When I first started working a IKEA, which really wasn't that long ago, it never really seemed all that busy. Granted, I only worked weekdays for the first two months, so it was generally pretty quiet. Maybe I'd have five or six, maybe ten customers in the department at a time, and that was a lot. But lately, it's been busy non-stop, throughout the week. We're always busy on the weekends - 10,000 people or more. But after the holiday rush at the end of last year, I feel like it never really calmed back down. Sometimes on Mondays, we still have the delayed weekend crowd trickling in, but even Tuesday and Wednesday mornings and afternoons these days are just super busy. Obviously, this is a good thing for the store. More people = more money. But if there's one thing you know about me from reading any of this blog, it's that I hate stupid people. And let's be honest - the more people there are in the store, the greater chance there is that someone stupid is going to talk to me. So needless to say, I've been less than excited about the influx of customer terrorizing me at work.
Let me summarize today's events as an illustration. Every morning, the receptionist makes an announcement at 10:00 that the store is officially open for business. We open the doors at 9:30 for breakfast an perusal, but the registers don't open until 10. I clocked in this morning at 9:56 and proceeded onto the sales floor. By the time the receptionist made the 10:00 announcement, four people had already asked me how to get downstairs. Literally, within four minutes of walking into the store, while we weren't even officially open, four individual people were so convinced that they were lost, and were too lazy to read the sign that was directly above me directing them to the stairs, that they had to ask me for directions to a destination less than 100 feet away. Amazing.
My main task for the day was to build a set of sliding doors to cover a new wardrobe display. We're in a building frenzy because Kristofer (or CHRISTofer, as I like to call him) is coming this week. He's the President of IKEA North America, or something like that. Basically, he's important. Twice a year or so, he walks through the store and criticizes us, so clearly, we have to make sure everything is perfect in order to be criticized as little as possible. Thus, I've been building a lot of displays to catch his eye and make us look like we know what we're doing. Sliding doors are among the most ridiculous IKEA items to build. They take about four hours to build, mostly because every 10 minutes, a customer sees that I'm busy and asks for assistance. At one point today, I was literally standing on a ladder, holding a drill in one hand, and supporting an 80 pound door with the other, and a customer asks "Are you busy?" So I wanted to say "absolutely not. Your needs always come before my immediate safety." Instead, I took a deep breath and said "No. What do you need?" Coarse, but slightly more appropriate.
The best part of the day was when I was sitting inside the closet, attaching the doors to the frame. For at least twenty minutes, I was literally shut inside the closet, hidden from view. It was the only peace I got. Given that the flow of customers lately has been so heavy, the only way to catch a breath is literally to hide behind furniture. Perhaps I'll hide myself inside closets more often...
Back to Kristofer, though. The last time he came through, we had a similar building frenzy where I basically had to rebuild anything that was any less than perfect. He finally showed up, insisted that we put fitted sheets on all the box springs, among other ridiculous demands. Clearly, that's the dumbest idea ever. Anyhow, that day at lunch, he and his posse happened to come into the cafeteria while I was eating. They got lunch, which was of course free since they're so important, and he started walking towards me. I immediatly assume he's going to sit with me and try to chit chat with the "good old coworker," and all I can think is "What the hell am I going to say to him?" After all, his very presence had doubled my workload, and besides, he's Swedish...what do I talk to a Swede about? Swedish Fish? He keeps walking towards me, walks right past me, so close that he brushes up against my chair, and sits in the corner with the managers. I was slightly relieved, and slightly pissed off. He came all the way from Sweden and he's just gonna sit and talk shop with the managers? Dumb.
Anyhow, after today's extended sliding door building experience, I feel I've done my part to limit Kristofer's list of demands. Hopefully we can move him through and get him back to Sweden ASAP.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Children are to be seen, not heard
The children's department at IKEA is really a monument to excellence in parenting. On any typical Saturday or Sunday, we'll see anywhere between 10,000 and 15,000 people, a good number of those visitors being children. So, as you can imagine, I get to experience numerous parental encounters.
My department is directly adjacent to the children's department, so I have the distinct pleasure of hearing kids scream their faces off all day. If they're in the children's department, they're probably crying because either their parents won't buy them what they want, or they don't want what their parents are buying them. If they're in my department, they're screaming because they want to go to the children's department. Either way, they're screaming. Usually, I can just get over it and ignore the kids, but for some reason, there was an abundance of obnoxious children today, just screaming their faces off, which prompted me to get sterilized on my lunch break.
But back to the art of parenting. There are really three typical parental responses to infantile noise production: ignore it, quash it, or mimic it.
While I generally agree that ignoring children is really the best policy, I have to draw the line somewhere. Countless mothers come strolling through my department with children literally siezing with anger, and they ignore it completely. One woman was asking me for help picking out a mattress while her son sat in the cart crying uncontrollably. She was apparently unaware of his existence, but I couldn't look away for fear he'd have an aneurysm. I liken it to sleeping through your alarm clock going off all night - you know it's ringing, but you pretent it's not there, and eventually, it just manifests itself as a violent dream. Except in this case, the alarm clock is a screaming child, and the violent dream is Andrea Yates. Yikes.
Then there are those parents who are incapable of ignoring their crying children - the first-time mother desperately doting on her screaming baby, the militant father barking orders at his miscreant children, or the incompetent mom publicly insulting her children into submission. The last is my personal favorite. I remember being spanked in the grocery store once or twice for bad behavior, but on more than one occasion, I've seen mothers slap their children in the face or scream obscenities to shut them up. Just before closing today, two women came through the department, one of them with a daughter. The women were talking, the daughter, no older than six or seven, walking behind. The daughter saw some display she liked and yelled "Mom, isn't that beautiful." Mom responded "SHUT UP. I'M NOT TALKING TO YOU." Like I said, parenting at its finest.
Finally, we have the parents who insist on acting like their children. The worse the kids act, the worst the customer acts. On weekday afternoons, the store is usually pretty empty, just a few customers here and there. A few weeks ago, a woman approached me with a fussy looking child in her cart. As she talked to me, the child started making noise, so the woman just talked louder. As the child got more and more out of control, the woman got louder and more irritable. I clearly had no patience for bitchy women or children, so I just got dismissive in an attempt to get rid of them, but this woman just kept talking at me louder and louder. Eventually, I just said "you know, we have child care." She was apparently so incensed by the implication that she couldn't control her child that she got all huffy and walked away. Mission accomplished.
On a side note, IKEA's child care is known for having a ball pit. Think about this, though, the next time you want to jump into a ball pit. We used to have two ball pits - one in the the child care area, and one up in the showroom. They did away with the one in the showroom after a child had explosive diarrhea in the ballpit and all the kids playing in it got coated in feces. Now they apparently wash all the balls in the ball pit on a regular basis, though if you ask me, you can never wash away an experience like diving into a pit of diarrhea.
I'll leave you with a "kids say the darndest things" moment from last week. One of the display rooms in the department has two ottomans sitting at the foot of the bed. They're small, round ottomans, just big enough for one person. A mother came in with two kids, a boy and a girl, who had clearly been cooped up in the store for too long. She told them to sit on the ottomans while she looked around. As she walked away, the boy bent over and started clenching his face. I thought he was pissed off or something, but he looked at his sister and they laughed, then she started doing the same. They sat there, bent over, making weird faces until their mother walked by them, at which point the boy yelled "look mom, we're pooping."
My department is directly adjacent to the children's department, so I have the distinct pleasure of hearing kids scream their faces off all day. If they're in the children's department, they're probably crying because either their parents won't buy them what they want, or they don't want what their parents are buying them. If they're in my department, they're screaming because they want to go to the children's department. Either way, they're screaming. Usually, I can just get over it and ignore the kids, but for some reason, there was an abundance of obnoxious children today, just screaming their faces off, which prompted me to get sterilized on my lunch break.
But back to the art of parenting. There are really three typical parental responses to infantile noise production: ignore it, quash it, or mimic it.
While I generally agree that ignoring children is really the best policy, I have to draw the line somewhere. Countless mothers come strolling through my department with children literally siezing with anger, and they ignore it completely. One woman was asking me for help picking out a mattress while her son sat in the cart crying uncontrollably. She was apparently unaware of his existence, but I couldn't look away for fear he'd have an aneurysm. I liken it to sleeping through your alarm clock going off all night - you know it's ringing, but you pretent it's not there, and eventually, it just manifests itself as a violent dream. Except in this case, the alarm clock is a screaming child, and the violent dream is Andrea Yates. Yikes.
Then there are those parents who are incapable of ignoring their crying children - the first-time mother desperately doting on her screaming baby, the militant father barking orders at his miscreant children, or the incompetent mom publicly insulting her children into submission. The last is my personal favorite. I remember being spanked in the grocery store once or twice for bad behavior, but on more than one occasion, I've seen mothers slap their children in the face or scream obscenities to shut them up. Just before closing today, two women came through the department, one of them with a daughter. The women were talking, the daughter, no older than six or seven, walking behind. The daughter saw some display she liked and yelled "Mom, isn't that beautiful." Mom responded "SHUT UP. I'M NOT TALKING TO YOU." Like I said, parenting at its finest.
Finally, we have the parents who insist on acting like their children. The worse the kids act, the worst the customer acts. On weekday afternoons, the store is usually pretty empty, just a few customers here and there. A few weeks ago, a woman approached me with a fussy looking child in her cart. As she talked to me, the child started making noise, so the woman just talked louder. As the child got more and more out of control, the woman got louder and more irritable. I clearly had no patience for bitchy women or children, so I just got dismissive in an attempt to get rid of them, but this woman just kept talking at me louder and louder. Eventually, I just said "you know, we have child care." She was apparently so incensed by the implication that she couldn't control her child that she got all huffy and walked away. Mission accomplished.
On a side note, IKEA's child care is known for having a ball pit. Think about this, though, the next time you want to jump into a ball pit. We used to have two ball pits - one in the the child care area, and one up in the showroom. They did away with the one in the showroom after a child had explosive diarrhea in the ballpit and all the kids playing in it got coated in feces. Now they apparently wash all the balls in the ball pit on a regular basis, though if you ask me, you can never wash away an experience like diving into a pit of diarrhea.
I'll leave you with a "kids say the darndest things" moment from last week. One of the display rooms in the department has two ottomans sitting at the foot of the bed. They're small, round ottomans, just big enough for one person. A mother came in with two kids, a boy and a girl, who had clearly been cooped up in the store for too long. She told them to sit on the ottomans while she looked around. As she walked away, the boy bent over and started clenching his face. I thought he was pissed off or something, but he looked at his sister and they laughed, then she started doing the same. They sat there, bent over, making weird faces until their mother walked by them, at which point the boy yelled "look mom, we're pooping."
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Dear OSHA...
Right inside the super-secret employees-only hallway at IKEA, there's a board that says "This facility has operated ____ days without an accident" tallying the amout of days we can go without something or someone getting hurt. That number had been climbing pretty high recently, so of course I had to drill through my finger at work Monday to start the count over.
Well, maybe drilling through my finger is a little bit of an overstatement, but I did have a hospital-worthy encounter with a power drill. I was attaching a safety device to a dresser (since we're so concerned with safety at IKEA), and the drill ended up in my finger rather than the dresser. Thinking it was nothing too bad, I ran to the restroom and tried rinse off the cut, but when the cut turned out to be a totally legit puncture wound, I told my mananger I was done for the day. I went to the Safety and Security office and showed them my finger. They promply swept me off to the hospital where I was pampered with the finest antibiotics and tetanus vaccines Western medicine can offer.
The downside, obviously, is the large hole in my finger, but let's not overlook the good stuff - I didn't have to lift, build, move, or drill anything today...a first in my IKEA history! Of course, since I was standing still for most of the day, I was an easy target for customers hunting for someone to bother. At one point or another, the concentration of stupidity in the atmosphere approached event horizon, and I *almost* lost my cool, but being the seasoned retail professional that I am, I kept it under control.
It seems I started a trend, though. About two hours into the day today, a coworker came rushing up to me, blood dripping from his hands. Luckily, everyone was up on their game, thanks to my practice emergency yesterday, so they whisked him off to the hospital where I'm sure they repeated the same routine, and then opened an investigation into whether IKEA was purposefully cutting off the hands of its employees.
So, for the second day in a row, our little sign read "This facility has operated *0* days without an accident." Just doing my part to maintain a safe work environment.
Well, maybe drilling through my finger is a little bit of an overstatement, but I did have a hospital-worthy encounter with a power drill. I was attaching a safety device to a dresser (since we're so concerned with safety at IKEA), and the drill ended up in my finger rather than the dresser. Thinking it was nothing too bad, I ran to the restroom and tried rinse off the cut, but when the cut turned out to be a totally legit puncture wound, I told my mananger I was done for the day. I went to the Safety and Security office and showed them my finger. They promply swept me off to the hospital where I was pampered with the finest antibiotics and tetanus vaccines Western medicine can offer.
The downside, obviously, is the large hole in my finger, but let's not overlook the good stuff - I didn't have to lift, build, move, or drill anything today...a first in my IKEA history! Of course, since I was standing still for most of the day, I was an easy target for customers hunting for someone to bother. At one point or another, the concentration of stupidity in the atmosphere approached event horizon, and I *almost* lost my cool, but being the seasoned retail professional that I am, I kept it under control.
It seems I started a trend, though. About two hours into the day today, a coworker came rushing up to me, blood dripping from his hands. Luckily, everyone was up on their game, thanks to my practice emergency yesterday, so they whisked him off to the hospital where I'm sure they repeated the same routine, and then opened an investigation into whether IKEA was purposefully cutting off the hands of its employees.
So, for the second day in a row, our little sign read "This facility has operated *0* days without an accident." Just doing my part to maintain a safe work environment.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Things I don't need to hear about
Working in the bedrooms department, people often feel the need to share intimate details of their sex lives with me. I guess they think it will help me find the perfect bed for them? Honestly, I don't know the first thing about picking a mattress. I've actually never bought a mattress for myself, so I certainly don't know how to pick one for someone else. Ask me what the mattress is made of, or what the dimensions are, and I'm a wellspring of information. Ask me which one is right for you, and the ensuing BS that emantes from my mouth surprises even me sometimes. But back to my initial point, though, which is that people think they need to tell me extremely personal (and sometimes just gross) things about their sex lives. Last week, this guy approached me and asked me to show him a bed he could be handcuffed to. Needless to say, I was horrified and made no attempt to disguise it. He assured me he was being serious and asked me again, so I showed him this one bed that had bars on the headboard. He looked it over, then revised his request: he needed a bed that would allow him to be handcuffed to both the headboard AND the footboard. He tried to make a joke about it, to which I responded that I was uncomfortable, like really uncomfortable, but caring as much as I do about the needs of my customers (not true), I showed him another bed which had bars on both ends. Attempting to make a getaway, I started to edge away, which prompted him to strike up a conversation in which he proceeded to ask me seemingly benign personal questions: Where did I go to school, what was my major, etc. Usually, I'm more than happy to talk to customers about things other than furniture to break up the monotony of the day, but in this particular situation, I felt it prudent to keep things as impersonal as possible: short, one word answers of varying truth. Eventually he got the point and went on his way.
Next day, this super-douche with pleated pants and a bluetooth comes up to me and leads off with "Hey Ace." I immediately knew this was going to be rough. He informed me that he bought a bed from a nearby IKEA, and this it was "total shit," so he needed new slats (the things that go under the mattress instead of a boxspring) to make the bed work better. I start showing him the options and his phone rings. He of course answers it. I understand that people need to answer their phones sometimes, but don't expect me to wait around while you chit-chat. I started to walk away, so he decided it was accetable to snap at me. He says "it's a client. Really rich guy. Worth millions." I guess I was supposed to be impressed. Instead I rolled my eyes. He eventually got off the phone and reminded me that he was awesome because he has rich clients. I still didn't care. I got back to talking about bed slats, and right in the middle of a sentence, he iterrputed with "Yeah yeah, but I need something I can really go to town on, like really plow some chicks." I wanted to say "You're unattractive and middle aged. The only thing you're going to be plowing is your Toyota into a telephone pole right before you get a DUI." I bit my tongue and only said "uh, I guess they're all fine for that." He ended up buying the most expensive ones just so he could flash his American Express Gold Card.
It's a requirement then, you might guess, that every couple shopping for a bed or mattress must ask me "can this thing hold up through sex?" It, of course, gets asked in various forms, sometimes subtly worked into the conversation, sometimes totally outright. Some people like to weave it into some unrelated conversational topic that somehow arrives at something remotely sexual, which opens the door for the golden question. Some people, usually men, need no such guise and are more than happy to inform me that they have copious amounts of sex and need something that can live up to the task. Still others like to disguise the question as something completely unrelated. I had a couple shopping for a whole bed - frame, boxspring, mattress. They picked a frame they liked, found a mattress, and all they had left was to pick either slats or a boxspring. I explained the basic differences, after which they asked "we have kids that like to jump on the bed, which will hold up better?" I told them probably the boxspring, since the wooden slats would just break. They followed up with "what about adults that like the 'jump' on the bed?" and then I knew what they were really asking. Gross.
One a somewhat related note, earlier this week, a couple who had just moved to the US from France came into the store looking for a bed. They had literally just arrived the day before, so their English was just so-so. They had picked a bed frame already, and approached me to ask a question. The man asked "In France, we had a very bad mistress in our bed. Can you help us find a good mistress?" I paused, looked at the woman for a reaction, got none, and asked him to repeat his question. "We need a hard mistress for our bed." I was pretty sure I knew what they wanted, but treading lightly, I asked him to point at what he wanted. He gave me a strange look and pointed at a mattress. I chuckled and said "This is a mattress, not a mistress. I'm pretty sure you don't want any mistresses in your bed." I eventually explained the difference and they had a good laugh.
Next day, this super-douche with pleated pants and a bluetooth comes up to me and leads off with "Hey Ace." I immediately knew this was going to be rough. He informed me that he bought a bed from a nearby IKEA, and this it was "total shit," so he needed new slats (the things that go under the mattress instead of a boxspring) to make the bed work better. I start showing him the options and his phone rings. He of course answers it. I understand that people need to answer their phones sometimes, but don't expect me to wait around while you chit-chat. I started to walk away, so he decided it was accetable to snap at me. He says "it's a client. Really rich guy. Worth millions." I guess I was supposed to be impressed. Instead I rolled my eyes. He eventually got off the phone and reminded me that he was awesome because he has rich clients. I still didn't care. I got back to talking about bed slats, and right in the middle of a sentence, he iterrputed with "Yeah yeah, but I need something I can really go to town on, like really plow some chicks." I wanted to say "You're unattractive and middle aged. The only thing you're going to be plowing is your Toyota into a telephone pole right before you get a DUI." I bit my tongue and only said "uh, I guess they're all fine for that." He ended up buying the most expensive ones just so he could flash his American Express Gold Card.
It's a requirement then, you might guess, that every couple shopping for a bed or mattress must ask me "can this thing hold up through sex?" It, of course, gets asked in various forms, sometimes subtly worked into the conversation, sometimes totally outright. Some people like to weave it into some unrelated conversational topic that somehow arrives at something remotely sexual, which opens the door for the golden question. Some people, usually men, need no such guise and are more than happy to inform me that they have copious amounts of sex and need something that can live up to the task. Still others like to disguise the question as something completely unrelated. I had a couple shopping for a whole bed - frame, boxspring, mattress. They picked a frame they liked, found a mattress, and all they had left was to pick either slats or a boxspring. I explained the basic differences, after which they asked "we have kids that like to jump on the bed, which will hold up better?" I told them probably the boxspring, since the wooden slats would just break. They followed up with "what about adults that like the 'jump' on the bed?" and then I knew what they were really asking. Gross.
One a somewhat related note, earlier this week, a couple who had just moved to the US from France came into the store looking for a bed. They had literally just arrived the day before, so their English was just so-so. They had picked a bed frame already, and approached me to ask a question. The man asked "In France, we had a very bad mistress in our bed. Can you help us find a good mistress?" I paused, looked at the woman for a reaction, got none, and asked him to repeat his question. "We need a hard mistress for our bed." I was pretty sure I knew what they wanted, but treading lightly, I asked him to point at what he wanted. He gave me a strange look and pointed at a mattress. I chuckled and said "This is a mattress, not a mistress. I'm pretty sure you don't want any mistresses in your bed." I eventually explained the difference and they had a good laugh.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Questions???
The thing that really kills me about working at IKEA, more than anything else, is having to deal with the constant barrage of stupid questions. I'm sure retail workers in general get a lot of silly questions, but like I said, there's just something about IKEA that voids all sense or logic in the mind of the customer. The sheer stupidity and complete lack of thought that can only be responsible for some of these questions is truly astounding.
I get a whole array of questions, of course, but there are three repeat offenders. I'll describe them in acending order of frustration:
1.) "Excuse me, where can I find (insert product here)?"
I guess I can't really be too hard on the customers for this one. It is, after all, a 400,000 square foot building, so it can be pretty difficult to find some things. Plus, some things are strangely classified, so it helps to know what department to look in. Remember, though, that I work in the bedrooms department, so when a customer asks me where the beds are, I simply have no words. Really? Where are the beds not? You can't possibly be in the bedrooms department without seeing beds.
Somtimes, though, customers just get really flustered and can't see what's right in front of them. I do feel bad for the first time home owners and such who are literally buying their whole house in the store. After 6 hours of writing down Aisles and Bins (if that doesn't make sense to you, I'll explain later) it can become difficult to see what's obvious. These customers are usually so worn down anyway that they're docile enough to deal with. On the other hand, I have the customers who walk in the door, proceed directly to the nearest coworker and say "TELL ME WHERE TO FIND THIS." They're completely unwilling to do anything on their own. They won't look at a store directory, or even think about the logical location for what they're looking for. They just expect some sort of yellow brick road to take them directly there. Please, try to be at least a little bit responsible for yourself.
2.) "Excuse me, how much does this cost?"
You're probably thinking that that's a reasonable question, until you realize that every single item in the store has a very large price tag directly on it. It's one thing if the tag has been ripped off or stolen or defaced (as they often are). In that case, I'm more than happy to assist. But when someone drags me half way across the show room to look at a bed that says "$179" in huge numbers, and asks me how much it costs, I start to lose my cool. Even worse, at least once a day someone will approach me with a small item - a clock or a picture frame - holding the price tag up, they ask me how much it costs. I'll attempt to analyze customer logic: "Hmm, this tag says it costs $10, I wonder if it costs $10. I'll show that brooding salesman the $10 price tag and ask him if it costs $10."
3.) "Excuse me, how do I get out of here?"
This is another one that might seem reasonable, but when you're asked at least every three seconds, it gets annoying real fast. I'll lay out some geography first: My department is the next to last (if you walk the correct path through the store). The only thing between me and the exit is the children's department. I'll admit that the path can seem fairly labyrinthine, but there are arrows throughout the floor that point you directly to the exit, and copious directional signs that point you to wherever you might want to go. We even print maps of the store! But, since bedrooms is pretty close to the end of the showroom, by the time customers get to me, they're convinced there's no exit, so they all come crying to me, insisting that I give them detailed directions to the exit.
Generally, it's just a casual "how do I get out of here" to which I reply "just stay on the path." I do get asked with varying amounts of hysteria, though. I've had more than one customer approach me crying because they can't find the exit. I'll usually walk them to the exit just becuase they're such hot messes. One woman insisted that there was no exit. I told her to stay on the path, and she assured me that the path had taken her in a circle three times. So I walked with her to the next department where there is a staircase that takes you down to the exit. As we approached the staircase, she started to veer off to the left, which takes you back to the beginning of the showroom. I asked her "Where are you going?"
She replied, "I'm trying to find the exit."
I said, "try heading downstairs."
She responds "why would I do that?"
I paused, then as politely as possible, I said "Well, the large arrow on the floor points directly down the stairs, as well as the giant sign reading 'EXIT,' so you might give it a whirl."
She was not amused.
Then, as if that wasn't just the pinnacle of ignorance, I discovered a man who must literally be a walking temple of stupidity. The staircase between the showroom and the marketplace (where the exit is) is in two parts, separated by a small landing in between floors. It's large enough for a few bins of products, but all in all about 40 square feet. While I was heading down the stairs, I was stopped by a customer on the landing. He looked me right in the eye and demanded that I tell him how to get downstairs. I laughed becuase I figured it must be a joke. He looked offended and asked me what I was laughing at. I said very slowly "Sir, you are literally standing between floors right now. You walked down ten steps to get here. There are ten more steps directly in front of you. They will take you downstairs." He didn't find it at all funny.
Moral of the story: think before you ask.
I get a whole array of questions, of course, but there are three repeat offenders. I'll describe them in acending order of frustration:
1.) "Excuse me, where can I find (insert product here)?"
I guess I can't really be too hard on the customers for this one. It is, after all, a 400,000 square foot building, so it can be pretty difficult to find some things. Plus, some things are strangely classified, so it helps to know what department to look in. Remember, though, that I work in the bedrooms department, so when a customer asks me where the beds are, I simply have no words. Really? Where are the beds not? You can't possibly be in the bedrooms department without seeing beds.
Somtimes, though, customers just get really flustered and can't see what's right in front of them. I do feel bad for the first time home owners and such who are literally buying their whole house in the store. After 6 hours of writing down Aisles and Bins (if that doesn't make sense to you, I'll explain later) it can become difficult to see what's obvious. These customers are usually so worn down anyway that they're docile enough to deal with. On the other hand, I have the customers who walk in the door, proceed directly to the nearest coworker and say "TELL ME WHERE TO FIND THIS." They're completely unwilling to do anything on their own. They won't look at a store directory, or even think about the logical location for what they're looking for. They just expect some sort of yellow brick road to take them directly there. Please, try to be at least a little bit responsible for yourself.
2.) "Excuse me, how much does this cost?"
You're probably thinking that that's a reasonable question, until you realize that every single item in the store has a very large price tag directly on it. It's one thing if the tag has been ripped off or stolen or defaced (as they often are). In that case, I'm more than happy to assist. But when someone drags me half way across the show room to look at a bed that says "$179" in huge numbers, and asks me how much it costs, I start to lose my cool. Even worse, at least once a day someone will approach me with a small item - a clock or a picture frame - holding the price tag up, they ask me how much it costs. I'll attempt to analyze customer logic: "Hmm, this tag says it costs $10, I wonder if it costs $10. I'll show that brooding salesman the $10 price tag and ask him if it costs $10."
3.) "Excuse me, how do I get out of here?"
This is another one that might seem reasonable, but when you're asked at least every three seconds, it gets annoying real fast. I'll lay out some geography first: My department is the next to last (if you walk the correct path through the store). The only thing between me and the exit is the children's department. I'll admit that the path can seem fairly labyrinthine, but there are arrows throughout the floor that point you directly to the exit, and copious directional signs that point you to wherever you might want to go. We even print maps of the store! But, since bedrooms is pretty close to the end of the showroom, by the time customers get to me, they're convinced there's no exit, so they all come crying to me, insisting that I give them detailed directions to the exit.
Generally, it's just a casual "how do I get out of here" to which I reply "just stay on the path." I do get asked with varying amounts of hysteria, though. I've had more than one customer approach me crying because they can't find the exit. I'll usually walk them to the exit just becuase they're such hot messes. One woman insisted that there was no exit. I told her to stay on the path, and she assured me that the path had taken her in a circle three times. So I walked with her to the next department where there is a staircase that takes you down to the exit. As we approached the staircase, she started to veer off to the left, which takes you back to the beginning of the showroom. I asked her "Where are you going?"
She replied, "I'm trying to find the exit."
I said, "try heading downstairs."
She responds "why would I do that?"
I paused, then as politely as possible, I said "Well, the large arrow on the floor points directly down the stairs, as well as the giant sign reading 'EXIT,' so you might give it a whirl."
She was not amused.
Then, as if that wasn't just the pinnacle of ignorance, I discovered a man who must literally be a walking temple of stupidity. The staircase between the showroom and the marketplace (where the exit is) is in two parts, separated by a small landing in between floors. It's large enough for a few bins of products, but all in all about 40 square feet. While I was heading down the stairs, I was stopped by a customer on the landing. He looked me right in the eye and demanded that I tell him how to get downstairs. I laughed becuase I figured it must be a joke. He looked offended and asked me what I was laughing at. I said very slowly "Sir, you are literally standing between floors right now. You walked down ten steps to get here. There are ten more steps directly in front of you. They will take you downstairs." He didn't find it at all funny.
Moral of the story: think before you ask.
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