Home Depot

 

 

I occasionally enjoy writing blog entries on the experiences that signal to me the decline of our culture. A week ago, I took my 20 year old snow blower into a small engine repair shop off of 94^th street, reputed and likely is the best small engine repair shop in Minnesota.

 

They told me twice this week that they would get back to me in a day or so with an estimate. I stopped in yesterday, out of concern, and they promised again to notify me. Well, it has now been a week, and no notification, and I am positive that they have not even looked at the machine.

 

By mid-week, we are in for heavy snow fall, so my wife and I decided to buy another snow blower so with machine redundancy, we would always have a spare in case one was broken and gone and a storm was approaching.

 

She bought an $1100 dollar machine, a Troy two-stage, 24-inch machine over 1,000 ccs of engine power. They told us electronically that 3 machines, clones of the one we purchased with our Home Depot credit card, were available at the local store here in our city.

 

We drove over there this morning and there was one unit on display. I went with my wife to the special-order desk and asked 3 times if we could just take the display machine home.

 

The young man, very pleasant, biracial, waited on us. He told us that he would not sell us the display unit, that the machine we bought could not be found, but  that the stock crew was looking for it. We went back three times, and they could not find a machine for us.

 

Finally, it came clear to us: they had sold all the machines, and somehow their inventory census did not reflect that they were out of machines. It could be that the young man did not know that they were sold out.

 

Again, I asked for the machine on the floor, and he kept refusing to sell it to us because that would “screw up our inventory.” He should have called for a manager (and we should have too) to see if we could cut a deal.

 

Jane got firm and said, ok, cancel the sale, and we did, and he informed me that it will take a few days for the cancellation to show on our card.

 

We went to the local hardware store and bought a much nicer Toro machine for over $1500. Home Depot lost an $1100 sale, and angered loyal customers.

 

Now, when that same area (during the week when he was there) garden area manager was on the floor in October, we bought a grill and saved $100 because it had a slight ding on the cover, and saved another $50 for opening a charge account. He sold us the unit right now, the display unit, off the floor, and helped me load it into my truck. He was tickled to make a sale and move inventory, and we were very pleased with the transaction.

 

As I say the young man was very pleasant, and knew his job, but he lost a $1,000 sale because they would not dicker with us. He could not think outside the box and would not go that extra mile to take care of a customer.

 

I do not even want to go into why their inventory control is such a disaster, let alone hiding behind that rationale to deny a sale, when inventory control was hopelessly flawed. It is humorous.

 

My wife encounters inventory assurances and nothing left despite what the computer tells the robot clerk at Target—this has happened to her several times this year.

 

It seems as if capitalist businesses are declining. No one seems to do his job anymore. No one counts the inventory. No one works extra hard to please a customer. It is easier just to say no, than try to resolve a snarl. And let us not talk about the cluster of Home Depot employees socializing at the back of the store.

 

Every job is important. Every employee should put her game face on every time she puts on that orange apron. That was not how we were treated at Home Depot this morning.