Sunday, June 29, 2008

Ikea

Well I went the other day to buy some furniture for the spare bedroom at Ikea. Everytime I come back I remember why I don't go often. Sure the prices are good and there are some cute things but the customer service is NON EXISTANT! I know this is how they "keep their low prices"but come on does it really cost that much just be courteous with customers?

I guess we have it a little better off here because in the states they dont even bag your purchases here, and you can also have someone push your stuff down to the car and load it up for you. The problem I have is when I am trying to find my selections upstairs the tag says one thing and when you go to the coresponding aisle and section big surprise! Its not there.

So it makes sense to go to the guys working at the counters right? Wrong! It takes like 5 minutes to get their attention once you do you dont get more than a nod to the general location of what you are looking for.
And God forbid you actually ask someone to help load something heavy into the cart they look at you like, you dare to ask me to help YOU? and walk away. Thanks to this mindset I dropped this incredibly heavy but deceivingly small box on my foot I was sure that my big toe would fall off due to lack of blood circulation!

At least I had the driver to help with the loading of the carts, yes carts I ended up pushing a full size mattress on one of those stupid carts it was incredibly akward especially in this society where just walking normally elicites stares from everyone imagine the american girl trying to manuever a huge mattress through the maze to get to the checkout.

Another nice thing here is that instead of hiring the ridiculously priced in house deliveryis that there are guys outside with trucks who deliver for about $30 to your home and load everything into the house, they will also put things together for you but I was like I am notforking over $100 for that even though the driver was like WHAT? you are going to put everything together yourself????? I was like ya dats right!

2 comments:

Umm Ibrahim said...

Assalaamu alaikum,

Aaaaaah! Good ole Ikea - this is why mum hates the place. Hates it with a vengeace! LOL

I send the hubby along on his own to buy anything bug that we might need and we do go along often enough as the kids LOVE the food there. It's the only non-junk food that they like to eat when we go out. Salmon and rice all the way!

Susie of Arabia said...

I recently arrived back in Jeddah and the Airport Immigration Clerk was so rude with the group of people in line in front of me. They had neglected to fill out the proper form and he was shooing them away and just motioning over toward where the forms were. He did not take the time to explain what they needed verbally, but chose to leave them confused about what they really needed by using hand motions instead. After several minutes of this, I finally spoke up and told them what to do, when he should have done this since you would think it's part of his job. He processed me without a word or a glance up. That was only my second time coming into the country!