Sounds like the doofus dealer might have done a Jaguar overlay install (rebuilt the system over the top of your current, or a 10.1.x to 10.2 upgrade) - both of which tend to end up poorly.
My first suggestion would be to reboot off the first of the Jag install CDs, and run the Disc Utility off the install disc (when the OSX installer comes up, go up to the top left menu bar menu and select Disc Utility). Firstly, select your boot volume, and run disc repair; repeat until no problems are reported. Then run permissions repair, repeat until no issues reported. Reboot off your (hopefully) fixed drive.
Also, make sure you have the Office updater. I hear it improved performance a lot.
If all else fails, might be time for a fresh install of Jaguar (archive and install works, in truth).
Good Luck