What a crock...IKEA...please...
OK – so, I know I'm not the hippest guy around, nor do I care. I have been many places, done many things, but one thing that had eluded me was a reason to go to and buy things from an IKEA store. Well, Friday was my day. Marcus and I went to the Atlanta store in order to get some things for the new offices. Specifically these cool, clear whiteboards to put in the conf. room around the LCD TV, and a barstool set for my office for people to hang out in. So, with this in mind, we set out also knowing there are other things to get while we're there. Art, other furniture, etc. We walk into the store around noon, thinking it would take a couple of hours to get our stuff and get out. Well, we were SO wrong.
First, I think the word IKEA means 'idiot' (not really, but no one has ever said that the Swedish [who came up with the idea] are very smart, nor are the Dutch [the actual owners] for that matter). Keep in mind the socialist origins of the company and the fact that the countries are socialist and you can start to “appreciate” IKEA.
Here are some things I found out:
1 – We as customers are stupid and know nothing while shopping, however when it comes to taking everything home we are supposed to be smart enough to put everything together without good instructions.
2 – Products at IKEA are cheap because they are cheap. No quality, just cheap stuff – which is OK if you want cheap stuff. I was under the impression you could get pretty nice stuff for a low price. Heh. Wrong. You get what you pay for...I don't know why I always think that statement can be proven wrong.
3 – The inventory system sucks. Period.
4 – Their computer systems are not coordinated which is baffling.
5 – Food. Hmmmm.... At least they offer it since they screw you in going through the store and make you extremely hungry in the whole process of getting you lost etc. Which is actually quite brilliant, but can really tick you off. Heh.
So, apparently you are supposed to follow the arrows on the floor and see everything you want, write it down and go downstairs and pick it up and check out and go home. Heh. Too funny.
Well, we start out going through all the rooms to try and find what we need. We find most everything within the first hour and a half. The we eat. I had an open-faced shrimp sandwich and Marcus had meatballs. Large variety of swedish food...hahahaha – there's really not anything else to get. Heh. We then proceed downstairs and find more stuff, which we put in our cart and after about another hour and a half, we get to where we are picking up our stuff. Well we get there and find out that most of our stuff can't be picked up due to the fact that we didn't have the people upstairs configure the furniture for the conf room. Here's a problem. Walking backwards through the store to get back to the beginning – what a joke. Another hour and a half later we are ready to get in line to pick up our stuff and check out.
If you're keeping up, that's 4.5 hours so far. We then wait another 15-30 minutes in line to check out and another hour of crap during/after checkout that totaled up to 7 hours at IdIOT...I mean IKEA.
Here are some highlights of the day.
While going through the store we stop in the fabric section. Yes fabric. We were looking for blinds for windows, etc. and started looking at fabric to hang on the wall. Well, to be funny we start speaking with lisps and marcus gets a call from his wife (who was at home sick) and he tells her what were doing (no we were not 'shopping') and then while on the phone I wrap some fabric around my waist and ask what he thinks...and he starts dying laughing. The lady at the cutting counter looks at me and says, I can cut that when you're ready. HAHAHAHAHA – So we gave her some fabric to cut. ;) Too funny. I don't think the real gay people there thought we were funny, oh well. Oh, speaking of gay people there...I wish I had a pic. There was a black gangsta gay couple there we saw after checking out. They were sharing an ice cream cone and everything...talk about throwing you for a loop. I even looked to see if they had their 'colors' on them (pink or purple) but I didn't see them. I digress.
We also had to find a fagot bundle (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fagot), an Audrey Hepburn print and a pink chair. All of which we found...but we only purchased the fagot bundle.
Speaking of purchasing...we get in the checkout line and wait, and wait...and wait...finally we approach the counter and proceed to ring up items. During the process, I notice the Daim caramel bars are on sale 3/$1.00. I hand three to the cashier and ask him to go ahead and ring them up b/c I am hungry and wanted to eat them. He appreciated this (he was a bit hefty himself) and started to do so. They didn't ring up on sale. He was apologetic and proceeded to fix the problem. Then his cash register locked up after ramming random pieces of paper in it. Then he has to call the manager to come over and fix the register. Where's the humor in this? Let me tell you. We had been there 6 hours going through this stupid store (which is so like shopping in a 3rd world communist country) he had already taken 15 minutes to try to fix his register, we were buying about $1000 worth of stuff, and this was after the inventory fiasco which I haven't even written about yet. And I'm not going to bore you with it either (just know that what the computers say upstairs and what they say downstairs and what they actually have in inventory are all 3 different. Repeat - are not the same – Neither are the locations...i have printouts to prove this – anyway...back to checkout).
I tell the guy...”Seriously dude, this is not worth 77 cents to me. I have already spent almost 7 freakin' hours in this place and will gladly pay an extra dollar if necessary to be out of here. So please don't worry about the 77 cents.” He looks at me like I'm crazy. As if to say, “you are shopping at Ikea and are not worried about 77 cents?”
When his manager walks up, he tells him what I said and the manager gives me the same awestruck gaze. I almost felt like a rock star. Hahahahaha
After we check out, we go to pick up our special selections that we bought upstairs (yes you pay for things in different places - no i don't know why) just to walk over and return some of them because of their inventory mess-up – that's really a long story. And the more I think about it the more it really ticks me off because it was all about my bar table that now I don't have. I have no idea how a business that big can be so inefficient.
This is a long post and I had pictures on my phone, but didn't get them off yet.
Oh yeah and before I forget....another funny thing happened. Back on the whole gay thing (since we were two guys shopping at Ikea – although not gay...hahahaha) I was talking to one of the swedes about the stuff we were getting and spoke to him in swedish (one of the few phrases I know in swedish – another long story. FYI i speak a lot of languages... hehe). Well, after prefacing to him, I didn't mean this weird, I just wanted to practice it since I haven't spoken Swedish or Norwegian in about 10 years – I said my phrase. He looked at me, smiled and then gave us a discount on what we bought. I then thanked him, and marcus and i went on our way. Marcus was a bit befuddled and I was laughing. He asked what i was laughing at and what I said in Swedish.
I said, “Well, fortunately or unfortunately the only phrase I can remember in swedish is 'I love you'. I guess he liked it and gave us the discount.”
HAHAHAHAHA – true story
