I seriously dealt with the worst Home Depot employee in the world, who repeatedly insisted they were out of the shower base I wanted. I told him, “No, you have three of them. You have the display one and two on your shelves, and right here on my iphone it says you are in stock.”
He kept looking at his hand held computer thing and saying “It says we are out of stock.” I looked at him and pointed at the display and said “There is the display one, and there are two more up there on the shelves about 15 feet up.”
“I can’t see them. I don’t think those are the same.”
“Then can I just have the display one?”
“No. That’s for display.”
I ended the conversation with “Am I going to have to make a scene to get someone to load that on a cart for me?”
I left the AO before I got volatile and tracked the beeping sounds until I found someone at least competent enough to drive a heavy machinery and asked him to follow me back and get one down and take it up front so I could pay for the damned thing.
I was telling someone else I am beginning to understand shooting sprees. All I could think was “Look, motherfucker, I just learned about shower bases this fucking morning when my dad told me to go get one, and I already know more than you and your fucking inventory.”
***SCREAM***
catclub
Why do I suspect the next post will be that Cole misread and insisted on buying the wrong one. And only discovered once he tried to install it/destructively opened the box.
With any luck, I am the wrong one here.
JPL
Tomorrow call and speak to the store manager. Let him/her know about your experience, and make sure to mention the employee’s name who helped. Service is improving but Nardelli caused some lasting damage.
Ruckus
@catclub:
Luck?
Cole sounds like my spirit brother on this luck thing. Not on the klutz thing though, thank the deity of your choice. My life is a country western song, if I didn’t have bad luck, I’d have none at all. I suspect that there are more of us than any opposites.
Patricia Kayden
I’ve had those moments with annoying employees. You handled yourself well. At least, you didn’t complain about him to his boss which may have jeopardized his job. I can understand the temptation to do that though.
Doug R
My experience? Just because your phone says they have one doesn’t guarantee it’s there.
Anoniminous
Suggestion: the next time you realize you are dealing with an idiot walk away and go to the Contractor Help desk.
And if you are playing to spend a shit-ton of money at Home Depot look into getting one of their credit cards. IF YOU PAY THE THING OFF EACH MONTH you’ll save some serious bucks. If you don’t, you won’t because interest.
Central Planning
We were talking about this kind of thing last night. Check out this clip from Five Easy Pieces
My son has a hard time at the all-you-can-eat cafeteria at school getting a second hamburger patty. They only way to get the second patty is to get a second roll, or to get in line again.
T S
@Ruckus: @Ruckus: Makes sense. When you live in a cold, uncaring Universe, you are more likely than not to encounter disappointment than the right combination of circumstances that could be called lucky.
debit
John, here’s some advice for dealing with Home Depot. Measure before you go. Make note of your measurements. Take pictures with your phone. If you’re replacing something that you can carry, bring it with you. Basically, treat Home Depot like they are a hostile judge and you have to prove your case before them with all the evidence you can muster. And finally, if you KNOW what you need, don’t let them tell you you need something different. You’re still one step ahead of me; since you’re a man, they automatically assume you know what you’re talking about, whereas I am always assumed to be wrong.
ETA: ASK ME FOR EXAMPLES BECAUSE I HAVE MANY. SO MANY.
Rasputin's Evil Twin
I avoid Home Despot like the plague, as I’m convinced half the people in the smocks are brain-dead. The local True Value staff know what they have, where it is, how to use it, and if you really need it. They always have at least one answer/solution to even the strangest problems I’ve ever had.
Mary G
@Doug R: He was standing there next to them, unless you’re saying that just because John’s eyes says they have three doesn’t guarantee it’s there.
Lowes and Home Depot both have the most inept website/inventory management I have ever seen in such a large business.
trollhattan
And hey, Home Depot’s co-founder {hearts} Trump, while making American shopping great again!
Somebody needs to unionize that joint.
WereBear
THERE IS NO CUSTOMER SERVICE ANY MORE.
There just isn’t. I’ve burned two hours just getting basic information. I’ve called back multiple times when a long and laborious process lost me in transfers. This is how I racked up a total of five freakin’ hours to get a refund from Ford.
You know what they have done, don’t you? They have outsourced it to the customer.
Just like John had to track down his own shower base and then hunt up someone to get it down for him. Like I had to figure out the bug in the Ford customer website and find an obscure number on the Internet to finally get the thing straightened out.
WE are doing THEIR job. And not getting paid.
Bobby Thomson
You should go to Lowes or a mom and pop anyway. Shopping at Home Depot puts money in Ken Langone’s pocket.
schrodinger's cat
JC@top
Lowe’s seems to have a better inventory, why go to Home Depot at all?
Since this is a thread about home repairs, I have a question of my own.
Had a small leak from the bathroom above to the kitchen below, some water dripped down, through the ceiling fan downstairs. Should we get a plumber or anyone else to get it looked at?
Mary G
@schrodinger’s cat: YES. Ceiling fans have electricity and electricity and water are a bad combination. Also, any water leak should be immediately addressed because water will rot drywall or plaster, bubble paint and/or cause mold to develop. All resulting in more money cost the longer it goes on. If this is in your new house and your seller bought you a warranty, call them. Call somebody now.
Lee
First off I LOVE this Category. All but the pet posts can use it. Even some of those it would work.
trollhattan
@Mary G:
What she said. Was is raining at the time or can you rule out roof?
Anytime water leaves its in-pipe (supply or drain) containment bad things follow.
p.s. Turn off power to the fan at the breaker.
Mary G
@debit: Amen, sister. If I had a dollar for every time some maroon at HD basically told me “well, little lady, don’t worry your pretty little head about the OBVIOUSLY WRONG information I am giving you, because your lack of a certain appendage means you are too stupid to understand” I would be rich. My local Lowes hires a lot of women, which is helpful.
E
Home Depot Pro Tip: NEVER ask a male Home Depot employee for assistance. You will very likely end up in a worse place than you would have if you had never asked anyone. BUT, the women, now the women, they will more than 50 percent of the time be very helpful. They will usually know how to help you, and when they do not, they will know which male employees to avoid. They’ve already been through it all so you don’t have to.
chopper
@catclub:
you are wrong. his next post will let us all know that he accidentally broke both of his legs while trying to install it.
Gin & Tonic
@WereBear: This phenomenon has two sides. My daughter, who seems to have inherited a certain obstreperous stubbornness from at least one of her parents, and who also writes for a living, goes out of her way to write lengthy and detailed letters documenting her dissatisfaction with goods or services which do not meet her exacting standards.
She ends up getting a *lot* of free stuff. Many companies still have employees who read letters like that and seem to have the authority to do something.
schrodinger's cat
@trollhattan: Actually it was me that was the culprit, some of the water spilled out of the bath that I had drawn. It was not much but some of it seems to have seeped to the kitchen below.
JaneE
Been there, done that. Found what we wanted, part number and actual part matched the old one. Had it in my hand. Box looked new. No price. No problem, just let them find it at the register. After scanning, not found. Check inventory, not found. After about half a lifetime (maybe 5-10 minutes of entering, scanning, calling somewhere, etc) they sent someone to check the shelf to see what it said. It said nothing, because they don’t have it. The let us have it for the cheapest price of the other similar parts, and dog only knows how they booked the sale.
Miss Bianca
Seriously, go to Ace Hardware next time (full disclosure: Yeah, I work for the company. But our customer service really is just way, way better than all the other guys’).
ETA: Or what efg just said.
GrandJury
I don’t think those people are paid much. Maybe remember that next time and cut them some slack. Same with Walmart. I won’t give those people any grief either.
Some of then can be pretty good though. Maybe that’s not the case anymore. Haven’t been to HomeDepot in a long time. I go to other places instead.
LAO
John — I’ve got a good friend down your way, just shoot me an email if you need a criminal defense attorney.
Lurker on the threshold
In my experience you can find someone who knows what they’re doing in the winter, when they have contractors working part time. The inventory system still sucks, though.
Hoodie
@WereBear: This is a systemic effect of monopoly/oligopoly that affects customers and vendors alike, depending on which way the provider/consumer imbalance runs. I see it on the vendor side working for large corps, where they push their data gathering and other admin tasks on to their vendors because they have skeletal workforces and a monopsony position that enables them to extract administrative stuff for free (around here, we call it being Walmarted). All of it is designed to exploit market power, which is why they are constantly striving towards consolidation. Consolidation does not always provide economies of scale and other efficiency enhancements; it also allows you to externalize cost on to others that you deal with.
Anoniminous
@schrodinger’s cat:
By “spilled out of the bath” do you mean actually went on the floor or reached and drained through the overflow intake in the tub? IF THE LATTER you need to check the pipe running from the overflow intake to the wastewater pipe connected to the tub’s drain. If you mean you spilled water on the floor … stop doing that.
:-)
jeffreyw
The best time saving advice I can give anyone is to know what the name of the tool/part/material is before you go. You don’t want to play 20 questions with the store help.
Jerzy Russian
@Mary G: Well, to be fair to us men, that little (or not so little) appendage we have is full of brains, because we constantly use them to think.
Ruckus
@debit:
This is true. Both parts. The first is because they found out that hiring people with knowledge was “too” expensive. But hiring people with no experience just doesn’t work. I always just tell the help that I’m fine and I know where what I’m looking for is and if I need any help loading my cart I’ll ask. The second is true as well, but in the case of a home improvement center, HD more so in my experience, is not limited to women exclusively. I’ve seen and experienced it as well. I just give them the look and they walk away. That’s the one that says get the fuck away from me you pompous asshole. Fortunately pompous assholes have seen this look many times and usually don’t want to hang around to find out if you know how to disable them with 2 fingers.
On a similar note, the best assistance I’ve ever received at a HD was from a woman who came and cut blinds to size. She was from another dept and came over because the person working in the blinds dept had no idea what I was talking about and she saw my exasperation at dealing with someone totally not equipped to be working there. Fast, efficient, pleasant and most of all knowledgeable. Of course she would never be employee of the month at a large corp store, she actually knew what she was doing.
Grumpy Code Monkey
Just don’t go to Mega Lo Mart looking for a tap and die.
the Reverend Lowdown
I worked at a Home Depot for a bunch of years, most of them as a department supervisor. I have tons of criticisms of that company that I could go on for a long time about, but customer service would not be one of them. They hammered good customer service into us at every manager meeting on a weekly basis. We were accountable for not only sales plans but had to personally answer for every customer complaint or bad survey answer. At the store that I worked at, if a customer walked by and you didn’t acknowledge them with a greeting and “Can I help you find something?” you received a write up. If it happened a second time, then you were fired. I have seen that happen. What you experienced was a crappy employee. That person should have physically verified that they did not have the item that you were looking for. If that was the case, then the hand held inventory “thingy”, that they all carry, can tell you what store has it. Hell, even if they have to order it for you, the replenishment system works very fast. In short, give the store manager a call, explain the situation and it will be dealt with immediately. We live in different states but I can’t see any HD store manager not being helpful in this situation.
Central Planning
There used to be a Lechmere here in Rochester back in the late 80’s/early 90’s. The googles say they were sold to Montgomery Ward in 1994, and closed in 1997.
Ruckus
@WereBear:
It’s even worse, we are paying for their mistakes and BS. Same as the people on food stamps that work for wally world.
schrodinger's cat
@Anoniminous: I spilled water on the floor, it was a careless accident. There are no bath mats or shower curtains in the spare bath.
Kristine
I like my local Ace. The clerks have been there for years, and the owner still works the floor and will help you carry stuff to your car. They also repair small engines–mowers, snow throwers. Unfortunately the store is small, so sometimes a big box is the only option.
mick mcDick
i have had similar experiences at Home Depot. Used to piss me off that the employees there did not seem to give a shit or know much of anything. Then i realized, at what they get paid by Langone, why should they give a shit? i wouldn’t.
My retirement plan involves getting a job at Home Depot or Wal Mart and stealing oxygen out of the air but otherwise not giving a shit. thanks for the $$.
nonynony
@WereBear:
Self-serve man! Pump your own gas, bag your own groceries, scan the groceries yourself. It’s all the same trend.
Pretty soon McDonalds is just going to invite you to make your own damn burger.
Shana
@efgoldman: I’m a big fan of my local Ace too. I needed to replace the screw and socket for attaching a table leg to the top (one part of the screw had broken off in the socket). Not only did Ace have the part, but they took pity on me and removed the piece that had broken off and was stuck in the socket, made sure that the replacement screw actually fit into the socket and sent me on my way. All for the princely sum of about $2.50.
trollhattan
@efgoldman:
Seattle had a place called Jafco that functioned exactly as you describe–also printed catalogues so you could shop at home then go down and order w/o wandering the aisles in case you didn’t want to see the thing first. They must have had a hell of a filing system.
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman: Last I checked, she was my daughter. Since I’ve never once heard her say “go fuck yourself” I don’t think she’s yours.
trollhattan
@nonynony:
REFUSE to use self-checkout because I 1. want somebody to ring up and bag the stuff and 2. want to employ checkers. Area HDs often have just one checker working when I go there, but I always queue up.
Ruckus
@Mary G:
You do of course know that many men have a tiny little brain and it gets blood flow a very limited amount of time or when little blue pills are taken. The rest of us don’t work at Home Depot.
Blue Galangal
@Rasputin’s Evil Twin: As my daughter and I call it – after many similar experiences, being women who know something about home renovation and yet being patted on the head and sent off to play – Home Desperate.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@debit:
All of this, times eleventy, but especially this:
Sexist dicks still sexist.
@E: Does your HD have female employees? At our mega-HD I’ve only seen them in the kitchen design dept. and at the checkout. I live in San Francisco, so it’s not a result of having a traditional local-resident/customer base.
trollhattan
@Ruckus:
Shhh, ix-nay on chatting up our ecret-say.
Shana
@nonynony: And pay clothing designers to advertise for them while wearing their logoed clothing.
Thankfully my background as a punk rubbed off on my daughters during their teenage years and we had very few battles about clothing on that front.
JJ
@E: You’re paraphrasing what I said to a friend just yesterday.
Chris
@WereBear:
I suspect the people who do customer service just aren’t paid nearly enough to give a shit.
Karen
@WereBear:
I’ve found that Apple Care has fantastic customer service.
jake the antisoshul soshulist
At least I now know I am not the worst Home Depot employee ever.
I worked there about 3 months in 2015. We got some different customers.
There was the one gentleman wh asked everyone what they thought about the Confederate flag and declared that he had one on everything he owned.
Then there eas another incident when a woman who appeared to be Hispanic walked through my department with 3 or 4 kids. Who were admittedly a little rowdy. Another customer stated loud enough for everyone to hear something to the effect that it was bad enough that he had to pay to keep them up, but he had to listen to them too. Since I was at work I had to bite my tongue when I wanted to tell him that her family probably worked harder than he had in his life.
Then there was the Asian immigrant family whose 8 year-old daughter had to translate everthing for them.
WereBear
@Gin & Tonic: Mmmmm. I think your daughter is brilliant and I am impressed with her results.
Will use that next time!
WereBear
I once tracked down the CEO of Time Warner and got a special secretary on the phone and told her, in detail, how disgusting I found it that I was 20 short on my bill that month due to a typo and I called them and was told just tack it onto the next. But still I received multiple daily phone calls from a robot on my cell phone and no one could shut it off.
They don’t seem to do that any more.
Elmo
“You can do it. We can watch.”
geg6
@Rasputin’s Evil Twin:
Agreed. True Value stores and their employees are national treasures.
Chris
@debit:
This is a frequent irritation, though usually it’s about quantity not specific object;
“Those are on sale. Two for the price of one.”
“Thanks, I only want one.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“You can have two.”
“Nope.”
“For the price of one.”
“I’m good.”
“It’s the same price.”
“I. ONLY. WANT. ONE! CAN I PLEASE FUCKING PAY NOW?”
J R in WV
What the female members of the group have said: YES!
We had a Ford Ranger, which had both a oil pressure gauge AND a idiot light to go on when the oil pressure was low/undetectable. Long ago, this was. And it came to pass that the pressure sensor for the oil pressure warning light seemed to have failed. We knew this because the warning light was on, while the gauge showed plenty of oil pressure, and the dipstick showed plenty of oil.
So Mrs J went to the Ford garage parts counter to get a pressure sensor for the idiot light. Cretin dolt behind the counter asks questions (which he would never done if I had gone to the Ford garage parts counter, but I had a class that day) and determines from the answers that Wife was asserting that our truck had both an idiot light AND an oil pressure gauge.
Instead of providing the part which Mrs J was desiring to buy, Dolt behind the counter tells Wife that “Rangers don’t have both idiot lights AND gauges!” Which is both untrue and irrelevant, sell the woman the part! She says, “Yes, it does. Come outside and look. Better, just sell me the part I need.”
Dolt is unwilling to sell the part to a female, and doesn’t have time to go out to the truck and look at the dashboard, where HE would see a glowing idiot oil pressure warning lamp AND an oil pressure gauge showing more than adequate oil pressure. Imagine the rage Mrs J feels, while she also needs to go to work in a different city from where my college classes are, yet near the Ford garage. Which explains the split of chores here.
I had to go buy the part the next day, so I was at least somewhat as enraged as Mrs J. I’m pretty sure Dolt didn’t wait on me. I’m also glad we can now afford to have our vehicles maintained by professional mechanics, instead of me working on them. Although now we have a big garage where I maintain the Tractor, Backhoe, Bush-hog, etc.
so it wouldn’t be like lying in 5 degree snow covered concrete, like it used to be.
Home Depot is a little better than it used to be here in south-central WV. Lowes is bigger and so has larger inventory, but doesn’t carry Milwaukee tools, which are available at Home Depot. I have had great success with female staff at both big box stores. Especially in Arizona.
Gravenstone
@Anoniminous:
During my collegiate sojourn one of the apartments I inhabited had an occasional repeat of water running down the kitchen walls and cabinets, and into the apartment below ours (home of the two literal cowboys from Hell – WY natives pursuing animal husbandry degrees). Came to learn after the third such occurrence that the apartment above ours had a leak in the overflow intake pipe (the bathroom was on the backside of the kitchen wall), and this was the source of water draining through our kitchens. One of the occupants was disabled and required baths rather than showering, hence the repeat episodes. Much fun having to rewash all your dishes multiple times. I did not miss that place after we moved out.
SiubhanDuinne
@WereBear:
Boy howdy, that is exactly what it is! It’s so obvious when you put it just that way.
ETA: In fact, not only are we not getting paid for doing their job, we are actually losing money in wasted time which could have been productive.
geg6
@GrandJury:
Actually, I know someone who recently got a position at Walmart and got a starting hourly pay of $16 an hour. They have really upped the compensation now that the labor market has tightened.
Felonius Monk
@nonynony:
Can’t wait for this to happen. At least if I make it, it will be edible.
NotMax
@Miss Bianca
Helpful customer service at Ace? It is to laugh.
Most recent example: Needed some sticky-backed Velcro. Asked a floor worker for assistance finding the correct aisle.
“Velcro? What’s that?” (Not a paraphrase, not an exaggeration.)
Explained what it was, and was cheerfully led directly to a display of…
…bungee cords.
les
Home Derpot does suck. Had a faucet from the Derpot–I didn’t get it–and needed a part. Went onlilne to mfr. site; says all parts available at Derpot. Reluctantly went there; helpful troll in plumbing says, “We don’t carry any parts because the full line is available from mfr. online.”
Went home thinking “no wonder they shipped in the wrong size doors 3 times in a row, last time I tried here.” Shit, they make Lowe’s look good.
WereBear
@Chris: Sadly, all too often, they aren’t paid, aren’t trained, and aren’t allowed to do anything actually helpful.
In getting a diagnosis for my long-baffling health issue, I had to deal with my insurance company. A lot. And got kicked off the website, and jumped through hopes to get back on it, over and over and over and over again, to the point where I now MAIL THEM STUFF. And passed through dozens of 800 number portals, and being left messages and told to call back on certain numbers, using a 16 digit case #, only when I call back on that number and use that case# they have no idea what I am talking about.
It is past ridiculous. It is the New Kafka.
@Karen: Apple Care is worth every penny. We automatically get it on all our devices now, because it pays for itself over the 15 years Mr WereBear & I have been Apple FanPeople together.
Gravenstone
@geg6: Alas, our local True Value burned down a couple of months ago.
kindness
Home Depot wasn’t so bad till the management offed all the full time employees because they decided going Ayn Rand (right when Obamacare was being instituted) would make them an extra shiny penny a month. I tell ya, I used to think the French went overboard during their little revolution. Now I thing they just didn’t pick all the correct targets.
btw, Lowes has way better employees now.
geg6
@Gravenstone:
I have three of them within a 10 mile radius. An embarrassment of riches.
Betsy
@WereBear: It’s true. Delivery has also been outsourced to the customer. We drive to the store, select our items, load them in our carts, check them out ourselves (or carry them through the live-cashiering process), load them in the car, drive them home, carry them into our kitchens. All of those functions were carried out by the store before “cash-and-carry” supermarkets were invented. Before that — even within living memory — a small army of delivery younguns brought your order to you. Sometimes they even put it away in your pantry.
Those jobs for kids — clerking, sorting orders, delivery — were how younguns got money for movies, cokes, special occasion wear, even cars. And of course some kids contributed their earnings to the family income. Some of those jobs were held by low-skilled adults. I’m not saying they were great jobs, and often they were held by people who were disadvantaged and that’s the main reason those people had low skills. Still, young people and low-skilled people need work.
That work is done for free now, by all of us basically (not the 2% of course).
gvg
Hmm, I am a woman and I have never felt that I was being talked down to at either HD or Lowes. Admittedly I already knew a bit more than average because of paying attention to my father growing up, but honestly I have rarely had a bad employee experience at either. Now not enough cashiers or people on the floor because the management is cheap, yes. regular hardware stores have been shrinking for years and just don’t usually have what I want. I use both big boxes because in my experience no one store ever has all the things you need for a project. I rarely ask their opinion on anything. I just call dad or uncle, google or look up a manual before I go. Never really occurs to me to ask them something.
Well an idiot or rude clerk can happen anywhere, but if the specific store manager is a jerk too, you will have more problems.
retiredeng
Home Depot is a mess here too. But not completely. Sometimes you can get help from someone with a brain cell or three. But their “computerized inventory scheme” is just not working. I wanted some desiccant to dry out under a bathroom vanity that was barely accessible. The “system” had it located where it used to be and I had to go through several people to find out where it actually was. It took an hour to get something that should have taken five minutes.
Betsy
@SiubhanDuinne: This
ribber
Years ago, in New England, there was this torrential rain while the ground was still winter-frozen, causing flooded basements and crawlspaces all over the place. My M-I-L’s included, and her 1/6HP pump wasn’t keeping up to the water rising in her crawlspace with her HW heater and furnace.
I went to Home Despot, and got ahold of one of the last 1/2HP pumps they had left. I needed about 15′ of hose that would fit on it, and there was practically none to be found. The cut-to-length rolls were empty. Me and some other guy who needed some found one 50′ clear 2″ vinyl hose roll, pretty expensive stuff, and some radiator clip unions that would fasten onto pumps OK. We stopped an employee and asked for a knife so that we could cut the length in half and I would pay for the whole roll and he’d give me half the price in cash. All we needed was a knife. The employee INSISTED that we measure the length out to cut it in the middle. I said I don’t care if it’s off by 10 feet, this is between me and the other guy, we’re paying HD the whole price, can we just borrow a knife to cut it. Oh, no, we’re going to have to measure it. “Look, we can just fold it in half and cut it there if you’re so insistent on being equitable.” “No, I’ll go get a measuring tape…” while the rain keeps falling and the water keeps rising and every person walking in the door is asking me if I’m going to buy the pump I’m holding which was the last one in the store…
WereBear
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes. I could bill them for my time, but they have already wasted enough. I even told Ford that in my professional capacity, working on websites, I could send them a bill for the troubleshooting I just did for them, and all I got was an uneasy laugh.
@Betsy: And it makes me want to punch Libertarians in the nose, because I’m supposed to be able to take my business elsewhere when they piss me off this much. Only I can’t.
Because their competition (when there is one) also sucks.
Betsy
@E: This is the case in all lines of work.
As a reward, everyone wants to work the women harder.
Waldo
Best advice for dealing with Home Depot: Go to Lowes.
geg6
@gvg:
I have done plumbing, electrical, dry wall and tiling in my current home and in the complete renovation my ex and I did in our 100 year old brick colonial (completely torn down to the exterior walls and everything torn out). I know what I’m talking about when I go into a hardware or home improvement store. The only place I haven’t been talked down to is the True Value stores. Great places and great employees. And just because they don’t have it in the store doesn’t mean they can’t get it, so don’t be too quick to discount a True Value or Ace store because they aren’t big box stores. Unless you’re looking for appliances or decor items, you can probably get whatever you need from them with a lot less condescension and hassle.
E
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Hello Comrade Colette, yes, my Home Depot most definitely has female employees, and not just as cashiers. This is especially strange since my Home Depot is squarely located in Shitskull, OR.
WereBear
There’s a new trend that snagged me at both Ford and Verizon, just lately, where they want to funnel you back to the website and take you step by step through the thing you just tried, and multiply failed, to make happen, and then when it doesn’t happen, again, they got nothing.
I demand a supervisor and they claim they don’t have one.
And that corporate number you used to be able to track down? Now it’s an 800 number that just throws you back onto the same maze of menus and unhelpful people you were trying to get away from.
I will say this for Verizon; they have regional supervisors listed on their website and an email to them gets you a call back, and action, PDQ. But not Ford. I had to go through the dealership to get someone from corporate on the phone.
Assholes. If you are VP of customer service I better be able to get at you, or you are not doing your job.
Mary G
@schrodinger’s catIt is still VERY BAD to have water loose in between floors, however it gets there. It’s just a different solution. Usually the caulking between the edge of the tub and the floor has shrunken/cracked with time, or there may be failure in the grouting between tiles if they are in the floor. It’s an easy fix to get a tool to scrape out the bad stuff and replace with fresh silicone caulk. You are probably too stressed and overwhelmed from all the moving and election to do it yourself, but any handyman knows how and shouldn’t charge much for it.
NotMax
@Betsy
Main reason why, when need to shop for white goods (major appliances), still favor giving my custom to Sears.
They will deliver, giving a 2 hour window for arrival and ALWAYS on time or else early (in which case will call me up to say they’ll be early and check if I’ll be there), install correctly and haul the old item off. Sometimes the delivery service is free, sometimes not, but even then only a modest fee.
The Moar You Know
Hell is being a Home Depot employee. Seriously one of the worst jobs out there.
Miss Bianca
@NotMax: Hawaii might be different from the continental US…more “exotic”, as Cokie Roberts assures us…(ducks virtual object thrown at virtual head).
Seriously, sorry you had that experience. I’d say “one bad apple don’t spoil the whole bunch”, but not sure that would be helpful here either!
debit
@gvg: Maybe I just have one of those faces. I recently bought a house and found out that I don’t have any air movement in two ducts. I assume this is because a damper is closed somewhere inside those ducts. Unfortunately, the basement ceiling is finished so there’s no easy way to tell where the damper might be. I called a HVAC company. They came in, verified there was no air movement (and of these ducts goes to my bedroom upstairs) and said, “Well, we can fix this. Ever heard of a mini split system?” I have. It’s about six thousand dollars and I don’t want one when I have a perfect good furnace and central AC. I explained that I didn’t want such a system, I wanted the closed damper to be opened. They couldn’t do that without ripping out my ceiling. What about a camera, I asked. Nope, not possible. When I pointed out that if the technology exists to stick a camera up my ass and view yards of my colon, surely such a thing could also be done with my ducts, I was told, alas, no, with no real plausible explanation as to why.
So I called another company, who told me the exact same thing, but also added that maybe my ducts were the wrong size and they could totally replace them for only a couple thousand dollars. I asked about an internal duct fan. Oh, sure, if I want to risk explosion and death and what not…was I sure I wouldn’t be happier with a mini split system?
Here’s the kicker: I used to be the system admin at an HVAC wholesaler. Granted, not a technician or installer, but smart enough to know the basics. So I bought a camera and will fix the fucking thing myself.
Central Planning
@NotMax: I would never buy an appliance from Sears again. I tried to buy a refrigerator. On the 4th attempt at a delivery (each fridge had damage of some kind) I cancelled the whole thing and went to a small, local dealer. Much happier and quicker delivery too!
cermet
But John, the computer here says you died; sorry but your continued breathing will not be tolerated …yes, the rural ‘hicks’ have very good reason to be angry, not trust the urban ‘elite’ nor the government that always seems to have funds to spend on cities/urban schools/libraries and other standard needs but they, the poor in the deep hicks can’t get even a single AP course for their kid, much less internet for the school and forget computers even for the teachers or admin.
HermanNewticks
Opens box. Finds mustard.
Miss Bianca
@Kristine: Remember, you can special order from your friendly Ace store, too! Not always an option when you Need It Now, but just a thought. ; )
schrodinger's cat
@Mary G: How do I get rid of the water that’s already there, is there a way to do that?
Bill E Pilgrim
Okay that was good but you haven’t really got this “John Cole” thing down quite yet. Might I suggest:
“I then went and got the ladder myself and halfway up got my foot and my flip flop wedged on the top and bottom of a rung, respectively, and in trying to dislodge it threw myself off balance so when my foot did finally come flying out with a lurch it sent me and the ladder backwards so that I was balancing on it upright in the middle of the store like a circus act until I couldn’t any longer and fell crashing into the tile section where I was cut to ribbons by jagged edges of the thousands of dollars worth of broken patio tiles. And then the ladder hit me. “
cermet
@retiredeng: Yes but remember this about Home despot, their billionaire owner crushed most smaller hardware stores and they now dominated the market for many areas; also, the ass built a huge aquarium in Atlanta and has whale sharks (far too big for such a tiny tank) to please us great unwashed masses – bread and circus …
cermet
@schrodinger’s cat: Tried towels? Forced air (that is warm) for area’s one can’t reach.
slag
I’m assuming the pickins are slim in BF West Virginia and you just wanted to get the job done, but yeah, anywhere-but-Home-Depot is our home improvement mecca these days. F’ that dude.
Chris
@WereBear:
Oh, health insurance? That’s beyond incompetence. I have never, ever, in either the public or private sector, either here or in Europe, ever interacted with people who were in worse need of me looking over their shoulder, holding their hand, and checking and rechecking and rerechecking their work EVERY. FUCKING. STEP. OF THE WAY than the American private health insurance industry.
Though in that case, it’s less incompetence than sheer racketeering, given the sheer number of “mistakes” that would have cost me money. I think my favorite is the $160.00 bill for a doctor’s visit which the insurance company refused to pay for because nobody could find the written referral from my primary care physician that I’d given to the doctor I was visiting. A sympathetic employee said “yeah, always make a copy for yourself or insist that you get to keep the original, because these things have a way of getting lost when we try to upload them to the website,” which is quite possibly the most blatant casual admission of “yeah, we’re crooks. So what? Who’s going to stop us?” I’ve heard since “nice base you’ve got here, colonel. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to it!”
Mary G
Not too long after I bought my house and wasn’t too bright about things, I got an ad from Sears offering a great deal on a product ten times stronger and cheaper than paint. Since the paint the seller had slapped on over years of unscraped loose paint was already peeling off in long strips, I made an appointment for the free estimate, using a vacation day since they didn’t come on weekends or evenings.
The guy who showed up refused to even look at the job or measure, because my husband wasn’t home. Seriously. Even after I explained that I was divorced and the sole owner of the property and showed him the freaking bill for the mortgage with my name on it. He suggested getting my dad to help, and still refused after I told him my dad had been dead for decades. I could not believe it and argued with him for a good twenty minutes before losing it and throwing him out.
Everyone I knew told me I was lucky, because Sears, like Trump, sold their name to any shyster who would pay for it and took no responsibility for the results. Thinking about it now, he was probably a Republican “Christian” who thought I was a lesbian and was afraid of catching cooties, or something.
brendancalling
Your first mistake was shopping at Home Depot. Lowes is pricier, but their staff actually understands the concept of customer service.
When I was fixing my house for sale,I’d only hit HD if I knew exactly what I needed and where it was. Talking to their employees is like talking to a dead cat.
Mary G
@schrodinger’s cat: Throw a fan in the bathroom aimed at the floor; leave it on overnight. I’d still get a handyman or electrician to check the ceiling fan out of an abundance of caution.
schrodinger's cat
@cermet: Already done that, but what about the water that must have seeped in between the two floors, that’s what I am worried about.
Gin & Tonic
@debit: I’m not sure where you live, but here’s one example of a company here in the MA/RI area that does duct cleaning and video inspection. If you want to do it yourself, there are companies that will rent you the video equipment.
schrodinger's cat
@Mary G: Thanks will do that!
Gin & Tonic
@schrodinger’s cat: It will dry out. There’s little likelihood of standing water anywhere, since it came out through your ceiling fan.
debit
@Mary G: I am full of rage just reading that. How you avoided beating him about the head and shoulders is beyond me.
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
FROFLMAO
Thanks! I needed that.
FlyingToaster
Some of us have a Home Depot here in town and 9+ miles to the nearest Lowes (Woburn, Dedham, or Framingham), so yes, I have a Home Depot Credit Card, with which I get most of the storage bin / garden tool / plastic panel supplies.
One good thing — with an HD account, I can order a “it’s in the store inventory” item online and have it waiting for me at Customer Service :) Other companies that do that: Target, Best Buy.
Gotta take WarriorGirl to violin now… Bye!
Chris
@The Moar You Know:
I’m sure.
I’ve been a cashier at a location with reasonably good customers, co-workers, and employees, and even under the best conditions it’s not fun. Suffice it to say I try really hard not to get outwardly pissed off at the employees in minimum-wage service jobs, unless there’s a really good reason for it.
(And while I will sometimes get pissed at them, I’ve never and will never ask to talk to their supervisor. What would it resolve? They’d fire the poor guy, hire some other drone, fail just as completely to train – or adequately pay/motivate – him, and foist basically the exact same kind of customer service on me the next time I was back).
Mary G
@debit: I tried to sic my cat on him, but you know how they are.
debit
@Gin & Tonic: Thanks, but I went ahead and just bought a camera. My faith in anyone actually doing what what they’re supposed to do is gone.
NotMax
@Chris
Told before but worth a repeat. True story.
Kept getting letters from the state tax department insisting I owed them some money. A whopping $16.
Finally called them up at the main office and got hold of someone in the right section, explained the whole thing and asked him to look into it as it was clearly an error.
Ten minutes later, he returned to the phone and informed me that I was correct and that the $16 was money due me as a refund. Remainder of response follows.
“Just tear up the letters and any more you might get from us. We often mix up debits and credits, happens all the time.”
Capri
Here in the midwest, one also has the option to go to Menards – Lowes scruffy cousin. When one opened near my house, it was staffed by wonderful, cheerful, helpful staff. It was unreal. Went back 3 months later and the helpful guys were gone – replaced by average dolts. I’m sure they moved their A team to the next opening.
WereBear
@Chris: As far as In Person goes, I’m fortunate beyond all reason: I live in a tiny town in a state park. All the people I deal with face to face are wonderful and often, they are the owner.
Very few chains here.
JPL
@kindness: That was Nardelli, and he was fired with 150 million golden parachute.
The management that replaced him and his cronies is much better.
Robert Sneddon
@WereBear:
They usually don’t, at least no-one that they can put you in direct contact with. It’s not cost-effective to have a supervisor hovering over a bunch of call-centre droids waiting for someone who wants to speak to the manager. The team leads on the floor don’t do calls and customer contacts, they only manage the personnel (timekeeping, shift patterns, training schedules etc.)
I’ve worked in a big retail company call centre — we could escalate a contact to a second-line agent (who didn’t “manage” or “supervise” anyone, they just had more experience and a little more flexibility for refunds, exchanges etc.) but only by an internal chat system — many of them worked from home, some were in a different timezone. If the customer was really desperate to be told what I had just told them but by someone they imagined was higher up the tree then we could arrange a callback, usually at least thirty minutes from the original contact. That gave time for tempers to cool down, for the second-line agent to go through the customer history, listen to call logs etc. but by then it was out of my hands and I was on another call or dealing with emails.
JPL
@Mary G: Wow! When I moved in to my home several years ago, the contractor’s desk pro at Home Depot noticed I was buying a lot of paint. Since I was painting the inside and out by myself, he took me to contractor’s desk and made me a pro. It was a nice discount on paint. It didn’t matter that I was a female.
Home Depot Corporate has a lot of female hires. It’s not just about the men anymore.
Barbara
@WereBear: My uncle once bluffed his way onto the telephone with Steve Jobs after he could not get anyone from Apple to help him resolve a complaint with the computer he used in his business. I kid you not. His message was that if he (my uncle) ran his company the way Jobs did when it came to servicing product defects he wouldn’t have a business. Apparently that did result in some special attention from Apple’s product support.
ETA: He also organized the stranded passengers of a canceled People’s Express flight to blockade the path to the gate (for which he would probably be arrested today) and he was the chairman of the Jesse Jackson for President Committee in his rural county. He was a great guy.
Ruckus
@Felonius Monk:
For it to be eatable after it’s cooked it has to be a food source before.
WereBear
@Robert Sneddon: I didn’t doubt them. And the only things I say that can be even close to abusive is when I say things like, “I hope this is being recorded, because I think this system is terrible for both you and me, and I don’t see how this is supposed to keep me as a customer.”
Eric U.
if you are going to spend more than $1000 (some people say it’s $2500, not sure) on stuff at Home Depot, you should go to what they call “the bid room” and get them to make a bid on it. I assume Lowes has the same sort of deal. Then they will pull your order for you.
Betsy
BJ is in my FB feed now. WTF
Barbara
@WereBear: Verizon’s efforts particularly kill me because if my Internet service were working I wouldn’t be seeking help!
debit
@NotMax: I hope you didn’t take his advice until the situation was actually resolved. I had a tax client that lived in one state and worked in another. His employer screwed up reported his state income tax withheld from his check (paid it in one state, reported it in another) and he kept getting letters he didn’t understand. The one day his bank called: his account had been levied by the state of California to the tune of $12,000. I got it straightened out and his money returned, but then he had to go to court to get the levy removed from his record. It took two years, and in the meantime he couldn’t work because he was a translator for the US and was considered a risk because of the ding on his credit.
Ceci n'est pas mon nym
@Felonius Monk:
Not by much. You’ll still be starting with compressed sawdust instead of meat.
Betsy
@NotMax: That is really good, these days.
gene108
@catclub:
Destroying the box sounds like a job for one of the menagerie.
debit
@Ceci n’est pas mon nym: Or as a friend of mine used to call them “spicy floor sweepings.” She may have been unduly influenced by Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle.
Ruckus
@Capri:
Home Depot used to do that 30 yrs ago. Open a store, all the employees worked as a group, were very knowledgeable, etc and moved from opening to opening. They “trained” new employees before they left and then….. the store just existed, at best. I don’t think they do that now, it actually costs money and in the long run didn’t really improve the purchasing experience.
Mart
Back in the day I was at a Builders Square with a contractor buddy and three carts with about $6,500 worth of stuff on them (I do pretty good maths in my head when I don’t want to over-draft). As we headed to checkout a Builders Square employee hollered at us to hold up, and wanted to know just what we thought we were up to. I said, Ahhh, checking out? She said she was going to take care of that, and proceeded to beep away with a then newfangled hand scanner. After five or ten minutes she declared a grand total of $2,254. I look at my buddy, he shrugged his shoulders, I took that as a sign that she was right, and proceeded to pay the lady. We furiously loaded his truck and scooted out of there. When Builders Square later went bankrupt, I knew it was because of me.
Applejinx
@E: Works in politics too! :D
trollhattan
@Ceci n’est pas mon nym:
So help me, we’re already arrived at make your own fast food. And this isn’t the only such chain.
Waldo
The last straw for me was ordering a major appliance from Home Depot, taking a vacation day to be sure I was home when the item arrived sometime between 9 a.m and 5 p.m. and then getting a call at 10 minutes to 5 informing me the truck was running late and was not coming that day. The delivery guys told me I would need to reschedule! And I did, with Lowes, the next day, after I cancelled the Home Depot purchase.
trollhattan
@Betsy:
Get out, the posts are coming from inside the house!
Faux News
Not surprised at all .The Home Depot near my house is basically The Land of Misfit Toys. Yes, I am speaking about the employees there. Lowes is about 20 minutes away and is wonderful.
Helen
Nuh uh. He works in the Home Depot in Queens, NY. Trust me.
chopper
@nonynony:
they kinda tried that in the 80s with the McDLT. meh.
Mike J
DVR alert, a movie with the absurd premise of a *woman* becoming president is going to be on TCM at 5pm. Kisses for my President with Fred MacMurray and Polly Bergen.
This movie should be shown in every college dorm and sorority house to get young women angry enough to vote.
NotMax
@Faux News
It was an eye opener on the last trip to NY to discover what a crappy store Home Depot was there. The opposite is true here, Home Depot beats Lowe’s hands down by any comparison.
Although now that Lowe’s is in the process of putting up their own humongous building to move into, that might change when they relocate from the strip mall where they now are. Building going up is so large it appears it would qualify for its own ZIP code. Merely looking at it as I drive by makes the feet ache.
Taylor
@Mart: The employee probably got fired when they discovered a shortage in stock.
You could have told them you thought they made a mistake, but hey, your call…..
NotMax
@Helen
The location in Elmont? Place looks as if the last time it was cleaned was, well, never.
gogol's wife
@Mike J:
I’m planning to give it a look. But it sounds as if it has a doozy of an ending! (Imdb has the info.)
gogol's wife
@Mike J:
It’s 8:00 PM Eastern!
CZanne
@NotMax: your sears is not my sears. They are the local joke. It’s better to deal with anyone than Sears. They never deliver on time, they usually bring the wrong thing, and getting them to service anything they sold is a complete waste of time. I will deal with the Despot first (and did, yesterday, because they had the flooring and underlayment that I wanted, while Lowes did not). I like Lowes, Best Buy and the local Appliance Factory for appliances, will condescend to Home Despot for flooring and shit I can pull off the shelves without the dubious assistance of their staff, and prefer Lowes for hardware, anything technical, or tools. (I like Bosch tools.) And I delay serious technical stuff until winter during a weekday, when they’ve got a full complement of actual contractors on hand. Benjamin Moore gets my paint business.
@Mary G: I have no words. Just pure rage. When we were dealing with my mother’s house purchase and subsequent renovation, we got one of those. I let him speak for exactly 2 minutes, during which time he demanded to speak to my husband (who was several states away and had absolutely nothing to do with my mother’s house) or my father (from whom my mother had been divorced for twenty years, and mother’s second husband was then 10 years dead) at which point I turned into screeching feminist harpy and turned my volume up to 11 with many curse words. (I’m Quaker, but we’re allowed to cuss the hell out of dolts.) Then the next day, we got a contractor making a bid who assured us that he doesn’t hire ni-clangs or w*tb**ks. Who also got the raging harpy cussing him out for living in the southwest for his whole life and not bothering to learn the dominant culture and for violating federal law. I enjoy being raging harpy. I like watching a hard-on detumesce. It gives me many happy feelings. I also Yelp that shit. In the latter case, I also reported him to Equal Opportunity Commission. Given that it was AZ, I don’t know if anything came of it, but I enjoyed writing that letter.
My personal home renovation is making me grr-argh right now. The bathroom vanity looked like it was discrete cabinets. It is not. It doesn’t even have screws – it’s a bizarrely assembled MDF puzzle box that is barely held together with gravity and 20 year old adhesive. So it has to be delicately deconstructed around the 78″x45″ mirror glued to the wall right above it. (Mirror is covered with packing tape, just in case.) And I have to turn off the house water to take off the back panel, because I will have to remove the angle valves (the knob-thingies that turn the water on/off). Also, one of the nuts on the toilet bolts was cross threaded and has been cross-threaded for twenty years, thus the nut will not come off now. However, the carpet came up quite nicely, and the subfloor is in good shape. Yay. No water damage to the OSB, even in front of the shower or under the water-warped vanity. The asshole who spec’ed OSB for subflooring in extremely expensive, custom townhouses, however, needs to be tarred and feathered.
Renie
I have really enjoyed reading everyone’s adventures; such a nice change from politics
NotMax
@gogol’s wife
B movie fare, focusing more on MacMurray’s travails and feelings of emasculation as First Husband.
Helen
@NotMax: No. The one in Woodhaven. Horrible.
Lizzy L
I have generally (not always) had decent service at HD, but for anything around my house requiring real knowledge (plumbing, carpentry, electrical, except for painting, which I do myself) I hire other people to do what needs to be done, and I pay their bills. I have had great service at the local HD paint department.
I recently purchased a medium size horizontal resin storage box, the sort of thing you put outside and fill with assorted stuff, at HD: they loaded it into my car for me, no problem, and a neighbor put it together for me in 10 minutes. I then researched a small vertical storage shed for my garden tools, weed eater, etc. I ended up ordering it from Big River. The same neighbor will probably do the put-together on it.
Orchard Supply Hardware’s service is terrific. I have also had great service at the local Ace Hardware stores.
Robert Sneddon
@WereBear: It’s all recorded. That “this call may be recorded for monitoring and training purposes” spiel means it WILL be recorded, the “may” is only in there in case the recording system breaks down and that doesn’t happen very often. If it did break down I expect the entire call centre would be on fire or something, it’s all integrated.
The big guys don’t really care if you, as an individual customer, decide you’re getting lousy service and want to take your business elsewhere. All that means is they get the disaffected customers from other businesses in turn. Systematic problems that affect a lot of customers, that’s something else and that’s where the management bucks go, for the marketing analysts and systems people to try and provide the best possible service for a given spend. As a call centre agent I could act as a personal shopper for the caller, walk them through looking for something or making a purchase online which is great for the individual but expensive for the business. Most of my time was used up solving problems as fast as possible, and a lot of the solutions were implemented by getting the customer to do the work themselves by looking up solutions online and inputting data or clicking links.
Origuy
Here in California, we have Orchard Supply, which usually has much better service than Home Depot or Lowe’s, although they are owned by Lowe’s. We still have a few Ace and True Value, but I rarely go to them. When there was an Ace near my house, I didn’t go because they closed at 6. I’m not leaving work early to go to the hardware store.
StringOnAStick
I try to be nice to retail workers, especially after meeting a few and realizing what an abusive horror it is to be working retail in this country.I helped one figure out her company 401(k) options, only to look up the few funds they were allowed to select from and see that they all had extremely high annual fees; just what a low paid retail worker needs. I can just imagine how many nice lunches and whatever else the corporate drone who made those final selections got from the fund management company.
Being on the other side is interesting too. These days I’m an RDH and 99.90% of my patients are nice, 0.09 percent are grumpy old people, and 0.01% are this close to being tossed out of the practice for being such utter assholes to the staff. I had the worst one in memory last week; we’re going to boot him from the practice the next time he demands narcotics for something he never gets around to having fixed but shows up every 3 to 6 months or so, demanding drugs. He even shushed the person making his next appointment for him. It isn’t going to work any longer though since the tooth he never gets fixed (since it gets him narcotics) is starting to abscess, and if he blows off the antibiotics, his world is about to be white hot with pain.
Gravenstone
@Capri: Ugh. I hate Menards. Their store layout is haphazard to the extreme. You can never find ANYTHING. Added bonus that the local version put up a spanking new store less than a mile down the road from their previous location. Then failed utterly to find a buyer for their former space. After a few years (and a failed attempt to tout it as a self-storage location), they leveled the entire site to the ground.
mai naem mobile
John,I’ve dealt with HD more than I want to admit to. Also too, the co-founders of HD a Ken Langone and BErie Marcus are seriously big GOP donors. Langone appears to have a kiss of death rep,though. He supported Mittens, Chrisite and Kasich,and now,Trumpster. He also tried bigly to recruit Christie in ’12.
Anyhoo, you call the main 800 number for HD if you want to improve service. I am not a complainer but this one employee at an HD store up here was just rude and lazy because he was mad that as a long term employee he had to work on a Saturday(this was when the economy was barely recovering.) We were picking up a load of lumber that we came back twice(~2hrs apart) for because they needed time to put it together. We cancelled the order,went to another HD and got it picked up right then. I called the number and got multiple calls back and I believe they got customer service people to train that stores staff. BTW,I try my best not to go to HD. Lowe’s and other wholesale places can do a better job,are cheaper and carry better products.
NotMax
@Robert Sneddon
For whatever it’s worth, have found Amazon’s customer service by phone reps to be unfailingly efficient, knowledgeable and bend over backwards helpful.
retiredeng
@cermet: Ah, but I always go to my local hardware store before resorting to Home Depot. The problem is that the local HW sometimes doesn’t have what I need. Lowes is a bit of a hike but I will sometimes go there as well. Local hardware first. It’s close and convenient.
Larkspur
@WereBear: “There is no customer service any more.”
So, so right. It’s really become true: employees are liabilities not assets. Get rid of as many as you can. In the end, look around and wonder why no one is buying your stuff – because they don’t have jobs and can’t afford the stuff any more.
Dr. Ronnie James, D.O.
@Waldo: came here just to say this. My FIL is a contractor/ construction manager who also does most of his own repairs. He loves Lowes and Harbor Freight, and you could not pay him enough to go to HD. Also, in my experience, my local Lowes *always* has the item on the shelf where the website says it is; with HD it’s about half the time. Oh, and HD’s decorative stuff is usually way uglier than the equivalent at Lowe’s.
J R in WV
@Mary G:
You are lucky you threw the bum out. My mother-in-law, years ago, needed new siding. Her house had masonite siding, which was beginning to erode away. She was somewhat practical and made appointments with 3 siding guys for next Thursday.
Then Tuesday, she got a call from one of the 3 “estimators” – Mrs B, I’m in the neighborhood, could I stop by this afternoon? She was helpful, not paranoid enough, said sure. Then Mrs J got a call from her mother. The guy wanted to give her a “special offer” – 15% off the usual price of $12K a real deal that expired Wednesday.
At the time, I was remodeling our old farmhouse, and tracking materials expenses. I remember that a square of siding was only a couple of hundred dollars – that’s 10 x 10 feet – and MIL’s house was small, and only needed siding on three sides, one story.
Wife told her that the materials for her job would only cost 1 or 2 thousand, so this guy was going to charge her 10 grand for one of 2 days of labor. This was 20 years ago. We told her to wait before doing anything until she had at least her 3 bids. When the other guys, local, came out, their bids were both around $3K.
The other guy, the $12,000 guy – he was a contractor with Sears – who denied any control over their contractors when we talked to them. So you would have gotten a terrible job done at 4 times the regular price. Be glad he was an ass you threw out. Because he was an ass who would have stolen from you.
scav
@Doug R: My experience at Home Depot (mulch in October this year) is that their tablets have very little to do with how much and of what kind they actually have, so it’s not just the phones.
Central Planning
@Capri:
I’ve never been to one, but I hear Tilted Kilt does exactly that. The A team is gorgeous, personable, and know their job. Get people hooked for a month or two, and then they move on.
BruceFromOhio
You live in BFE West VA, and expect Home Depot fucking Uber? You need to own a house a little longer.
artem1s
@the Reverend Lowdown:
I have found that service between HD stores varies wildly too. The nearest one to my house (thank FSM) seems to have done a good job training their employees in every department. They are a little understaffed at times, but that may have something to do with when I choose to go there. On the other hand the HD nearest me that does tool rental is a train wreck. Every contractor I have ever spoken to hates them. So I have started to use SunRental instead when I need to rent a tool.
there is only one nearby Loews and I have sworn to never go in it again unless I know they carry something I cannot get anywhere else in the universe, including ordering online and having the thing directly shipped to me, freight. It is a concentrated stress superfund location. The CS there is horrific. I don’t know how they manage to feed themselves because anyone who can use a spoon is smarter than these people.
Sandra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJQ3TM-p2QI