Good thing I’m writing this today and not yesterday when I was out shopping, or at least trying to shop, or a lot of very very bad words would have been published on the Internet by yours truly.
I have previously tried to buy furniture for my kitchen at IKEA in Kungens Kurva but they where all sold out. Well, yesterday I made an other attempt. I actually checked on the web that they had things in store before going there. As it turns out everybody else in Stockholm had had the same idea. As it so happens there is a group on Facebook titled “I Secretly Want To Punch Slow Walking People In The Back Of The Head” and I’m a member. Imagine the torture of navigating through a overcrowded IKEA.
Before going to the self service storage near the check out I went to have a last look at the table (Ekensberg) and chairs (Börje) I intended to buy. And when I was looking at the chairs and cheking them out for comfort I decided on another type of chair (Egon) than I had planned from the start. At the self service storage I found my table but unfortunately they where all out of the chairs. A brief chat with the staff revealed that they had 59 chairs at the IKEA store in Barkaby on the other side of Stockholm. So I decided to drive there to get the chairs and get my kitchen in order.
So I’m at a new parking lot trying to find a place to park while being a little irritated over the traffic. This IKEA is no less crowded than the other but I soon learn to take short cuts across showrooms heading for their self service storage. When I arrive there I get lucky and quickly find a free terminal where I can find out the exact location of my future chairs. And find them I did.
There where about 10 crushed and/or demolished packages on the shelf. They had obviously dropped them from the forklift or managed to maul them in some other way. On the shelf there was a sign saying that more chairs could be found in the middle aisle. Well I found none so I asked a staff member about it and he confirmed that there where no chairs in the aisle. Then he tried to sell me the crushed cardboard boxes supposedly containing unbroken chairs. As if I would buy them without confirmation that they where intact.
We had a brief discussion regarding the state of the chairs which led to him confirming that there probably where more chairs high up on the shelves where only the forklift could get at them. He also proceeded on telling me that they only operated the forklift in the evening after they closed. Something I found most sensible considering the state of the packages we’d just discussed. Imagine what could happened if they dropped that same load of chairs in a crowded warehouse. I left with out any chairs.
All in all it took nearly six hours shopping including travel time to get one lousy kitchen table. You can imagine my mood as I assembled the table that evening. Tomorrow evening I’m going to make a second attempt at buying those chairs and this time they better be whole.
Ouch ouch ouch! That doesn’t sound much fun at all! But to read it was much fun
Posted by Mika Perälä on December 6th, 2007