SLIGHTLY OT: WHY I HATE HOME DEPOT
OK- it’s probably completely OT but is related directly to the paucity of posts on H&OES.
I am in the process of nearly completely renovating our only bathroom. After I’m done, the only things that will be original will be the tub and most of the drywall. Last night my quest was to buy the new vanity along with all the associated hardware. Here begins the Home Depot tale of woe.
Lydia and I had already scoped out the exact pieces we wanted. We yanked the seats out of the minivan and I hustled over to the local HD. After picking up the few tools I would need, I went back to where the vanities are stored on those 20 foot high shelves. Cool. They had the exact one I needed. It was up just a bit too high for me to grab it by myself, so I asked a passing “associate” (who happened to be driving a fork lift), if he could use the truck to get the vanity down. It would have taken all of one minute. No- he couldn’t help me but the girl right behind him could (he said). Well, she couldn’t and walked down to where he and his buddy were to tell them to come back and get the vanity down. Should be a couple of minutes, she said.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m watching them moving 5 gallon water bottles all over the store. They see me. They know I’m waiting. But, moving the friggin’ water bottles is more important than helping a customer.
Finally, I gave up and walked up to the sarcastically named “Customer Service Desk.” I told them the story and that I was going to Lowes. Their response? A shrug.
I went straight to Lowes and spent $350.
I swear I will never shop in Home Depot again, even though Lowes is three times farther away.
UPDATE: Misery loves company.
23 Responses to “SLIGHTLY OT: WHY I HATE HOME DEPOT”
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Comment by Dave May 7th, 2004 at 8:57 pm |
Well Daryl, If it makes you feel any better, the situation here in Chandler/Tempe Arizona is exactly the opposite. Lowes should be renamed “slows” and thank goodness for Home Depot! |
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Comment by Eric Holcombe May 7th, 2004 at 9:53 pm |
heh. Slowes. Home of 37 registers and two cashiers. I mean, if you don’t need the darn things on Friday night or Saturday morning, YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE BUILT THEM. I guess maybe they came in handy for the Y2K scare. I spent an hour waiting to get some 2X6X10’s moved from the high rack to the floor on my last visit. For some reason they were down to the last four or five, which looked more like bananas or double helix experiments than lumber. The reason they were out? The 2X6X10’s were $.50 LESS than 2X6X8’s. I didn’t ask. |
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Comment by Andrea May 8th, 2004 at 1:56 am |
Don’t ever try to get help in Hobby Lobby either. You will regret it. |
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Comment by Chris O'Donnell May 8th, 2004 at 8:07 am |
I don’t find Lowe’s to be any better than Home Depot. One way to be the low price leader is to not pay anybody to actually work in the stores. I buy all my landscape materials at a local greenhouse, but I’m stuck with Lowes / HD for hard goods. What I wouldn’t give for an Ace Hardware in the neighborhood. |
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Comment by Daryl Cobranchi May 8th, 2004 at 8:30 am |
I agree that the mom&pop stores are much preferred to the big box. I almost always go there first, especially for hardware/handtools. They just don’t carry lavatories and other bathroom-type “furniture.” |
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Comment by Daryl Cobranchi May 8th, 2004 at 8:32 am |
BTW- The guys at Lowes were very helpful in getting the vanity down. They even volunteered to help load it in the truck. Anecdote? Sure, but so is this whole post. 🙂 |
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Comment by Dave May 8th, 2004 at 11:08 am |
Hmmm…. An Ace HW just opened 1 mi from my house… I think I’ll try it out! |
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Comment by Rikki May 8th, 2004 at 11:03 pm |
heh. I’ve been married to Home Depot for 13 years. I personally hate what they’ve become, but they pay the bills and cover unexpected medical emergencies so it’s not fruitful for my husband to find another job right now. I think the worst of the changes started happening when they hired an ex Wal-mart executive to be the new CEO of the company. It’s all down hill now, i’m supprised they haven’t made every employee go part time to save on paying for benefits. *sigh* |
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Comment by Mike May 25th, 2004 at 6:31 pm |
Home Depot owes me kitchen cabinetsI have been shopping at Home |
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Comment by terri June 2nd, 2004 at 6:44 am |
IT IS A SHAME THAT SOME CUSTOMERS HAVE TO WAIT SO LONG FOR HELP IN HOME DEPOT BUT THEN AGAIN,WHAT DO YOU EXPECT WHEN THEY LET ONE ASSOCIATE TRY TO RUN TWO DEPARTMENTS BY HIM/HERSELF? |
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Comment by Tammie June 18th, 2004 at 9:22 pm |
We have come to the point of becoming physically ill if we have to visit home depot. Not only can we not find things, no one wants to help in 4 different stores (Within 30 miles of us), and almost everything we have bought from them has either broken, not worked and had to be returned, or was not to the size/spec it said it was. For example, i recently asked a clerk to cut me some decorative chain (after looking for help for nearly 9 minutes – yes, i time them!). i asked for 4 – 18″ pieces and 4 – 24″ pieces. What i received was this: 15.25″, 16.5″, 18″, 19.5″, (2) 23″, and (2) 24.25″. Six pieces had the ends chewed up so badly by his “shaky” cut that i had to recut them at home and with the lengths all wrong, i had to completely redesign my project! (Does it say on the application anything about knowing how to measure things????? How about just having a brain?) Finally, a Lowes is coming within 22 miles, instead of the one across the street from the furthest home depot. i’m sure we will be visiting the new store on a regular basis, especially since they are on our way home from work. honestly, i work for a government contractor. if we did the type of shoddy work and provided the same shoddy product as they do, i’d be out of a job. i haven’t had one pleasant experience with home depot in the 13 years i’ve been shopping them. some people call lowes – “slows” – but if it keeps me from having to pop a nerve pill before a visit, i’m all for it. |
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Comment by Matt Thomas June 26th, 2004 at 4:58 pm |
Home Depot Fucking sucks my Balls! I ordered over $3,000 in lumber on a Thursday for delivery. They couldn’t get it to me Friday so they promised “first delivery” on Saturday AM which should be no later than 9 AM. So I have my carpenters show up at 9 am, and the truck hasn’t arrived yet. I call HD and they say that he ran to another stop first but was on his way. I had to leave for the day, so I just told the carpenters to hold tight and the delivery will be here shortly. I came back at 4 pm to see that nothing had been accomplished and the fucking truck never showed up! I call the store manager expecting to here about a fatal delivery accident, but no, he offers no apology or explanation and simply says that “the truck will be there soon”. This butthole cost me over $300 to have my carpenters sit on their ass all day and had NOTHING to offer! Fuck You Home Depot! Fuck You right in the Ass! |
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Comment by Larry M. July 6th, 2004 at 1:50 am |
I live in North Ridgeville,Ohio and My wife went to the North Olmsted,Ohio Home Depot and bought a water heater and installation for next day install. The next day comes. The installer calls me in the morning and asks when to come and install the water heater. I said,”Right now!”. He said he couldn’t come right now,so we set it up for 1:30pm. Well 1:30pm comes and goes,no phone calls from the installer or the store. I finally had to call them about 4:30 only to find they sold me a water heater they did not have. Oh no, nothing could be done till the next day. Ihad to ask for a discount on their stupidity and they offered 10% after trying to act like they weren’t totally responsible. |
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Comment by Colleen July 7th, 2004 at 12:21 pm |
I work at Home Depot part time. I absolutely hate working at Home Depot. The job wouldn’t be so bad if I didnt have to deal with jerks and morons all day. I saw the ads and thought that Home Depot was a different place to work than the other stores I’ve worked at. The major problem is the management. They are all losers-in-life but winners at Home Depot. They walk around all day, don’t help when you need them and are out to get you i.e cant wait to find a reason to fire people. I was hired at a decent rate of $11 an hour. Now they want to save money and pay people $8/hr. This is ridiculous for the amount of work you have to do and the grief you need to put up with. In addition, the customers are so rude at the location I work, dealing with these people makes you think society is going down the drain. I work with a lot of people that are very clever and nice. But they are all “associates”. The people that run the store are the managers and department heads. They dont actually run anything they just stand around and tell people to do ridiculous things that aren’t possible given time restraints. Recently just about every employee in my department quit. And because the pay rate is so low, they dont have anyone to come in and take their place. |
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Comment by paul July 7th, 2004 at 3:19 pm |
I have so many aweful Home Depot stories. I am not a happy HD customer right now. They, true to form, really suck ass. Their “associates” need better training all around. They’re fucking retarded. I bought $1000 granite countertop for a kitchen, and 3 months later when I was ready to have it installed, they claimed that “We only install granite if it’s over $1200…You can get your money back and go elsewhere, or buy more granite.” What the FUCK???? The DC Home Depot blows big time. Part of this catastrophe also involved the Associate selling me a refrigerator that was discontinued, and when I went to pick it up two weeks later, being told “Oh, this model is discontinued. Sorry. You can get your money back.” What the FUCK! I had my cabinets measured to that exact refrigerator! LOWES here I come. God save the queen and fuck HD. |
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Comment by Robin August 2nd, 2004 at 9:41 pm |
Dave in the kitchen department at Lowes in Flanders, NJ was very nasty and always had an attitude throughout my Avanza countertop transaction. It didn’t matter that I spent $4500. Anytime I would call, come in, ask a question he just copped an attitude. The best was when he copped an attitude when I asked for a breakdown of the pricing. I didn’t have anything. All I has was a $4500 charge on my American Express card. If I had it to do over, I would have bought Silestone or Topstone at Home Depot. |
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Comment by tricia August 3rd, 2004 at 3:35 am |
Ok, ok…Home depot sucks, lowes sucks…Who really cares. If you don’t like it don’t go. but don’t bitch. it’s just a imature waste of everyones time. You do all realize that everybody is reading all these snooty little pre-school remarks, and going. My god this is pathetic. No one is really taking this to heart or caring about a damn word of it. People get caught up. You try runnin a department with thousands(literaly)of parts you have to know about. What they all do, how much they all cost, how many you have in stock, if it comes in beige; and the biggest slap in the face of all….(after this dick has taken up 25 minutes of your time)Does another store have it cheaper? Then imagine you’ve been at work since oh….5:45 in the morning. by 2:00 your ready to clock out and go home. Oh no. A customer walks up to you. pissed off because they spent 10 minutes looking for you(being the only one in your department)Where do you get off?? Is it my fault you don’t know how to read isle signs???? screws and nails, PROBABLY UNDER THE GIANT SIGN JACK ASS!!!! Don’t blame me for your incompitance. If you didn’t notice. the slogan is..YOU can do it, we can help. Not We’ll do everything for you. Read the gi-gantoid signs. get your little srews and your little bit of wood don’t bitch and get the hell out of my store, ive got my own problems to deal with….. |
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Comment by Joe & Moe August 29th, 2004 at 7:55 pm |
Home Depot Is nothing but a glorified Pergament!(for those who are unfamiliar with Pergament that makes them the equal of a 5 and dime hardware department store hardware section. Our local Home Depot store is at Cropsey Avenue in Brooklyn. The lumber department takes the prize for being number 1 in “we just don’t give a damn”. First of all you can never get any lumber cut to size. They have this wooden “out of order” sign which they use according to the mood that they are in. Don’t feel like cutting lumber? Heck, put the sign up. Yes this is an accusation on my part but if your saw broke down as often as theirs does, you would either have a back up or just get rid of the damn thing. They play games with the saw and their little sign and they think that you are stupid. When asked about the saw not being operational, they have this “could care less” attitude. Another thing that bugs me about this store is their attitude concerning stock. It seems that they just can’t hide their joy at not having particular items which you need. There’s always that little gleam in their eye when they say “nope, don’t have it”. Also this crap about not ordering anything until inventory is accomplished seems to be some sort of antiquated inventory system. I once went to the customer service desk and asked the gentlemen what his name was and his response was ” who wants to know”. I could go on and on with my negative experiences with my local home depots but you know what? Lowes has come to Brooklyn. I will make the out of the way detour to Lowes as I am sick and tired of the home depot’s indiference to accomplishing your goals within some sort of reasonable time frame. Home Depot seems to have lost sight of the home repair/remodel adventure. The only two things I would like to further state are the following; Regarding the Cropsey Avenue Home Depot, the guys that run the tool rental department are right on the money. They have an understanding of your desire to complete your project within certain time parameters. |
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Comment by HD Associate September 9th, 2004 at 4:03 pm |
I started working for HD about 5 months ago. I was offered a decent rate and I picked a department where I knew there would be lots of business (to ensure I would get hours). I was forced to start as a part time employee because I have children and I’m not available to work from open to close. (When I first heard this I thought it was rather odd.) So I then worked on finding childcare for my children till 11:00 pm. Trust me…this is pretty difficult. It took me 2 months to find childcare to cover all the possible times they could schedule me to work from open to close. I then called and informed them I now have all day open and would like to be a full time employee. They then informed me that full in my department and it isn’t possible. So I asked to be moved to a dept that was open…and I could name 4 dept that I knew desparately needed help. He said he would get back with me. |
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Comment by Fred September 25th, 2004 at 12:25 am |
Bob Nardeli, CEO of The Home Depot, is the fucking prick that is slowly nailing the coffin lid closed. Bernie and Arthur should have never quit. |
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Comment by Harris September 28th, 2004 at 3:43 pm |
The thing to remenber its that neither HD or Lowes gives a shit about developing repeat business on their home installation jobs. Their attitude appears to be that as long as they can screw everybody once, then they will be making money. The subcontractors that they use cannot exist on their own. That is to say that their customer service and overall comunication skills would not enable them to remain in business if they weren’t given work by HD / Lowes. No shows and no call backs for two |
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Comment by Ace September 30th, 2004 at 8:32 pm |
Well, I just got canned from The Home Depot today. I was promoted to dept head of special services back in April of this year. Since then there have been a total of 4 different employees hired for special services. I have had to help train each one. The 1st one lasted 4 weeks, the next one was there for 2 weeks before injuring his back. The 3rd one was transfered in from another dept. The last one was hired in off the street and has caught on fast. The only problem was with me trying to train these people and work my reports in a timely manor. I worked the 1:30 to 10:30 shift each day and had to not only try to do the reports, but also take care of customer’s at the desk. Handle customer complaints, cut keys (since the powers to be decided to move the key machine from hardware to just beside our desk). The service desk was also expected to answer the phone when our phone person was not there. I did my best to provide the customer service which I thought you were supposed to do at a store like Home Depot. But, it seems that management is all about numbers and paper work. I even had some customers come up to my desk complaining about the indifferance from our assistant manager at times. When that happened I gave the customer the customer care number to call. As if that would make any differance. The bottom line, The Home Depot and other large stores are not interested in customer care. They are all out to watch “the bottome line” and make the stock holders happy. No matter the cost. Ace |
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Comment by Mary in AL November 15th, 2004 at 11:45 pm |
Unless there is a national emergency, I doubt I will ever be shopping at Home Depot again. For a long time, years actually, I shopped at the big box Lowes, then this fall I decided to have granite countertops installed in my kitchen. It really was on a whim that I stopped by the Home Depot to get a price. The salesman in the kitchen department was terrific and the service was super. I paid nearly $4,000 and gleefully awaited the process of my new countertop to start. But, alas, that was not to be. To be fair all of the problems started with the granite fabricator and not HD. Three days after I placed my order, the company that was going to fabricate the countertop was raided by the FBI for various immigration and white slavery accusations. (Google Newton Granite in Atlanta Georgia to read the news reports). Well the new fabricator is in Florida, a long way off and I wanted to at least see a sample. The new fabricator sent me a sample of grantie that was not what I ordered but he had written the correct name of the granite I ordered on it Back to the HD with the sample from the new fabricator and a sample the old fabricator. Again, the HD people, very nice, called the new guy asked him what’s up? They admit they didn’t really have my granite color, so they just sent a sample from a different granite and put my color on the label. It’s october now. That’s when I said, look I brought you my estimate, I want my full refund and the $54. They said no, they would have to send me a check in the mail, and I would not get my $54 because the other manage wasn’t there. Well, okey dokey. I told them they had been holding my $3949 since August, they were making money on my money,but I didn’t have the option of paying part down and keeping some of my savings in my account until I was satisfied with my countertop. I wanted my $54. I also explained to them, that I am an attorney, I earn my living by being in my office meeting with people and doing actual work that I can bill for. (I’m a criminal defense attorney I did not threaten to sue) I had to cancel appointments and leave my office to deal with this mess, not just today but many days prior. I had now spent 3 hours on a countertop mess that I didn’t make. I want my $54. They said no, I said I’d call the Atlanta Office and left. |
