I needed a submersible sump pump. I looked around on the internet and found one I liked made by Ridgid but sold only by Home Depot. Couldn’t order it online, but had to go to a store to find it, so I went to the nearest one. I was standing in the aisle looking at the display and didn’t see it. An orange-apron guy came by and asked if I needed help. I said yes and told him what I was looking for: a one-horse pump with electronic sensor made by Ridgid that was on the HD website. He said they didn’t have a one-horse sump pump, had never had one, wouldn’t ever have one, but maybe another store 50 miles away might have it. I said thanks, OAG smiled and walked away, I raised my eyes slightly, and there were two of pumps I was looking for sitting at the front on the first shelf.
A couple of days later I went back for black lacquer in spray cans. I saw clear and white lacquer on the shelf but no black. I was about to leave when I thought “no, I’ll look around a little more.” I took a couple trays of the white cans off the shelf, and there was a tray of black cans sitting way back behind them.
Replies
No, you can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
And if you try sometime you find
You get what you need
be 1969
Ah, The Stones. Little did they know how prophetic they actually were.
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
~ Voltaire
Typical HD/BB service, hit and miss...mostly miss. I've learned the same tactics, ask and dig...both. When I'm lucky, the OAG knows his stuff and his inventory too. Otherwise it's safari time, with or without a guide.
Some things, like plumbing fittings, I've given up on HD completely. The plumbing supply place is much farther away and not open evenings but it's still easier going to them. Just requires a little more planning.
"He said they didn't have a one-horse sump pump, had never had one, wouldn't ever have one, but maybe another store 50 miles away might have it. "
The next time that happens make him check in his computer and see if they in fact have it. Still no guarantee because the stock levels are often off.
I had similar experience with a shower module. None of the first level and several on the overstock area, but with written on the boxes. The OAG did not know why they where there, what the writting was, how to get them down or when they would get more.
Turns outs out a friend of a friend was a vendor and would be at that store the next day. Met with him. While he handled other product lines he knew how the system works.
All of those where returns or parts "stolen" for customers. He used the inventory system to find another store with that model in stock and called the department head to pull it and check and have it waiting for me.
Also note that there are two HD websites.
Homedepot.com is what they sell over the internet.
If you look at the bottom of the page there is Business Customers, Just for COntractors.
That leads you to http://contractorservices.homedepot.com/
that is a store specific site.
.
A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
Thanks for the link to the contractor's HD. It'll be useful in the future.
In Progress
Maybe you can find the white Phenoseal that they are always out of....................
[email protected]
" Hi, can I help you?"
" yes, you sure can, go over there"
"Why?"
" you are away from me"
.
A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do...
Finally, a strategy that makes sense.
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
~ Voltaire
The OAG didn't have to check the computer; just look at the shelves or at least pretend to. I've encountered this at other businesses: I ask if they have something and the person says no without looking. I only go to HD if I have no alternative. I check the local hardware stores first (sometimes the auto parts place too) before I drive over there. I check the internet to see if can get it online if I'm not in a rush. There's a local lumberyard I prefer. It seems like nobody at HD cares about selling their stock.
I have some friends that work at HD and Lowe's, but in general, if you frost the mirror, you can get hired there, based on the service levels I've seen. On Friday before Memorial Day weekend, there were more OAGs that you could shake a stick at, but not one of them was helpful.
What's an OAG?
J. D. ReynoldsHome Improvements
Orange Apron Guy - as in Home Desperate store clerk.
What's wrong with you guys?!!! Don't you know that these home centers are self service???
Matt -
Then their advertising should say............"Maybe you can do it, but we can't help!!"
ROFLMAO!
J. D. ReynoldsHome Improvements
I sent the DW in to get a new Freud 7.25" blade, while she was up in the city..gave her the OLD one, told her exactly where to go in toolworld...how high up on the shelf..etc.
Came home empty handed...WTF? Outta stock? "Nope. not really, they just don't have them." Did a helper help you? says I ? "Yeeeessss." Ok. nevermind.
Iwanderd in after work a few days later...walked right up to where they WERE, behind a stack of "new" Irwin or something blades.
Man, I HATE that.Parolee # 40835
I think you should be THRILLED!!!!! It would be a cold day in heel when my DW would go to the HD to get a blade for me... :-)
Actually - just kidding - she might do it if there were extenuating circumstances.... She does do a lot of other stuff for me - dinner, cloths washed, etc., but she hates those home improvement stores as much as I hate to go shopping at the mall.... :-)
She like to go along when I do, and lucky foe me we never step foot in a mall either together or alone.
Ofcourse, she always finds something at Lowes or HD that we absolutly haveto have...and usually the same thing I bought the week before, and forgot about, and it is still burried in the van..LOLParolee # 40835
A lot of women, maybe even more than men shop at HD and Lowe's. Since the OAG are not knowledgeable, they really don't treat women like idiots. Before the big boxes, my wife refused to go to one builder's supply because the old men all made fun of and insulted the women shopping there. So I took my business elsewhere, too.
"A lot of women, maybe even more than men shop at HD and Lowe's. Since the OAG are not knowledgeable, they really don't treat women like idiots."A couple of weeks ago I was a HD and the only two OAGs (mid 50's) spent about 15 to 20 min fawning over a mid 20's lady buying a framing nailer. She was hauling the gun around and obviously was plenty comfortable around tools, but simply needed to know which nails would work best for her new nailer. There must have been at least 4 or five other people waiting to ask questions (hardware area). I don't know which was more frightening, the way they drooled or the fact that it took two of them that long to help her.Ott
Well thats only cuz the real world is so far away from where you live which is good N bad...probably mostly good...but I've got a half a dozen HD's within 15 min of me...Katrina could put the people working there to shame shes so good at knowing where everything is already AND NOT ASKING FOR HELP...duh : )
BTW...that tip about looking on their website before you send your DW is a good one...I use it all the time...the area on the bottom thats "just for contractors". Not only do they give "pictures" but current prices. Just write down the exact description and call the store your sending her to and ask if they have it..it'll help your odds.
"Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit." Abbie Hoffman
http://WWW.CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
She been around me for 8 years last week...whew, time flies. So she pretty much can picture what I am saying I need if she calls while out in the big city.
One of her best scores was the elements and thermo's for the water heater..I didn't have the old one out to show her what it was..she scored right the first time..and the big goofy socket to unscrew them with!
We are soon to have a HD here about 1/2 hour-45 minuts away, right near the current Lowes. The other HD is up in Lex. at least an hour in the "other" direction from the sticks.Parolee # 40835
Homer Dep certainly wants to sell you stuff. One problem they have is that the Gomers they hire don't. They're just there for the smoke breaks and the paycheck.
Right - but what would you expect based on their pay?
Let me put it another way in a bit of an extreme, hypothetical example: If someone walks into a burger joint and tries to engage an employee in a discussion about quantum mathematics, who is the dummy? :-)
Edited 6/3/2007 9:05 am ET by Matt
Well, around here, the store crew (not the Summer school crowd) starts at nearly 3 times the minimum wage. And it goes up from there.The pay isn't the real issue. They have hired several people I know with Master's degrees and one with a PHD, but they didn't stay, and people like them aren't going to stay. If you've got brains and a decent education, who wants to work with a bunch of bozos who can't handle 8th grade arithmetic?George Patterson
>> Well, around here, the store crew (not the Summer school crowd) starts at nearly 3 times the minimum wage. And it goes up from there. <<
Interesting... I looked up the minimum wage for your state: $7.15 an hr . So, regular full time employees at HD start at around $40k a yr? Hard for me to relate, but I'm guessing that 40k would make for a bread+water+beer budget in NJ and any house costs $500k?
In 2002, HD was paying $15/hr to start. It's more now, of course. Minimum wage at the time was a bit more than 1/3 of that. That works out to $31,200 a year. At that time, you could definitely get a place to live for around $100,000. I sold my 4 bedroom, 2 bath house in Franklin township for $160,000 in 2001.We've been through a housing bubble since then, and I don't know what prices are like now - they just about tripled between 2002 and 2005, but they've come down some. HD wages haven't done that, of course. So, yeah, we're talking close to $40K a year for the guys that stock the aisles.George Patterson
Right - but what would you expect based on their pay?
I don't expect them to be able to tell me how to wire an electric box or plumb a house but one of my biggest pet peeves is a guy that thinks he isn't making very much money so why put out any effort. When they took the job did they tell their employer " well hell, your not going to pay me all that much so you don't mind if I don't really do to much do you"
I know your not suggesting that they shouldn't have to do much because they aren't making much but I see that attitude all the time and it irritates the hell out of me. My guess is that someone that has that tude will not do to much even when/if he does get better money.
I find that if I have to ask one of the employees for help that I'm taking a big risk and therefore deserve what I get!
Doug
You should have asked him to load ten sheets of drywall on a cart for you.
That same thing just happened to me at Blowes. A customer I was building a deck for changed their mind in the middle of the project and wanted those black AL tube balusters that they sell there. After I got my change order off I went to the BBGA (Big Blue and Gray Abyss).
I needed 25 boxes and there were 8 on the shelf and 3 were damaged so I took 5 and then went to the checkout next to the contractors desk as I could not find anyone else. (In my experience that cashier tends to be more knowledgeable than most.) I was smart and gave him the item number and asked if they had any more in stock. He plays around on the computer and then says "It says we should only have a few more but the count might be off. You might try the other store they have 15 units." Problem was I was standing behind right behind him and could see the screen and it said the store had 50 units.
I walked off and started looking around and found the item # scralled on a bunch of boxes in top stock right above the shelf. I went back to the cashier and said I found the units you said you didn't have, could you page someone to come get them down. To which he replies "Are you sure that those are it?" Argghh "Can I speak to a manager right now?"
Lumber manager gets down there and I explain that I don't want to cause trouble but I need those boxes up there and no one will get them down for me and tell him what the cashier had just said. He is wearing a knee brace and says that he can't climb a ladder right now so it will be a minute. I walk over grab a ladder and climb it and hand the boxes down to the wide eyed looking manager and then put some on the shelf and wheel my cart off to the check out. "Can you check me out or should I go to the other store for that to?"
-Day
Also take into consideration the pay scale at HD and Lowes. At Lowes a "team leader" makes $14.00 per hour, considered the high end of the pay scale. People who stock shelves (at least at the HD around here) make $9.00 per hour. The term "you get what you pay for" comes to mind. The HD in my town has a high turnover rate and every Fall and Spring you get the "hi, can I help you?" at least a dozen times. This same HD has a 30% pilferage rate.
OPD