ll do some more..

Anyway.. I also am uploading my entire summer mix up to 8tracks, so after that’s done, I’ll post that, but for now, you have to listen to the podcast.

Inspired by spangley, here’s a list of every place that I’ve ever lived. I think when I was born, we were in some apartment in Richmond Heights, but I don’t remember that place, so I’m gonna start with the Mayfield Heights place…

I’ve included links to memory maps for the first two places, and actually.. now that I’m looking at this list — maybe it would be fun to do some memory maps of the other places.

1. Gladwin Drive, Mayfield Heights, OH (1976-1985)
2. E. Juniper Ln, Moreland Hills, OH (1985-1993)
3. South Baker, Ithaca, NY (1993-4)
4. Clinton Township, NJ (Summers 1994, 1995)
5. College Ave, Ithaca, NY (1995-6)
6. Tunkhannock, PA (Summer 1996)
7. Eddy Street, Ithaca, NY (1996-7)
8. Jones & Geary, Tenderknob, San Francisco, CA (1997)
9. Collingwood & 20th, Castro, San Francisco, CA (1997-8)
10. Arguello & Fulton, Richmond, San Francisco, CA (1998-9)
11. Lyon & Post, Lower Pac Heights, San Francisco, CA (1999)
12. Cesar Chavez & Church, Noe Valley, San Francisco, CA (2000-3)
13. Church & 20th, Dolores Heights, San Francisco, CA (2003-4)
14. Fulton & Gough, Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA (2004-8)
15. Natoma & 9th, Soma, San Francisco, CA (2008-present)

15 places in 33 years.. not bad.

To celebrate Sam’s big 3-0, Andy and the besigners all headed up to the tahoe house for the weekend. I tagged along. It was fun.

Sam’s 30th Birthday in Tahoe from yizzle on Vimeo.

Taken with Andy’s DOF adapter thing… Can’t wait for the new Canon T1i to come out… That said, videos taken with Andy’s DOF adapter look kind of cooler than the demo videos I’ve seen from the T1i.

Happy Birthday Sam!

A mundane snippet of my life, shared with you because of my awesome new recording setup that is on my desk today. I set this up initially because I did a phone interview for an article that I’m writing..

And then, mer and I decided where to go to lunch today. (WARNING. this phone call is incredibly boring.)

Ok, back to work. (Well, after I get back from lunch.)

So.. years and years ago, I made my radio hosting premiere at WVBR in Ithaca, when I hosted “Ithaska” with Audris on a blustery Saturday night..

Masnick came over this weekend, and we recorded the third episode of his podcast..

Have a listen. I think the levels of the music are a little off, but oh well.. lesson learned for the next ones.. Masnick has the full set list on his site, but it was fun and now I’m inspired to record more podcasts..

The Whitehouse has an official flickr stream that has some pretty awesome photos from Obama’s first 100 days..

One of the best photos (as pointed out by @acardwell) is this one:

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

And I’m particularly proud of myself for my “they’re looking for change” comment on it. hehe.

I’m such a nerd.

Apparently, there’s another Dennis Yang running around, and he’s on “the rich list” in China.  Check it out:

Nina Simone’s jazz singer daughter is coming to New Zealand. Lisa Simone Kelly, left, is Ghanaian royalty and also a philanthropist she set up a charity in her mother’s name to help communities living in poverty. Now she has agreed to support a new one, Art For Love, and she will sing at the launch evening in April. One of China’s Rich Listers, Dennis Yang, who is now a Kiwi, is behind the charity, which aims to sell the works of China’s foremost contemporary artists to raise money for various charities around the world. Auckland is the first stop and from here Art For Love will go to Sydney, Monaco and San Francisco. Each event will be different but this inaugural gala night will see Simone singing her own music plus one or two Nina Simone songs that have never been released.

So that charity thing is coming here to San Francisco — maybe I’ll go check it out.  I’m always interested in seeing what the other Dennis Yangs in the world are up to (and actually, I really wonder if they’ve ever googled themselves and gotten me).  None have ever contacted me like the Mike Hos of the world.  Nor has This American Life made a documentary about “Dennis Yang” like they did for “John Smith.”

Hmm.. this gives me an idea…

Hey Dennis Yangs of the world, let me know how you’re doing!  I can offer you an official dennisyang.com email address!!  Ie.. Mr. Rich List guy: you can be iamtherich @ dennisyang.com — Professor dude: you can be professor @ dennisyang.com and etc etc etc..