IKEA is Swedish for "you pay us so you can do fruitless labor"
I played hooky from work on Tuesday. I had to go to the shithole of Sandy Springs (285 & Roswell Rd) to deal with trivia settle up, and that always takes forever. Also, I had an errand I wanted to run.
I went back to IKEA, intending to buy bookcases for the spare room. I settled on the "Billy" system, in white because it's so much cheaper.
After an inordinate amount of time on the showroom floor trying to track down just where everything I wanted lived down in the self-service furniture warehouse, I ended up having to ask the one and only yellow-shirted person to check on the computer.
"Only" and "computer" would become a theme very shortly.
I don't understand the fascination with IKEA shopping. My first visit to IKEA last month left me thoroughly unimpressed with the place. One dollar plates are all well and good, but I already have plates. And bowls. And all the kitchen crap I need. Also, the thought of living in 900 square feet surrounded by individually named Swedish furniture frightens me. Will I wake up late at night and overhear Tullsta talking to Benno about my weird habits?
The whole setup of this IKEA space is counterintuitive. Maybe it's a Scandinavian thing. Who gets to park in that first lot? Why do I have to drive all the way around the place and park downstairs? What's with the one and only aisle that only goes one way? The "shortcuts" are hidden from view, so you're sort of forced to walk through entire departments you couldn't care less about.
Not everything is on display. They may offer that exact same shelf unit in seven different colors, but you can only find the one on the floor. Unless you can find another color in another pre-fab, fab, squarely laid-out living room on down the lane. If you can't find your color, you'll need to track down one of those yellow-shirted people to look it up on their computer so they can tell you where to find it downstairs.
The catch, of course, is that no matter how bright and cheerful the yellow, no matter how much strength that blue subconsciously represents, and no matter how Swedish the concept, that poor sap at the computer is still nothing more than a typical American retail wage slave who came to work that day with no more ambition than to do just enough work to collect a paycheck, not get fired, and get the hell out of there (and not necessarily in that order).
I mention this because when I went to see that one and only yellow-shirted person behind the computer (who, come to think, wasn't even at the computer when I finally tracked him down), all he would tell me was the aisle and bin numbers of the two things I couldn't find on the showroom floor.
Here's what he didn't tell me:
• Where to go to get what I wanted
• How to get what I wanted
• If what I wanted was in stock
And yet I said "Thanks" anyway, because that's what I do. I say "Thanks" to the parking lot attendants who take my money, for Pete's sake.
After wandering against traffic one the one-way aisle (take that you damned conformist Swedes!), I finally corralled another Yellow Shirt who pointed me in the direction of downstairs. It was the wrong direction, towards an elevator that didn't seem to function, but I found downstairs anyway. Two shortcuts later, I found the self-serve furniture pick up area, which is really just a warehouse.
I found the cart corral. I was creeped out by how the remaining carts dutifully moved forward under the hidden power of some smooth machinery. The cart itself was smallish and very well greased. It's the opposite of a grocery cart. No squeaky, recalcitrant wheels on this blue (of course) sucker. And yet I very soon learned to hate it anyway.
The way this area is supposed to work is fairly simple: IKEA is too cheap to hire workers to go to their warehouse and load up your furniture on a cart for you, nevermind help load it all in your car. Instead, they hire you to do it for them. For free.
It's a giant warehouse. Your furniture is in aisles, more specifically in "bins" which aren't really bins, just a space in the aisle. In theory, you know where your furniture is because there are tags on the display item on the showroom floor or you visited the one and only yellow-shirted person behind the computer. In the space where your furniture goes is a stack of boxes of your furniture.
Or not.
In my case on Tuesday, not. Five out of six times.
Of the six items on my list, five of them were out of stock. There was no indication of this anywhere until I looked at the empty space on the floor or on the shelf in the warehouse.
IKEA is so well organized that not only is each aisle marked, not only is each "bin" marked, but the space is denoted with a tag showing a picture of the part, the part number, and a helpful square with an arrow on it pointing up or down, as the case may be, to show you where your furniture is.
The arrow lies.
Turns out, you can take out the square paper with the arrow and flip it over so it reads "OUT OF STOCK" and some blather about seeing an IKEA employee for help.
Of my six items, I saw five arrows and one "OOS." All lies. Obnoxiously enough, the only item in stock was the only one marked OUT OF STOCK.
That item, it so happens, was the biggest one. It's a bookcase 31 ½" wide by 79 ½" high. It weighs 84 pounds. It does not fit in the cart.
I learned that last bit of news the hard way. On the cart is a picture (IKEA loves pictures) of eight items in the cart, perfectly stacked side by side, four high, with the labels pointing outward in a subtle effort to get you to make their job easier. Fair enough.
But a fucking 31 ½" by 79 ½" by maybe 2" thick, 84# box doesn't fit on the cart by any laws of physics. Those same physical laws make sure the cart and its very well greased wheels keep moving to make it nearly impossible to put said 31 ½" by 79 ½" by 2", 84# box in the cart, even with the label pointing outward. Certainly not by yourself.
When IKEA says "self-service," they ain't kidding. There wasn't a Yellow Shirt to be seen for miles.
Seven or eight minutes and several pulled muscles later, I managed to torque the holy bejezzus out of the box onto the cart. That thing was at a very dangerous curved angle.
I wish I had known the next four items on my list would be OUT OF STOCK before all that.
I eventually found the warehouse's version of the one and only yellow-shirted person behind the computer. There was a line.
In front of me was Sloane and her daddy who drove down in their van - not their regular car - to come to IKEA and it was just Sloane and her daddy and not anybody else even though there are three kids and two grownups in the family it was just Sloane and her daddy on a trip in their van - not their regular car. Sloane is a very friendly little girl.
Turns out Sloane's daddy had called IKEA to check on their stock before driving four hours (in their van, not their regular car) to IKEA only to get there to find that they are OUT OF STOCK of what he was assured was in stock. In answer to his reasonable question, Yellow Shirt informed him that no, they couldn't order it from online and ship it to him and no, they can't ship it to him what it arrives in stock there.
Yellow Shirt went above and beyond the expected reaction when Sloane's daddy asked for a manager by actually getting on a phone and insisting on having a manager come down even though most of them were in a meeting.
My turn. Similar problem. Yellow Shirt seemed genuinely surprised when I told him that five of six items were OUT OF STOCK. So he checked his computer.
Of the five items not on the floor:
• one was still on a pallet on a top shelf; it would be available tomorrow
• one was showing a dozen on the floor, which was a lie
• one was expected in their next shipment in a few days
• one was expected in 2-3 weeks
• one was not on order, even though it hasn't been discontinued
It would have been nice, I said, if there were some indication somewhere that these items weren't available. You know, like on the showroom floor. Or on the computer upstairs.
He suggested that before I come by next time, call ahead and make sure someone checks the stock on the floor to be certain that those items are actually in stock.
Uh huh. Fat lot of good that did Sloane and her daddy.
On my way out, I passed by a Suggestion Box. I suggested they might want to, you know, actually stock their products or at least give some indication on the showroom floor that they're out of stock. I may have asked for too much.
I would rather not go to IKEA again. Ever. Not after wasting over an hour of my time like this.
I like the idea of well-made, inexpensive furniture. I don't mind putting it together. I do mind having to do all the work myself only to find I've wasted my time.
Now I know how the Vikings felt when they found Greenland. Hmm….
(By the way, I ended up leaving that fucking cart with its 84# load. No way in hell was I going to unload it myself.)
The catch, of course, is I still need bookcases. Or something other than the 1" x 12" planks and cinder blocks I have now. Anybody have any ideas?
I went back to IKEA, intending to buy bookcases for the spare room. I settled on the "Billy" system, in white because it's so much cheaper.
After an inordinate amount of time on the showroom floor trying to track down just where everything I wanted lived down in the self-service furniture warehouse, I ended up having to ask the one and only yellow-shirted person to check on the computer.
"Only" and "computer" would become a theme very shortly.
I don't understand the fascination with IKEA shopping. My first visit to IKEA last month left me thoroughly unimpressed with the place. One dollar plates are all well and good, but I already have plates. And bowls. And all the kitchen crap I need. Also, the thought of living in 900 square feet surrounded by individually named Swedish furniture frightens me. Will I wake up late at night and overhear Tullsta talking to Benno about my weird habits?
The whole setup of this IKEA space is counterintuitive. Maybe it's a Scandinavian thing. Who gets to park in that first lot? Why do I have to drive all the way around the place and park downstairs? What's with the one and only aisle that only goes one way? The "shortcuts" are hidden from view, so you're sort of forced to walk through entire departments you couldn't care less about.
Not everything is on display. They may offer that exact same shelf unit in seven different colors, but you can only find the one on the floor. Unless you can find another color in another pre-fab, fab, squarely laid-out living room on down the lane. If you can't find your color, you'll need to track down one of those yellow-shirted people to look it up on their computer so they can tell you where to find it downstairs.
The catch, of course, is that no matter how bright and cheerful the yellow, no matter how much strength that blue subconsciously represents, and no matter how Swedish the concept, that poor sap at the computer is still nothing more than a typical American retail wage slave who came to work that day with no more ambition than to do just enough work to collect a paycheck, not get fired, and get the hell out of there (and not necessarily in that order).
I mention this because when I went to see that one and only yellow-shirted person behind the computer (who, come to think, wasn't even at the computer when I finally tracked him down), all he would tell me was the aisle and bin numbers of the two things I couldn't find on the showroom floor.
Here's what he didn't tell me:
• Where to go to get what I wanted
• How to get what I wanted
• If what I wanted was in stock
And yet I said "Thanks" anyway, because that's what I do. I say "Thanks" to the parking lot attendants who take my money, for Pete's sake.
After wandering against traffic one the one-way aisle (take that you damned conformist Swedes!), I finally corralled another Yellow Shirt who pointed me in the direction of downstairs. It was the wrong direction, towards an elevator that didn't seem to function, but I found downstairs anyway. Two shortcuts later, I found the self-serve furniture pick up area, which is really just a warehouse.
I found the cart corral. I was creeped out by how the remaining carts dutifully moved forward under the hidden power of some smooth machinery. The cart itself was smallish and very well greased. It's the opposite of a grocery cart. No squeaky, recalcitrant wheels on this blue (of course) sucker. And yet I very soon learned to hate it anyway.
The way this area is supposed to work is fairly simple: IKEA is too cheap to hire workers to go to their warehouse and load up your furniture on a cart for you, nevermind help load it all in your car. Instead, they hire you to do it for them. For free.
It's a giant warehouse. Your furniture is in aisles, more specifically in "bins" which aren't really bins, just a space in the aisle. In theory, you know where your furniture is because there are tags on the display item on the showroom floor or you visited the one and only yellow-shirted person behind the computer. In the space where your furniture goes is a stack of boxes of your furniture.
Or not.
In my case on Tuesday, not. Five out of six times.
Of the six items on my list, five of them were out of stock. There was no indication of this anywhere until I looked at the empty space on the floor or on the shelf in the warehouse.
IKEA is so well organized that not only is each aisle marked, not only is each "bin" marked, but the space is denoted with a tag showing a picture of the part, the part number, and a helpful square with an arrow on it pointing up or down, as the case may be, to show you where your furniture is.
The arrow lies.
Turns out, you can take out the square paper with the arrow and flip it over so it reads "OUT OF STOCK" and some blather about seeing an IKEA employee for help.
Of my six items, I saw five arrows and one "OOS." All lies. Obnoxiously enough, the only item in stock was the only one marked OUT OF STOCK.
That item, it so happens, was the biggest one. It's a bookcase 31 ½" wide by 79 ½" high. It weighs 84 pounds. It does not fit in the cart.
I learned that last bit of news the hard way. On the cart is a picture (IKEA loves pictures) of eight items in the cart, perfectly stacked side by side, four high, with the labels pointing outward in a subtle effort to get you to make their job easier. Fair enough.
But a fucking 31 ½" by 79 ½" by maybe 2" thick, 84# box doesn't fit on the cart by any laws of physics. Those same physical laws make sure the cart and its very well greased wheels keep moving to make it nearly impossible to put said 31 ½" by 79 ½" by 2", 84# box in the cart, even with the label pointing outward. Certainly not by yourself.
When IKEA says "self-service," they ain't kidding. There wasn't a Yellow Shirt to be seen for miles.
Seven or eight minutes and several pulled muscles later, I managed to torque the holy bejezzus out of the box onto the cart. That thing was at a very dangerous curved angle.
I wish I had known the next four items on my list would be OUT OF STOCK before all that.
I eventually found the warehouse's version of the one and only yellow-shirted person behind the computer. There was a line.
In front of me was Sloane and her daddy who drove down in their van - not their regular car - to come to IKEA and it was just Sloane and her daddy and not anybody else even though there are three kids and two grownups in the family it was just Sloane and her daddy on a trip in their van - not their regular car. Sloane is a very friendly little girl.
Turns out Sloane's daddy had called IKEA to check on their stock before driving four hours (in their van, not their regular car) to IKEA only to get there to find that they are OUT OF STOCK of what he was assured was in stock. In answer to his reasonable question, Yellow Shirt informed him that no, they couldn't order it from online and ship it to him and no, they can't ship it to him what it arrives in stock there.
Yellow Shirt went above and beyond the expected reaction when Sloane's daddy asked for a manager by actually getting on a phone and insisting on having a manager come down even though most of them were in a meeting.
My turn. Similar problem. Yellow Shirt seemed genuinely surprised when I told him that five of six items were OUT OF STOCK. So he checked his computer.
Of the five items not on the floor:
• one was still on a pallet on a top shelf; it would be available tomorrow
• one was showing a dozen on the floor, which was a lie
• one was expected in their next shipment in a few days
• one was expected in 2-3 weeks
• one was not on order, even though it hasn't been discontinued
It would have been nice, I said, if there were some indication somewhere that these items weren't available. You know, like on the showroom floor. Or on the computer upstairs.
He suggested that before I come by next time, call ahead and make sure someone checks the stock on the floor to be certain that those items are actually in stock.
Uh huh. Fat lot of good that did Sloane and her daddy.
On my way out, I passed by a Suggestion Box. I suggested they might want to, you know, actually stock their products or at least give some indication on the showroom floor that they're out of stock. I may have asked for too much.
I would rather not go to IKEA again. Ever. Not after wasting over an hour of my time like this.
I like the idea of well-made, inexpensive furniture. I don't mind putting it together. I do mind having to do all the work myself only to find I've wasted my time.
Now I know how the Vikings felt when they found Greenland. Hmm….
(By the way, I ended up leaving that fucking cart with its 84# load. No way in hell was I going to unload it myself.)
The catch, of course, is I still need bookcases. Or something other than the 1" x 12" planks and cinder blocks I have now. Anybody have any ideas?