BOSTON -- "We speak in terms of being orange blooded."

I typed that into my BlackBerry and stared at it for a little while during my flight home from Home Depot's headquarters. One of Home Depot's executives said that to me during the interview. What exactly does that mean anyway?

The last time I heard a statement like that from a company employee was when I worked near Bentonville, Ark., home of Wal-Mart. I used to hear employees say all the time, "We bleed Wal-Mart." I get that it’s a metaphor but to bleed your company’s color? Now that’s devotion.

Generally sports fans say things like that. There’s a book called “Bleeding Red: A Red Sox Fan’s Diary.” I understand it more from a fan’s perspective. But I know plenty of fans, no matter what team they root for, who get so consumed by them that they look past any problems and only focus on the image they’ve created. Believe me, I’ve done it. We make excuses for players or our favorite team because we don’t want to believe anything could be wrong.

When you’re “orange-blooded,” are you really ever going to admit your company may not be protecting and caring for customers as much as you say. “We live for our customers. That is the reason we are in business.” The same executive told me that as well. It’s not enough just to say it. We’ve heard from far too many customers who don’t believe it.

Back In Boston

It wasn’t easy working out the details of our interview with a Home Depot executive. My producer had a lot of communication with their media relations department trying to get an interview with the company’s CEO. We were told pretty early on that wasn’t going to happen. But the impression we got was that someone from the company would eventually respond on camera to the reporting we had done.

After a lot of back and forth via e-mail, they finally decided to give us written statements to each of our questions. We wanted their side on camera but reluctantly agreed to a written response because it was very important to get something out of them. We went to Atlanta anyway. That’s where Home Depot is based. At that point, we still thought a written statement is all we’d get from them. We decided to make the trip because of other key interviews we set up with the Georgia Office for Consumer Affairs and Atlanta’s Better Business Bureau.

Surprise! Home Depot called while we were in town. They agreed to an on-camera interview. But when we told them we were in Atlanta and we could meet with them that day, they backed off and asked to delay the interview until the following week.

When we returned to Atlanta the following week to sit down with Home Depot executives, the interview lasted about 40 minutes and covered issues including background checks, which is a follow-up to a previous report Team 5 Investigates did about a hired sex offender sent to refinish a woman cabinets. Eventually, we’ll play that part of the interview in a separate report we’re still working on. We also talked briefly about another issue Home Depot faces. That part of our interview got cut off. You’ll find out why later this month.

Sean Kelly WCVB TV 5 Reporter