What a frustrating experience

We have frequented our local Home Depot since we moved to the Seattle area over 11 years ago.  They’ve received a good chunk of our cash towards home improvement projects.

‘You can do it. We can help.’

Today was the worst experience I’ve EVER had at a Home Depot — there was one other time with my father-in-law, but that time was more of an embarrassment than frustration, I’ll share that moment some other time.

So I’m working to finish up the deck railing and I decide to make a run to the Home Depot to gather up more supplies — 4ea. 2″x6″x12′ pressure treated boards along with a few other supplies.  I locate everything else, but when I go the stack of wood where these boards were last weekend, there’s a bunch of 2″x4″ boards in that area.  I look up above and I see what appear to be what I’m looking for.  Not good, there’a another unit of lumber atop of it.  So I go looking for an associate who could fire up the forklift and pull it down for me so I could get my 4 pieces of lumber.  I can’t locate anyone.  So I go up to the checkout and ask, and as luck would have it, the guy I’m looking for is walking down the isle towards me.

So I tell the guy what I’m looking for, he does a search and agrees with me that the lumber I’m looking for is up in the rack.  So he begins to hunt down a forklift.

So I wait…  and I wait… and I wait.

At the hour mark I start hunting down other associates.  I get redirected back to the kid who is supposed to be helping me.  He’s still searching for a forklift — that HE can operate.  He flags down one pair of associates on a forklift they tell him he’ll have to wait, they have to pull down some other merchandise for another customer.  He flags down yet another associate, same story.

By this time, I’m now an hour and a half in to my wait and fuming.  While the guy who is supposed to be helping me is still hunting a lift, the two guys who he originally stopped come walking by me and I ask them for assistance since they appear to be finished with their previous task.  I’m told to go see the associate who is seeking out a lift.  I explain that I’ve been waiting now for over an hour and a half, and they insist that I must work with the kid who can’t seem to locate a lift.  I begin to express my frustration that a wait of this length of time is not acceptable — they both simply turned and walked away from me.  I was flabbergasted!

Finally, I’d had enough and went to the counter and asked for a manager.  15 minutes later a gentleman shows up extending his apologies and states that he checked with the associate to get the story of what was going on.  I asked him WHY does it take upwards of 2 hours to pull down a unit of wood?  His response was, “It shouldn’t, but I don’t know where you are in the queue.”  I then asked, “a two hour queue is acceptable in this store.”  He had nothing to say.

He finally got a forklift operator to assist me and who walked up and down the isle looking for the wood in question.  I pointed it out to him and he tells me that it’s not it.  He then begins clearing out the pile of 2″x4″s that were where the 2″x6″x12′s were last weekend and low and behold, there they are.

The kid who was seeking out the lift ran over to me, apologized, and practically dove in to the lumber pile to help me pick out my 4 boards.  ARGH!!!!  I could have been out of that silly store 2 hours prior!

Please…  Home Depot.  If you’re going to put someone in a department, especially one like lumber, please ensure the individual is fully equipped and qualified to be in that department.  This kid should have been able to run a lift himself for starters, but even more importantly, he should know that state of merchandise within his department!

You might ask, “why didn’t you just leave and go some place else?”  Well…  I had already invested THAT much time in the place.  It didn’t make sense to me to throw that away and start all over again somewhere else.  However…  my NEXT supply run may very well take me directly to Lowes or McClendons.

So back to that slogan, I think it needs an adjustment… “You can do it.  We *MIGHT* be able to help.”