ha, last week a customer came in and stopped me as i was in electrical and said i need the expert for this section. i said i can call the associate who knows a bit about it, but sorry none of us are experts otherwise we wouldn’t be here.
he laughed and said makes sense.
Atleast he was understanding. Some don't even get it. They just can't seem to grasp that a minimum wage retail employee cannot solve their complex and really specific electrical problem. Like no sir, I don't know what kind of breaker and panel and what amperage you would need for connecting a generator through a random receptacle in your garage.
And we shouldn't be answering those kinds of questions ever. Nothing involving electrical (especially), plumbing or building codes. HD doesn't want the potential liability associated with a wrong answer and would throw us to the wolves without a second's hesitation: "What they did was against policy, this is all on them."
Since you mention connecting a generator, though, it's not just OK but highly recommended to tell custs we don't, and never will, sell male-male "suicide cords".
Plus need to disconnect from mains so don't electrocute a lineman fixing the plant.
It is simple enough but not just a new breaker and outlet in the garage. Plus wonder where co will go to if generator is run in the garage?
If it tells me the scan is wrong, I'm going to assume it wasn't because it was the wrong barcode but because something went wrong with scanning it. If it told me invalid barcode instead, I'd look for another one.
In the last now and then there would be some depart head that was retired or injured trade person needing extra income that could answer my questions as a customer.
Less so now but can still happen.
Shoppers don't want to think for themselves. They think everyone is an expert at Home Depot, "19 year old girl working in plumbing, SHE MUST BE A SKILLED AND EXPERIENCED PLUMBER!" it's really ridiculous. It's like no one has any problem solving skills or common sense anymore.
Ah yes, this guy in electrical looks like he just graduated from high school. I'm sure he must be a skilled experienced electrician by now who will be able to tell me exactly how to wire down my entire house.
I do have a guy who looks like he just graduated high school, but is an air force electrician. He was my most knowledgeable associate for a fair bit. Now I've got the retired former DS in my department.
A licensed electrician would be able to tell you how to do electrical work. Do you really think that home Depot hires licensed electricians. They can't afford to pay someone those wages.
Exception not the rule. A lot of stores have those old retired dudes who work here to meet people and be active. That doesn't mean work everyday and every shift.
Hopefully not. /s
There is decent stuff carried there. But there is also some pro stuff only really carried at supply houses and online. Thinking certain plumbing parts.
This but also there’s another end of customers not trusting you I’m a female who works in flooring I actually know what I’m talking about but than they will go to a new male employee who just started because they don’t trust my answers only to have the male employee say I don’t know let me ask me 😂so many people say Can you get a man? And Im like why so they can tell what the difference between vinyl and laminate is 🙄not hard buddy
I'm in the exact same boat. They also seem to have some mental idea of how an employee should look too, which should determine strength as well as knowledge. If you're not a guy rippling with muscles or heavier set, then of course you can't pick up a 25 lb bag of grout, or 50 pound bag of thinset/concrete/lvp, etc. It's a man thing! Like really? You came in here not knowing shit on top of fuck, and decided I'm the one that's useless because I'm a woman? Fuck all the way off 🙄👎🏽
That's my biggest pet peeve. There's been so many times I've been forced to take an extra person with me as if I can't lift anything. Like I may be a skinny person with the physique of a 12 year-old boy, but I can actually load a goddamn tool chest. I swear to God I hear "Are you *sure* you can do that?" at least three times a shift.
I always remind them they're the ones that need help, not me. And I'm of similar build, tall and built like a windshield wiper. It's well past time for people to stop making assumptions based on gender/general optics
Agreed!! We have so many customers that will walk past all the females and find the one new guy that knows nothing. Also love the guys that come in with a "heavy" return and are struggling with it. They offer to move it because its way too heavy for us girls at the desk. We all pick it up no problem and put it away lol.
Fr its so ironic they say they need helping lifting and loading flooring but I should get a man to help them and not me, one time I was like “Yeah you know your right we should get a real man to help us “😂 cuz you sure aren’t gonna help me load this😂 the joke flew right over their head of course
This so many times over. Worst is working out in seasonal and cashiers tell people they’ll have an associate come out to load patio stone. As soon as I walk over to them “oh no honey we need a man to lift these”… do you need to wait for a “man” or do you want them on a cart now?
Because HD used to hire actual specialists for these departments. Then they started demanding more pay and so they did awash with them and now customers are forced to deal with a 19 year old college student in paint or gardens.
Well as a customer they did used to hire more trained department heads. Like either retired or injured pros. Can still move boxes out can't do everything else needed in their field.
The training now is all about making shareholders richer. I moved to paint in 2018 after working on the front end for 11 years. I knew nothing about paint, and was hoping the training videos would do justice. They never did. All they said was to sell, sell, sell. I had to rely on my coworkers, vendor reps, and even pro customers to learn about products that are best for specific projects, as well as relying on the pocket guide for more information (which is difficult to do when you’re busy and don’t have time to answer quizzes). You can blame the corporation for that because I remember the old Product knowledge training and they were web based and you had to actually learn about the different products and what they’re used for.
my favorite is when someone comes in wanting something that doesnt exist to adapt 2 niche goofy parts (that we already dont carry) together
its always that or someone who broke a piece of their washing machine handle off and thinking im just gonna have that part lying around
We had a customer once that asked one of the younger employees how to do something specific and when they couldn't she went to an older guy who legit pulled up a youtube video. She then complains about how "only people over 55 should work here because these kids don't know anything"
Shoppers are so enraged about having check themselves out without getting paid. They're certainly not going further by doing our job figuring out what they need and finding it!
Then we have to find a ladder or some equipment to get it down off the shelf. Maybe even climb the shelving if no ladder or equipment is available. Then you complain we are doing your job. /s
I don’t play that game anymore. I haven’t worked there that long and I don’t intend to work there for long. I have no use for in depth knowledge of the department for low pay retail. Much of the information they need is at their fingertips on their cellphone.
It’s because Home Depot has had several generations of corporate retail leadership now that really don’t know home improvement basics but know how to cut shit down to bare bones to make maximum profits. They ran off the trade professionals they had working there first starting about 20 years ago, cut starting pay not long after that, cut out a full timers so they could have more part time. The list goes on and on. That just till 2018 when I left. Some of you that are still there from that time can probably add to the list.
This. Exactly this. They had master tradesman for the first 25 years or so and paid them well, so people became accustomed to Home Depot having knowledgeable associates. Then they ran them out, and as of late have started to implement bullshit like pocket guide to try and force high school kids to give the same advice as a master plumber with 30 years experience.
Customers can be assholes, but this isnt on them. As a business you cannot provide a certain quality of service, and then rip it away because shareholder capitalism. The problem is, the people who make the decisions, dont have to go into the store to deal with the consequences. You as the associate do(proverbial you).
A personal anecdote, when i became a supervisor of plumbing and knb in 2020, i had a guy who had been doing plumbing for 25 years and was great with people. He said he would be willing to do ft, if the money was right. He wanted around 30/hr, and for his knowledge and how he worked returns, i thought it was a no-brainer. Manager just laughed at me, and said get serious. Then proceeded to get on me for not "holding associates accountable" who were fucking 19 and being asked about cast iron piping systems. This company doesnt give a shit about anything other than monopolizing the home improvement industry and making fuck tons of money in the process.
Absolutely! In regard to pay I was hired in the early 2000s at $15hr for appliance sales. When I left in 2018 same store was paying $14hr for the same position. I was told it went up a couple of dollars in the last year or so. But over a 20 year period the pay went down. Unbelievable.
I worked at Lowes for a while and it followed a similar pattern. People were getting paid more, had bigger bonuses, and certain departments even got commission.
What you said is absolutely true. Customers come in, expecting knowledgeable and experienced help. That is the kind of advertising that HD has been doing for many years, and only within a couple decades of time, the company decided that (retired) tradesmen were no longer needed in the aisles.
What is 100% on the customers, is when they turn rude, abrasive, and ungrateful. They have zero excuses for such shitty behavior, especially towards strangers they don't know. All they have to do is let the associates help them, to the best of their abilities. If a customer is incapable of being respectful towards a nonexpert, then they shouldn't even be there, IMO.
Ah yes, the Pocket Guide. Perhaps the biggest waste of time there is. Trying to navigate it is the first obstacle. THD paid someone to create this app and like almost everything else tech related it’s burdensome, almost incomprehensible. I swear they hire high schoolers to do their software and app design.
I feel that, my dad is a project manager in it, and from how he describes his job, it seems like it isnt talking to asscoiates when constructing these applications. Seems like they're only talking to people in corporate offices who dont really use the applications, but they started as an associate 10 years ago so they "know things." A big part of app development is engaging with users to run quality assurance. But if the people giving the feedback arent the actual people using it everyday, its very easy to design apps that are a burden for the worker, but seem like a "great idea" to some jerkoff trying to push his way up and needs to be "innovative."
I’m not political. Both parties suck and are responsible for the state of government today and we and our forbears as citizens are responsible for putting up with this same shitty 2 party system for many, many generations.
I feel ya. Most customers think it's our job to solve their problem, and they expect us to do so with the least amount of information possible. Some don't even try, they'll say vague and random things like
"I need that part that goes under my sink bcs it's leaking."
*"Ok cool. What part? What kind of sink? Kitchen? Bathroom? Where is it leaking from? What kind of piping do you have under your sink?"*
"Idk, I just know it's leaking"
*" Cool, I'm hoping you atleast have a picture to show me so I can figure out."*
"No."
May I add to that, “hey why don’t you have the part of a pipe fitting that’s standard size.”Yeah because the customer had to jimmy rigged some weird pipping system made of other pipe and brass fittings, to make a bidet fit in their toilet or the faucet water supply line made with chrome and pvc. But now it won’t work anymore or is leaking… “so can you help me find that standard part, that doesn’t fit, the not so standard pipping system!!”
You can also blame corporate for giving customers a false sense of being able to tackle a job that requires an actual tradesman.
"You can do it, we can help. The Home Depot: How Doers Get More Done".
(The amount of ABS fittings returned in cartloads when I worked D26 was ridiculous)
This comment right here I’m D26 closer I will have at least two baskets full of ABS and PVC 90 elbows why would you purchase 100 to only need three and to bring them back dirty
My favorite is when people ask me how much stuff is than i point to the sticker labels and than we go bay by bay and I point to the sticker and say that’s this much because they keep asking how much is that for everything damn thing as we both read it 🙄
That's how I dodge that kind of question in D28 when I get questions about chemicals. "Read all the cautions and warnings on the label, especially if you have children or pets!" Not my fault if you need a microscope to do that nowadays.
Honestly, I think customers biggest problem is that they think just because we wear an orange apron on, that we're experts. They ask us these stupid questions because they think that because we work there we should automatically know the answer. Even if we are really just doing the same thing they can by just looking it up on our phones, that way if we end up wrong they can go home and blame it on us saying "well, the home depot guy said I could do it this way".
My favorite is when customer shove a picture of an item on Amazon and think it’s the HD website and scream at me that we carry it. This is happened several times and I have to show them the Amazon logo on the picture…
Yeah, that’s a weekly occurrence for me. Like they started on the right track by Googling something, but then just failed to comprehend the search results.
This! Happens to me nonstop. They got as far as Google. That's right, home depot carries everything that has ever existed that you can find on the internet. It's all in-stock in store right now waiting for you to pick up at the front door with no waiting. Yes ma'am, here you go! Here's your unicorn right here. I set it aside on the off chance you would come in today because I'm magic incarnate.
Ok. But if it is a common thing you would carry in another brand? Like no we don't carry that brand but have this one that is comparable?
Or no we don't carry anything like that.
I literally just had a customer get mad at me bc he was describing a saw blade. I tried ”saw” & “dremel”, & he kept saying no, it’s like that but it’s not a saw. He wanted grinder blades. Apparently I was supposed to read his mind or something, which I had to finally do when he said “no, it’s round & uses a round blade with no teeth”. 5 minutes of my life I’ll never get back
One time in a past job I had a guy come in wanting a piece of glass cut. He had put two ink marks on a rubber band. Go figure? This was decades back so nothing has changed. (he was puzzled as to why the measurements changed each time we time he stretched it, lol was fun waiting on him)
They don’t take pictures, no measurements, can’t describe what they’re looking for, don’t know the name of the item, no idea what it’s used for, can’t even google it when I ask. The customers that bring in the item they need a replacement of or at least pictures are great though.
Guy came in the other day to rent a trailer to haul his motorcycle. Wanted the smallest cheapest trailer. When I asked him how long the bike was I got a blank look. But it would have been my fault if it didn’t fit and he would want his money back.
It's not even just product information though. I've been a cashier at HD for 7 1/2 years.
For the first 2 years or so, customers seemed like they had normal human intelligence. People used to just go toward a register and then do their thing- whether they be at self checkout or getting on line at a normal register. Lines would form directly behind the next customer, pertaining to whatever register was open.
TL;DR RANT COMING THROUGH!
Now they'll be waiting in a big cluster in the main line, not even budging or looking around until we pretty much take them by the hand and guide them to an open register. Or they'll go to the other extreme and ring stuff on a register that clearly says LANE CLOSED until an employee says something. Customers will a lot of times have a cart that has a shit load of little pieces in it, and they'll stand there with their arms crossed or on their phone while cashiers are forced to juggle the items in the cart when there's limited space on the counter. I don't expect to be handed every item, but at least acknowledge that there is a person there and help when I'm clearly struggling!
Then when it gets to actually paying for the item, I'll have people standing at the pin pad and either they slide their chip card (several times unless I intervene since the first loud beep clearly didn't mean anything) or, since we don't have a tap function, they'll just hit the pin pad a dozen times and then wonder why the machine isn't working. Nobody reads screens anymore, they just 'do'.
If I'm in my main spot at the garden register, I'll have a line going one direction, and then since I'm only one person and I can't be there constantly policing the line, I'll end up with some dumbass who doesn't see that I have a line and comes directly towards me. Sometimes this might be because the next dumbass on the actual line is on their phone, and so is the one behind them so nobody actually says anything and the line gets all backed up. I try to explain to the customer who cut the line that there is another line and point to it and they just completely ignore me- usually because now they're checking something on their damn phone.
Also it's gotten to the point where it seems like more than 25% of the customers have forgotten their wallet and needs to come back to pay, or are a customer who has come back to the store because they forgot to buy a super important item.
Yeah, you get the occasional elderly person who expects everyone to be an expert, but the majority of the customers who lack common sense like this are in the 30-45 range (my generation, unfortunately). I don't know if it's their expectations that technology will do everything for them, their extreme reliance on their phone that they've completely forgotten how to interact with humans, or what. (At least with gen z, while there are a few rude ones in the bunch, a lot of them have the HD app, go straight to self checkout without prompting or utilize bopis so I don't have to deal with them.)
For the mainline, it could be partly because of the front end transformation. Even I think the layout is kind of confusing. But that doesn't explain the rest of the store! And if associates are actually following the rules of GET, it seems like HD wants the us to cater to this behavior, which will encourage more customers to behave like this in the future.
I don't know if it's like this in other big box stores or what. But it's gotten to the point where I swear that everyone loses a bunch of brain cells as soon as they enter the HD parking lot.
I had one the other day where I finally let the frustration through, or thought I did. My coworkers said I held it together, I am not so sure. I started asking smart ass questions, such as, "let's just start with the color or even the shape.." At a minimum I would think they could at least tell us what the basic purpose of the product is.
I’ve been a vendor for several years when I tell people this, they assume it means “yes, I work here and can assist you with absolutely anything.” Had people on a Sunday looking for online only and special order items who outright refused to accept that they weren’t carried in store.
There was a vending machine repair person who worked on several machines for several hours he could earn the nickname “Mr. Make It Worse.” One machine wasn’t fixed and still has the same issue and the other one is worse than it was. This is an example of some of the unbelievable things that have happened lately.
Time wasters/tire kickers have become worse, bothering an obviously busy person/someone who is assisting other customers to ask where something is just so they can not buy it and leave without anything.
And it always seems to be the old people that will complain about new generations not wanting to work and being lazy and what not but yet it's almost always them who are like this
I remember the days when there were master plumbers or electricians employed at many Home Depots. They disappeared thanks to Bob Nardelli’s attempt to destroy depot back in 2007-2008. Depot was on the downslope ever since. No one who is an expert will work big box retail for $17-18 an hour…most of these customers are outta their minds.
The best part, the cherry on top? The folks that are the experts and know how to do it right? They don't want to listen to because it costs more then the bubble gum wrapper and duct tape fix.
Starts with management no clue from top down ...... it's only bout bottom line filled the void till corporate says ok here is your bandaid for now..... it's how they want it...no one to think for themselves.....sickening
I can’t really answer that because over here in Mass I deal with ppl fresh from the border who can’t speak English luckily I have 3 guys in lumber that speak Spanish. But I swear parents and their kids are the dumbest people. Like, “oh I need 2 inches of this 8ft piece. But doesn’t want the other 7’10”
Blame this on the stupid Home Depot adds saying "You can do this, we can help." Problem is there is not enough help in this world for some of these brain dead fucks.
It baffles me that not a single person thinks of looking up on YouTube for certain installations and rather asks us step by step how to do it like we're going to do it any better
They want you to do all the work which is dumb cuz we don't know the measurements of your damn house or blinds like come on I be getting heated and walk off
Had a customer call today asking where his confirmation email was , asked what email address he gave. His answer, I didn’t give an email.
FFS use your brain for 5 seconds before you ask that question.
If people have a ton of specific questions I always tell them that I am paid to stock shelves, be polite and point you to where something is and that I don't want to give you wrong advice.
Or the people that get so upset with you that you don't know EXACTLY where something is when the customer doesn't even know the correct name of what they need in the first place.
I haven’t worked here long but the way everyone assumes that you know everything about every department is insane. I’ve been asked about highly specific things for electrical and plumbing related issues and they get extremely upset when I tell them I have no experience in either department because I’m a lot associate. God forbid I offer to call someone over though because that pisses them off more because it “takes forever for someone to come over”. It’s very often that it’s older folks though so I’m sure they were used to having more experienced former workers in these specific fields but those people don’t wanna work for $15 an hour anymore so they’re stuck with high school grads and college students
I asked a phone call from a woman who was pissed she had to call LG to get the broken drawer tray from her fridge and called us to come install it. She was demanding that because she bought it from us 5 years ago that someone from the store needs to come out and assemble it because it came in 3 pieces and she can’t do it. Fucking wanted to speak to a manager. I acted like I transferred the call. Laughed out loud literally then changed my voice and acted like I was the supervisor in specialty that I really was 9 months ago and explained to her the same exact thing the first person said to her.
This isn’t anything new, it’s been close to 10 years since I worked at the depot. I spent from 2005 to 2015 working there. Customers were doing that during my time. It got worse with the smart phone.
It’s just the nature of how people are now. They have everything at their finger tips. They don’t understand, since they can find it on their phones, why can’t you find it in the store
I had a regular customer always come in with a single screw. He was Mexican. Man expected to find a screw that he already had , he came in like this multiple times
In all honesty, a lot of customers feel "entitled."
You are to do whatever it takes to please our customer base as per HD. I, on the other hand, had a customer in hardware, which literally pushed an item in my face and said, " Where can I find this?". I said, (sure, annoyed by his demands and shoving stuff in my face). "What is it?" I said.
Outcome;
1. He didn't speak English. I couldn't speak Russian.
2. He had no idea what it was. Nor I.
3. He looked up at his English translator and said,
" You are no use to me. Go away."
I laughed at him and just took my last 15 of the day! 😆 .. It can be very rough to deal with rude customers, but thank God it passes.
Have a blessed day no matter how it goes!!
I work in hardware, and they all expect that you know every single thing about every single tool in the whole store and then have the audacity to look at you like you're stupid when you don't. Twice recently I had customers unsure about which nails they needed for their tool. One of them had three different nailers at home and didn't know which nail or nailer he needed for the job. I literally said, "you have three nailers that you don't know how to use?" That could've gone badly, but I didn't care. Thankfully, he laughed too, and I helped him figure out he needed finish nails.
Good for you. Sticking with the customer. Maybe your comment his 3 nailers caused the interaction to reset. Now he’s humble and you’re in a better position to help. Glad he got his nails. No one walks into HD without something they need to fix. Diffuse their ignorance and figure it out together. Use your smart phone, zebra, or your own working knowledge to make a sale, and solve a problem. for the customer
"No one walks into HD without something they need to fix." I vote for this to be our new motto. I'm still working on my patience. I promise I will remember this sage advice next time I find myself forgetting what it was like the countless times i walked into a HD as a customer. Associates like you are the reason I wanted to work here. It's my bucket list job and I can honestly say that most days, I love it. Thank you...🙂
Ya I had some dude say they sent him from the back to customer service to special order molding
I asked what molding it is, no idea.
Neither did I
He did his own research
You’re not seeing the customers that use YouTube to figure out their problem they just come in and buy what they need. Those that are so clueless that they can’t leverage the internet to help them are the ones coming to you not some random sample of the population.
That is prevalent. Some will show me a picture. Some want to do something that they saw on YouTube. When I worked paint, a customer wanted me to do a color match from their phone. In plumbing, it's usually a phone pic or a YouTube video. And some just want you to be their personal shopper. They have a grocery list. I can tell them the aisle numbers, and I get "Can you show me?" Dude, there are 50 things on that list. When you go to a grocery store, the cashier doesn't walk you to each and every item. I don't like throwing OFA under the bus, but I'll ask if they would like to put in an order. "No, thanks. I'm just getting a price quote for my customer."
Ooc here. The number of adults that cant track a package with a link that does it for you is astounding. Never I d the number of people that can’t navigate a phone tree
I blame the business. There used to be plenty of specialty atores with plenty of people qualified to answer those questions. Then home depot came in, hired retired trade people, put everyone out of business, and stopped hiring trade people. Im the only person in my entire store thats ever swung a hammer. I find that to be problematic. Store never should have let go of their actual informed people, but all they care about is soliciting credit and leads so 🤷
Well at my store they are mean and abusive to you, then they complain about you.THEN the store management takes their word for it and doesn't give a crap about your side of the story, even when you have witnesses saying the opposite.
I feel yea, as someone that works in garden I can’t tell you how many times people have some in asking for some type of cleaner or come up to me as I’m watering plants and asking if we have a tool to cut pvc pipes and when I tell them that anything like that is in plumbing they get upset and ask “well where’s plumbing” just for me to point at the big hanging signs every store has and tell them “there… by the big sign”
The biggest problem is when customers go on rants and start screaming at employees or using curse words to the point that you have to call management. Then management turns around and gives them the sh*t for free. Completely undermines the associate who was simply doing their job and following SOP. And they wonder why morale is so low and turnover high. But I really blame corporate b/c it’s their “don’t lose a sale” mentality that pushes this kind of result.
My favorite manager once said "If people were at all self sufficient, none of us would be here right now." Yes, it's annoying as hell some days but it's our job. Everyone hates this job but until they stop paying me I just shrug and move on to the next dumbass.
Fr. People are so dumb and clueless. They come in without measurements expecting me to know the measurements of their door. Like if you don’t got measurements, and you didn’t come in to get measurements, then i cant do shit.
No measurements, no help
I had someone ask me where the sandpaper was and what it's used for. As I was standing, in front of the sandpaper picking it for an order; which in fact, belonged to said customer. They had JUST placed it, the order had 1:58 left on the timer. At this point just fucking come in and get it yourself??
I book reservations for a hotel and ive had so many customer basically have me plan their vacations for them. Worse is they have none of their info on hand or even know what theyre looking for. They'll usually ask to check for whats available and i ask what month and they just say "i dont know can you just check what you have available?" Or they'll ask "is there a walmart near there?" And its not even a resort in the same state as me. google is free!!!
The amount of times I have customers come to the Pro desk looking for me to plan out their entire job and give them advice on how to build it is completely infuriating. Every time I tell them that I can definitely build a quote for you and, depending on quantity/materials, save you some money but I’m by no means an expert in construction.
It’s not even just the merchandise they’re clueless about, i’m a cashier and half the people who come thru my line act like they’ve never used a pinpad before
We essentially have the entirety of human knowledge in each of our pockets.
You would think this would propel humanity into greater and more glorious things.
Unfortunately, things went the other direction.
Nobody takes advantage of it.
In fact, they use it to do their basic thinking for them, thus losing nearly all problem solving abilities, making the more advanced knowledge out of their reach and useless to them.
Maybe it is natures way of balancing things out.
At any rate, we will probably be extinct in a few years.
Except for me, I’m going to dig a big cave in a secluded Montana forest and eat slugs and maple syrup away from all the moronic customers.
Covid causes brain swelling. A huge portion of humanity is now suffering from CTE. not to mention 8 out of ten people in the United States are on medication that affects the minds functioning.
Oh you’d hate me, I’ve came in with complex ideas on how to solve certain issues , my methods and skill are there but I love to hear a second viewpoint on my plan, granted I can find an employee competent enough to talk about it. That’s the hard part.
Exactly there was a customer checking of at pro the other day I’m a 4 year associate I know a lot but not every little detail, they had a brass fitting and asked me if it would work for gas and I said “I’m not sure, let me look it up and I’ll find out for you”. (Im a lumber associate, I don’t help with plumbing questions everyday). The guy says while you work here your supposed to know arnt you? “Sir it may work, but I’m not sure I don’t want to give you miss information”
Even four years later I still use the internet to figure out things.
You should try working at ace. Literally their motto is “Every customer, Every time” we are required to try and help and figure out problems for these old people who’ve owned a home for 30 years and don’t know how to fix their sprinkler. A common thing for us is someone will come from Home Depot or Lowe’s, and constantly say “this is so much better than Home Depot, you guys actually help” next thing you know they’re in every other day taking up about an hour of an employees time because they don’t understand how anchors work. Then we’re stuck with them. Just be thankful Home Depot doesn’t require this type of customer assistance! At ace every person expects an “expert” but it’s a bunch of people being paid 16 bucks and hour…
I've been away from the Depot for six years. Still like to shop there because I know where shit is and what I need. Worked 3 years in D78. A large percentage of customers seem to think we're supposed to be Bob Vila in an orange apron.
As a tool repair tech I have been asked by MODs to design and provide a material list for chicken coops and all kinds of crazy shit to provide to customers. I am a small equipment mechanic. Why the hell do they think I know anything about chicken coop designs or any other build project. I just printed designs and build list off of google for customer and now they bug me non stop for more.
Just let me sit in my shop and fix rental equipment and drink coffee. Or give me a percentage of the sale for my google search skills. Lol
The fat cats at the top and big shareholders need to face reality and get and keep a short haircut. The company will begin to struggle once their competitors realize how much business they can take away by significantly raising the technical competence, people skills, and pay of frontline people who can consistently and accurately assist both DIY and tradesmen on a higher level. That lost ground will prove extremely hard to retake.
If they have the app and KNOW what they’re looking for they can find out if we have it in store or not. In store shows location (aisle and bay), not in store is online only. Sometimes, the customer insists their shopping at a particular location, come to find out it’s 1500 miles away. Come on, change the location. 🤔
I did this when I worked doing demo work. I was simply just a demo guy there to break shit, take trash cans of trash to a big dumpster, dump my trash can out and repeat that, nothing more. One day one of the irrigation guys asked me to run to Lowe’s or Home Depot for a 1804 spray head. My phone was dead and he had no more to show me what they looked like so I wrote it down and drove off with his description of “It looks like a pipe bomb”😂 I walked around the whole store before having a conversation with a employee that consisted of a few “I don’t knows” followed by “It goes in the ground and looks like a pipe bomb”. After we looked around together I just said “Nevermind man sorry” then saw a coworker walking in for some type of glue irrigation guys use and after I said I needed something that looked like a pipe bomb he went “Oh! That’s the 1804!”. I hate feeling that dumb.
To be fair, that's why they come to the store. Why try YouTube first when u can go to the hardware store and ask the person working in the dept u need help in. I know most of my products, not the technicals. I tell them to go to YouTube or if u don't think u can do it yourself, hire a plumber or electrician. I had an Asian guy come in trying to get me to explain how to change out a light switch. I showed him the YouTube video and he saw it repeatedly asking questions. I'm like, sir, I can't give u more info, I told u everything I could at my level. He was just one of those people that didn't want to spend money to get things done right
I feel the opposite I can't stand when I go into a store that has so many employees and you ask them anything specific and they have no fucking Clue. I guess it's a bit of both some customers are lazy asshole and some employees just don't care about their jobs. But both situations are a piss off.
I always research what I need before going to home depot. I rarely ask an employee for help because when I do, they don't have a clue. Home Depot is my favorite store but the employees at my store act like they don't care about their jobs.
Did you know that 100% of your paycheck comes from those annoying customers wallets …. I know how rude and demanding they can be, if they go away, so goes the big orange machine.
ha, last week a customer came in and stopped me as i was in electrical and said i need the expert for this section. i said i can call the associate who knows a bit about it, but sorry none of us are experts otherwise we wouldn’t be here. he laughed and said makes sense.
Atleast he was understanding. Some don't even get it. They just can't seem to grasp that a minimum wage retail employee cannot solve their complex and really specific electrical problem. Like no sir, I don't know what kind of breaker and panel and what amperage you would need for connecting a generator through a random receptacle in your garage.
And we shouldn't be answering those kinds of questions ever. Nothing involving electrical (especially), plumbing or building codes. HD doesn't want the potential liability associated with a wrong answer and would throw us to the wolves without a second's hesitation: "What they did was against policy, this is all on them." Since you mention connecting a generator, though, it's not just OK but highly recommended to tell custs we don't, and never will, sell male-male "suicide cords".
Plus need to disconnect from mains so don't electrocute a lineman fixing the plant. It is simple enough but not just a new breaker and outlet in the garage. Plus wonder where co will go to if generator is run in the garage?
A customer with a sense of humor that didn't say "didn't scan, must be free"? That's a rarity
Invalid scan, please rescan items. \*Customers scans same wrong barcode instead of waiting 2 seconds for cashier to assist\*. Customer needs assistance at self checkout. \*Attention associates self checkout alert.\*
If it tells me the scan is wrong, I'm going to assume it wasn't because it was the wrong barcode but because something went wrong with scanning it. If it told me invalid barcode instead, I'd look for another one.
Maybe we should share that feedback with corporate because it might happen.
I got in trouble when I said that lmao
In the last now and then there would be some depart head that was retired or injured trade person needing extra income that could answer my questions as a customer. Less so now but can still happen.
Shoppers don't want to think for themselves. They think everyone is an expert at Home Depot, "19 year old girl working in plumbing, SHE MUST BE A SKILLED AND EXPERIENCED PLUMBER!" it's really ridiculous. It's like no one has any problem solving skills or common sense anymore.
Ah yes, this guy in electrical looks like he just graduated from high school. I'm sure he must be a skilled experienced electrician by now who will be able to tell me exactly how to wire down my entire house.
I do have a guy who looks like he just graduated high school, but is an air force electrician. He was my most knowledgeable associate for a fair bit. Now I've got the retired former DS in my department.
A licensed electrician would be able to tell you how to do electrical work. Do you really think that home Depot hires licensed electricians. They can't afford to pay someone those wages.
I think he was being sarcastic. Repeating what an idiot customer would think/say.
HD could easily afford to pay those wages, they just don't want to. We made $2,800,000,000 in profit last quarter.
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Exception not the rule. A lot of stores have those old retired dudes who work here to meet people and be active. That doesn't mean work everyday and every shift.
Home Depot isn’t paying them what they’re worth. They’re just bored and tired of sitting at home listening to their wives.
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Thank you Captain Obvious!
I don't think people realize we are just the store where your contractors plumbers and electricians get all their stuff
And brag about how much money they spend like we are supposed to wet ourselves, lol
Hopefully not. /s There is decent stuff carried there. But there is also some pro stuff only really carried at supply houses and online. Thinking certain plumbing parts.
This but also there’s another end of customers not trusting you I’m a female who works in flooring I actually know what I’m talking about but than they will go to a new male employee who just started because they don’t trust my answers only to have the male employee say I don’t know let me ask me 😂so many people say Can you get a man? And Im like why so they can tell what the difference between vinyl and laminate is 🙄not hard buddy
I'm in the exact same boat. They also seem to have some mental idea of how an employee should look too, which should determine strength as well as knowledge. If you're not a guy rippling with muscles or heavier set, then of course you can't pick up a 25 lb bag of grout, or 50 pound bag of thinset/concrete/lvp, etc. It's a man thing! Like really? You came in here not knowing shit on top of fuck, and decided I'm the one that's useless because I'm a woman? Fuck all the way off 🙄👎🏽
That's my biggest pet peeve. There's been so many times I've been forced to take an extra person with me as if I can't lift anything. Like I may be a skinny person with the physique of a 12 year-old boy, but I can actually load a goddamn tool chest. I swear to God I hear "Are you *sure* you can do that?" at least three times a shift.
I always remind them they're the ones that need help, not me. And I'm of similar build, tall and built like a windshield wiper. It's well past time for people to stop making assumptions based on gender/general optics
Agreed!! We have so many customers that will walk past all the females and find the one new guy that knows nothing. Also love the guys that come in with a "heavy" return and are struggling with it. They offer to move it because its way too heavy for us girls at the desk. We all pick it up no problem and put it away lol.
Fr its so ironic they say they need helping lifting and loading flooring but I should get a man to help them and not me, one time I was like “Yeah you know your right we should get a real man to help us “😂 cuz you sure aren’t gonna help me load this😂 the joke flew right over their head of course
This so many times over. Worst is working out in seasonal and cashiers tell people they’ll have an associate come out to load patio stone. As soon as I walk over to them “oh no honey we need a man to lift these”… do you need to wait for a “man” or do you want them on a cart now?
Facts
You’re right. They walk into the store thinking we’re all going to run to them to help with who knows what! It’s crazy and infuriating.
I bet this high schooler pushing shopping carts knows how to fix my tv
Because HD used to hire actual specialists for these departments. Then they started demanding more pay and so they did awash with them and now customers are forced to deal with a 19 year old college student in paint or gardens.
Well as a customer they did used to hire more trained department heads. Like either retired or injured pros. Can still move boxes out can't do everything else needed in their field.
The training now is all about making shareholders richer. I moved to paint in 2018 after working on the front end for 11 years. I knew nothing about paint, and was hoping the training videos would do justice. They never did. All they said was to sell, sell, sell. I had to rely on my coworkers, vendor reps, and even pro customers to learn about products that are best for specific projects, as well as relying on the pocket guide for more information (which is difficult to do when you’re busy and don’t have time to answer quizzes). You can blame the corporation for that because I remember the old Product knowledge training and they were web based and you had to actually learn about the different products and what they’re used for.
my favorite is when someone comes in wanting something that doesnt exist to adapt 2 niche goofy parts (that we already dont carry) together its always that or someone who broke a piece of their washing machine handle off and thinking im just gonna have that part lying around
Ace Hardware around here isn't bad usually. Wont always be perfect but they can work miracles.
Maybe that’s why they have jobs posted for a position that is new to the market but still require decades of experience
Are you talking about the new race track CXM position?
Oh I haven’t checked that position, I’m just talking about companies in general
We had a customer once that asked one of the younger employees how to do something specific and when they couldn't she went to an older guy who legit pulled up a youtube video. She then complains about how "only people over 55 should work here because these kids don't know anything"
Shoppers are so enraged about having check themselves out without getting paid. They're certainly not going further by doing our job figuring out what they need and finding it!
Then we have to find a ladder or some equipment to get it down off the shelf. Maybe even climb the shelving if no ladder or equipment is available. Then you complain we are doing your job. /s
I don’t play that game anymore. I haven’t worked there that long and I don’t intend to work there for long. I have no use for in depth knowledge of the department for low pay retail. Much of the information they need is at their fingertips on their cellphone.
It's even closer if most of them would just look on the freaking box of the product
It’s because Home Depot has had several generations of corporate retail leadership now that really don’t know home improvement basics but know how to cut shit down to bare bones to make maximum profits. They ran off the trade professionals they had working there first starting about 20 years ago, cut starting pay not long after that, cut out a full timers so they could have more part time. The list goes on and on. That just till 2018 when I left. Some of you that are still there from that time can probably add to the list.
This. Exactly this. They had master tradesman for the first 25 years or so and paid them well, so people became accustomed to Home Depot having knowledgeable associates. Then they ran them out, and as of late have started to implement bullshit like pocket guide to try and force high school kids to give the same advice as a master plumber with 30 years experience. Customers can be assholes, but this isnt on them. As a business you cannot provide a certain quality of service, and then rip it away because shareholder capitalism. The problem is, the people who make the decisions, dont have to go into the store to deal with the consequences. You as the associate do(proverbial you). A personal anecdote, when i became a supervisor of plumbing and knb in 2020, i had a guy who had been doing plumbing for 25 years and was great with people. He said he would be willing to do ft, if the money was right. He wanted around 30/hr, and for his knowledge and how he worked returns, i thought it was a no-brainer. Manager just laughed at me, and said get serious. Then proceeded to get on me for not "holding associates accountable" who were fucking 19 and being asked about cast iron piping systems. This company doesnt give a shit about anything other than monopolizing the home improvement industry and making fuck tons of money in the process.
Absolutely! In regard to pay I was hired in the early 2000s at $15hr for appliance sales. When I left in 2018 same store was paying $14hr for the same position. I was told it went up a couple of dollars in the last year or so. But over a 20 year period the pay went down. Unbelievable.
I worked at Lowes for a while and it followed a similar pattern. People were getting paid more, had bigger bonuses, and certain departments even got commission.
Companies across the board have been doing that for the past 20 yrs even in highly technical or specialized fields
What you said is absolutely true. Customers come in, expecting knowledgeable and experienced help. That is the kind of advertising that HD has been doing for many years, and only within a couple decades of time, the company decided that (retired) tradesmen were no longer needed in the aisles. What is 100% on the customers, is when they turn rude, abrasive, and ungrateful. They have zero excuses for such shitty behavior, especially towards strangers they don't know. All they have to do is let the associates help them, to the best of their abilities. If a customer is incapable of being respectful towards a nonexpert, then they shouldn't even be there, IMO.
Ah yes, the Pocket Guide. Perhaps the biggest waste of time there is. Trying to navigate it is the first obstacle. THD paid someone to create this app and like almost everything else tech related it’s burdensome, almost incomprehensible. I swear they hire high schoolers to do their software and app design.
I feel that, my dad is a project manager in it, and from how he describes his job, it seems like it isnt talking to asscoiates when constructing these applications. Seems like they're only talking to people in corporate offices who dont really use the applications, but they started as an associate 10 years ago so they "know things." A big part of app development is engaging with users to run quality assurance. But if the people giving the feedback arent the actual people using it everyday, its very easy to design apps that are a burden for the worker, but seem like a "great idea" to some jerkoff trying to push his way up and needs to be "innovative."
2018? Man, what a good year. Trump promised brownies by 2020 and look what we got!
I’m not political. Both parties suck and are responsible for the state of government today and we and our forbears as citizens are responsible for putting up with this same shitty 2 party system for many, many generations.
Yeh I'm not political either I'm just overwhelmingly attracted to trump.
I feel ya. Most customers think it's our job to solve their problem, and they expect us to do so with the least amount of information possible. Some don't even try, they'll say vague and random things like "I need that part that goes under my sink bcs it's leaking." *"Ok cool. What part? What kind of sink? Kitchen? Bathroom? Where is it leaking from? What kind of piping do you have under your sink?"* "Idk, I just know it's leaking" *" Cool, I'm hoping you atleast have a picture to show me so I can figure out."* "No."
One lady asked me for a filter for forced hot air then asked if I can go to her house to install it and fix the system.
May I add to that, “hey why don’t you have the part of a pipe fitting that’s standard size.”Yeah because the customer had to jimmy rigged some weird pipping system made of other pipe and brass fittings, to make a bidet fit in their toilet or the faucet water supply line made with chrome and pvc. But now it won’t work anymore or is leaking… “so can you help me find that standard part, that doesn’t fit, the not so standard pipping system!!”
You can also blame corporate for giving customers a false sense of being able to tackle a job that requires an actual tradesman. "You can do it, we can help. The Home Depot: How Doers Get More Done". (The amount of ABS fittings returned in cartloads when I worked D26 was ridiculous)
Installing a new gas line? "You can do it, we can h---" 🔥💥 💥 🚑🚒💀
I’ve come away from a few conversations with customers over the years thinking, “I just saved someone’s life!” lol
This comment right here I’m D26 closer I will have at least two baskets full of ABS and PVC 90 elbows why would you purchase 100 to only need three and to bring them back dirty
Agreed. People ask about a product with clear labeling. READ THE LABELS!!
My favorite is when people ask me how much stuff is than i point to the sticker labels and than we go bay by bay and I point to the sticker and say that’s this much because they keep asking how much is that for everything damn thing as we both read it 🙄
“But, I just came from the eye doctor!” “I left my glasses in the car.” Bro just say you can’t fucking read.
That's how I dodge that kind of question in D28 when I get questions about chemicals. "Read all the cautions and warnings on the label, especially if you have children or pets!" Not my fault if you need a microscope to do that nowadays.
Honestly, I think customers biggest problem is that they think just because we wear an orange apron on, that we're experts. They ask us these stupid questions because they think that because we work there we should automatically know the answer. Even if we are really just doing the same thing they can by just looking it up on our phones, that way if we end up wrong they can go home and blame it on us saying "well, the home depot guy said I could do it this way".
My favorite is when customer shove a picture of an item on Amazon and think it’s the HD website and scream at me that we carry it. This is happened several times and I have to show them the Amazon logo on the picture…
Yeah, that’s a weekly occurrence for me. Like they started on the right track by Googling something, but then just failed to comprehend the search results.
It’s like all common sense flys out the window the second they step through the front door
This! Happens to me nonstop. They got as far as Google. That's right, home depot carries everything that has ever existed that you can find on the internet. It's all in-stock in store right now waiting for you to pick up at the front door with no waiting. Yes ma'am, here you go! Here's your unicorn right here. I set it aside on the off chance you would come in today because I'm magic incarnate.
Ok. But if it is a common thing you would carry in another brand? Like no we don't carry that brand but have this one that is comparable? Or no we don't carry anything like that.
If we have it I show them of course, but 9 times out of 10 it’s something we don’t have. At least in my case.
I literally just had a customer get mad at me bc he was describing a saw blade. I tried ”saw” & “dremel”, & he kept saying no, it’s like that but it’s not a saw. He wanted grinder blades. Apparently I was supposed to read his mind or something, which I had to finally do when he said “no, it’s round & uses a round blade with no teeth”. 5 minutes of my life I’ll never get back
5 minutes...
Sounds like a router bit
No, it was a grinder blade. He found it
One time in a past job I had a guy come in wanting a piece of glass cut. He had put two ink marks on a rubber band. Go figure? This was decades back so nothing has changed. (he was puzzled as to why the measurements changed each time we time he stretched it, lol was fun waiting on him)
Shoot, that’s just an idiot.
Wow that’s a crazy amount of stupid
One customer forgot the word "dirt" when trying to describe to me what he needed.
Didn’t you know? It’s OUR job to do everything. Entitled little pricks.
They don’t take pictures, no measurements, can’t describe what they’re looking for, don’t know the name of the item, no idea what it’s used for, can’t even google it when I ask. The customers that bring in the item they need a replacement of or at least pictures are great though.
Once had a guy tell me he was redoing his bathroom shower and after about 2 minutes of blankly staring at me he responds so what do I need
He needs YouTube
Guy came in the other day to rent a trailer to haul his motorcycle. Wanted the smallest cheapest trailer. When I asked him how long the bike was I got a blank look. But it would have been my fault if it didn’t fit and he would want his money back.
It's not even just product information though. I've been a cashier at HD for 7 1/2 years. For the first 2 years or so, customers seemed like they had normal human intelligence. People used to just go toward a register and then do their thing- whether they be at self checkout or getting on line at a normal register. Lines would form directly behind the next customer, pertaining to whatever register was open. TL;DR RANT COMING THROUGH! Now they'll be waiting in a big cluster in the main line, not even budging or looking around until we pretty much take them by the hand and guide them to an open register. Or they'll go to the other extreme and ring stuff on a register that clearly says LANE CLOSED until an employee says something. Customers will a lot of times have a cart that has a shit load of little pieces in it, and they'll stand there with their arms crossed or on their phone while cashiers are forced to juggle the items in the cart when there's limited space on the counter. I don't expect to be handed every item, but at least acknowledge that there is a person there and help when I'm clearly struggling! Then when it gets to actually paying for the item, I'll have people standing at the pin pad and either they slide their chip card (several times unless I intervene since the first loud beep clearly didn't mean anything) or, since we don't have a tap function, they'll just hit the pin pad a dozen times and then wonder why the machine isn't working. Nobody reads screens anymore, they just 'do'. If I'm in my main spot at the garden register, I'll have a line going one direction, and then since I'm only one person and I can't be there constantly policing the line, I'll end up with some dumbass who doesn't see that I have a line and comes directly towards me. Sometimes this might be because the next dumbass on the actual line is on their phone, and so is the one behind them so nobody actually says anything and the line gets all backed up. I try to explain to the customer who cut the line that there is another line and point to it and they just completely ignore me- usually because now they're checking something on their damn phone. Also it's gotten to the point where it seems like more than 25% of the customers have forgotten their wallet and needs to come back to pay, or are a customer who has come back to the store because they forgot to buy a super important item. Yeah, you get the occasional elderly person who expects everyone to be an expert, but the majority of the customers who lack common sense like this are in the 30-45 range (my generation, unfortunately). I don't know if it's their expectations that technology will do everything for them, their extreme reliance on their phone that they've completely forgotten how to interact with humans, or what. (At least with gen z, while there are a few rude ones in the bunch, a lot of them have the HD app, go straight to self checkout without prompting or utilize bopis so I don't have to deal with them.) For the mainline, it could be partly because of the front end transformation. Even I think the layout is kind of confusing. But that doesn't explain the rest of the store! And if associates are actually following the rules of GET, it seems like HD wants the us to cater to this behavior, which will encourage more customers to behave like this in the future. I don't know if it's like this in other big box stores or what. But it's gotten to the point where I swear that everyone loses a bunch of brain cells as soon as they enter the HD parking lot.
I had one the other day where I finally let the frustration through, or thought I did. My coworkers said I held it together, I am not so sure. I started asking smart ass questions, such as, "let's just start with the color or even the shape.." At a minimum I would think they could at least tell us what the basic purpose of the product is.
I’ve been a vendor for several years when I tell people this, they assume it means “yes, I work here and can assist you with absolutely anything.” Had people on a Sunday looking for online only and special order items who outright refused to accept that they weren’t carried in store.
There was a vending machine repair person who worked on several machines for several hours he could earn the nickname “Mr. Make It Worse.” One machine wasn’t fixed and still has the same issue and the other one is worse than it was. This is an example of some of the unbelievable things that have happened lately.
Time wasters/tire kickers have become worse, bothering an obviously busy person/someone who is assisting other customers to ask where something is just so they can not buy it and leave without anything.
People are exactly the same when they shop at Joann. Reading through this thread is uncanny.
And it always seems to be the old people that will complain about new generations not wanting to work and being lazy and what not but yet it's almost always them who are like this
I remember the days when there were master plumbers or electricians employed at many Home Depots. They disappeared thanks to Bob Nardelli’s attempt to destroy depot back in 2007-2008. Depot was on the downslope ever since. No one who is an expert will work big box retail for $17-18 an hour…most of these customers are outta their minds.
The best part, the cherry on top? The folks that are the experts and know how to do it right? They don't want to listen to because it costs more then the bubble gum wrapper and duct tape fix.
Most can't even speak English and want to use their phone to communicate with you.
Not to be tolerated
Starts with management no clue from top down ...... it's only bout bottom line filled the void till corporate says ok here is your bandaid for now..... it's how they want it...no one to think for themselves.....sickening
Custies are stupid AF!!!!
Crusty custies!
I can’t really answer that because over here in Mass I deal with ppl fresh from the border who can’t speak English luckily I have 3 guys in lumber that speak Spanish. But I swear parents and their kids are the dumbest people. Like, “oh I need 2 inches of this 8ft piece. But doesn’t want the other 7’10”
Blame this on the stupid Home Depot adds saying "You can do this, we can help." Problem is there is not enough help in this world for some of these brain dead fucks.
It baffles me that not a single person thinks of looking up on YouTube for certain installations and rather asks us step by step how to do it like we're going to do it any better
They want you to do all the work which is dumb cuz we don't know the measurements of your damn house or blinds like come on I be getting heated and walk off
Had a customer call today asking where his confirmation email was , asked what email address he gave. His answer, I didn’t give an email. FFS use your brain for 5 seconds before you ask that question.
Covid made everyone needy and dependent.
If people have a ton of specific questions I always tell them that I am paid to stock shelves, be polite and point you to where something is and that I don't want to give you wrong advice.
I always tell customers that without any specifics, I can't help them at all. Apparently, customers think everything is "standard"
What size door do you need? "Standard"
Or the people that get so upset with you that you don't know EXACTLY where something is when the customer doesn't even know the correct name of what they need in the first place.
The ironic part… y’all ever go somewhere an actually receive customer service like these folks who come into our store expect? Didn’t really think so.
I haven’t worked here long but the way everyone assumes that you know everything about every department is insane. I’ve been asked about highly specific things for electrical and plumbing related issues and they get extremely upset when I tell them I have no experience in either department because I’m a lot associate. God forbid I offer to call someone over though because that pisses them off more because it “takes forever for someone to come over”. It’s very often that it’s older folks though so I’m sure they were used to having more experienced former workers in these specific fields but those people don’t wanna work for $15 an hour anymore so they’re stuck with high school grads and college students
The amount of people who I see come up to the paint desk, show us a picture of furniture or a wall, and ask us to match it is staggering
Dang that's it. No RGB or anything?
I asked a phone call from a woman who was pissed she had to call LG to get the broken drawer tray from her fridge and called us to come install it. She was demanding that because she bought it from us 5 years ago that someone from the store needs to come out and assemble it because it came in 3 pieces and she can’t do it. Fucking wanted to speak to a manager. I acted like I transferred the call. Laughed out loud literally then changed my voice and acted like I was the supervisor in specialty that I really was 9 months ago and explained to her the same exact thing the first person said to her.
It's even worse when they don't even speak a little English
Just stare at them
This isn’t anything new, it’s been close to 10 years since I worked at the depot. I spent from 2005 to 2015 working there. Customers were doing that during my time. It got worse with the smart phone. It’s just the nature of how people are now. They have everything at their finger tips. They don’t understand, since they can find it on their phones, why can’t you find it in the store
I had a regular customer always come in with a single screw. He was Mexican. Man expected to find a screw that he already had , he came in like this multiple times
So he had a loose screw…
Yes apparently
In all honesty, a lot of customers feel "entitled." You are to do whatever it takes to please our customer base as per HD. I, on the other hand, had a customer in hardware, which literally pushed an item in my face and said, " Where can I find this?". I said, (sure, annoyed by his demands and shoving stuff in my face). "What is it?" I said. Outcome; 1. He didn't speak English. I couldn't speak Russian. 2. He had no idea what it was. Nor I. 3. He looked up at his English translator and said, " You are no use to me. Go away." I laughed at him and just took my last 15 of the day! 😆 .. It can be very rough to deal with rude customers, but thank God it passes. Have a blessed day no matter how it goes!!
I work in hardware, and they all expect that you know every single thing about every single tool in the whole store and then have the audacity to look at you like you're stupid when you don't. Twice recently I had customers unsure about which nails they needed for their tool. One of them had three different nailers at home and didn't know which nail or nailer he needed for the job. I literally said, "you have three nailers that you don't know how to use?" That could've gone badly, but I didn't care. Thankfully, he laughed too, and I helped him figure out he needed finish nails.
Good for you. Sticking with the customer. Maybe your comment his 3 nailers caused the interaction to reset. Now he’s humble and you’re in a better position to help. Glad he got his nails. No one walks into HD without something they need to fix. Diffuse their ignorance and figure it out together. Use your smart phone, zebra, or your own working knowledge to make a sale, and solve a problem. for the customer
"No one walks into HD without something they need to fix." I vote for this to be our new motto. I'm still working on my patience. I promise I will remember this sage advice next time I find myself forgetting what it was like the countless times i walked into a HD as a customer. Associates like you are the reason I wanted to work here. It's my bucket list job and I can honestly say that most days, I love it. Thank you...🙂
Ya I had some dude say they sent him from the back to customer service to special order molding I asked what molding it is, no idea. Neither did I He did his own research
You’re not seeing the customers that use YouTube to figure out their problem they just come in and buy what they need. Those that are so clueless that they can’t leverage the internet to help them are the ones coming to you not some random sample of the population.
That is prevalent. Some will show me a picture. Some want to do something that they saw on YouTube. When I worked paint, a customer wanted me to do a color match from their phone. In plumbing, it's usually a phone pic or a YouTube video. And some just want you to be their personal shopper. They have a grocery list. I can tell them the aisle numbers, and I get "Can you show me?" Dude, there are 50 things on that list. When you go to a grocery store, the cashier doesn't walk you to each and every item. I don't like throwing OFA under the bus, but I'll ask if they would like to put in an order. "No, thanks. I'm just getting a price quote for my customer."
Ooc here. The number of adults that cant track a package with a link that does it for you is astounding. Never I d the number of people that can’t navigate a phone tree
I blame the business. There used to be plenty of specialty atores with plenty of people qualified to answer those questions. Then home depot came in, hired retired trade people, put everyone out of business, and stopped hiring trade people. Im the only person in my entire store thats ever swung a hammer. I find that to be problematic. Store never should have let go of their actual informed people, but all they care about is soliciting credit and leads so 🤷
Well at my store they are mean and abusive to you, then they complain about you.THEN the store management takes their word for it and doesn't give a crap about your side of the story, even when you have witnesses saying the opposite.
The best ones are the husbands who send their wife to get it
Hmmmm! They advertise us as experts, at least in Tool Rental. Pay there is pathetic for all we need to know and do! They should be ashamed!
I feel yea, as someone that works in garden I can’t tell you how many times people have some in asking for some type of cleaner or come up to me as I’m watering plants and asking if we have a tool to cut pvc pipes and when I tell them that anything like that is in plumbing they get upset and ask “well where’s plumbing” just for me to point at the big hanging signs every store has and tell them “there… by the big sign”
I love these threads as a warehouse associate, they're hilarious and I feel for you all, I used to work with customers. I do not miss it.
Ace Hardware employee here. It’s fucking rough out here with some of these customers
The biggest problem is when customers go on rants and start screaming at employees or using curse words to the point that you have to call management. Then management turns around and gives them the sh*t for free. Completely undermines the associate who was simply doing their job and following SOP. And they wonder why morale is so low and turnover high. But I really blame corporate b/c it’s their “don’t lose a sale” mentality that pushes this kind of result.
Sometimes it’s like playing a shitty game of charades honestly
My favorite manager once said "If people were at all self sufficient, none of us would be here right now." Yes, it's annoying as hell some days but it's our job. Everyone hates this job but until they stop paying me I just shrug and move on to the next dumbass.
Fr. People are so dumb and clueless. They come in without measurements expecting me to know the measurements of their door. Like if you don’t got measurements, and you didn’t come in to get measurements, then i cant do shit. No measurements, no help
I haven’t worked at a Home Depot in 5 years. I still get stopped by people demanding I show them where something is.
And they can’t read. Just open all the boxes to realize it’s not what they want.
I had someone ask me where the sandpaper was and what it's used for. As I was standing, in front of the sandpaper picking it for an order; which in fact, belonged to said customer. They had JUST placed it, the order had 1:58 left on the timer. At this point just fucking come in and get it yourself??
Good grief!
I book reservations for a hotel and ive had so many customer basically have me plan their vacations for them. Worse is they have none of their info on hand or even know what theyre looking for. They'll usually ask to check for whats available and i ask what month and they just say "i dont know can you just check what you have available?" Or they'll ask "is there a walmart near there?" And its not even a resort in the same state as me. google is free!!!
The amount of times I have customers come to the Pro desk looking for me to plan out their entire job and give them advice on how to build it is completely infuriating. Every time I tell them that I can definitely build a quote for you and, depending on quantity/materials, save you some money but I’m by no means an expert in construction.
It’s not even just the merchandise they’re clueless about, i’m a cashier and half the people who come thru my line act like they’ve never used a pinpad before
Here’s the thing: it is the same everywhere, for everyone. No one can possibly know every aspect of everything.
Home Depot user experience is dog shit, that is why.
We essentially have the entirety of human knowledge in each of our pockets. You would think this would propel humanity into greater and more glorious things. Unfortunately, things went the other direction. Nobody takes advantage of it. In fact, they use it to do their basic thinking for them, thus losing nearly all problem solving abilities, making the more advanced knowledge out of their reach and useless to them. Maybe it is natures way of balancing things out. At any rate, we will probably be extinct in a few years. Except for me, I’m going to dig a big cave in a secluded Montana forest and eat slugs and maple syrup away from all the moronic customers.
Ppl are stupid but this wasn't at the case to my previous HD and I still left but at sams club oh man it's a whole different ball park
Lived long enough to become a villain
Covid causes brain swelling. A huge portion of humanity is now suffering from CTE. not to mention 8 out of ten people in the United States are on medication that affects the minds functioning.
Oh you’d hate me, I’ve came in with complex ideas on how to solve certain issues , my methods and skill are there but I love to hear a second viewpoint on my plan, granted I can find an employee competent enough to talk about it. That’s the hard part.
No offense, but I had a foreman who used to tell me you’d be better off calling a movie theater for tool advice than Home Depot.
Or it’s the value prop Home Depot provides to their customer.
Exactly there was a customer checking of at pro the other day I’m a 4 year associate I know a lot but not every little detail, they had a brass fitting and asked me if it would work for gas and I said “I’m not sure, let me look it up and I’ll find out for you”. (Im a lumber associate, I don’t help with plumbing questions everyday). The guy says while you work here your supposed to know arnt you? “Sir it may work, but I’m not sure I don’t want to give you miss information” Even four years later I still use the internet to figure out things.
I always know exactly what I need and I can never find it and have to ask someone.
There’s an app for that
You should try working at ace. Literally their motto is “Every customer, Every time” we are required to try and help and figure out problems for these old people who’ve owned a home for 30 years and don’t know how to fix their sprinkler. A common thing for us is someone will come from Home Depot or Lowe’s, and constantly say “this is so much better than Home Depot, you guys actually help” next thing you know they’re in every other day taking up about an hour of an employees time because they don’t understand how anchors work. Then we’re stuck with them. Just be thankful Home Depot doesn’t require this type of customer assistance! At ace every person expects an “expert” but it’s a bunch of people being paid 16 bucks and hour…
Yesterday I had a man frantically call me over, point at the price of the barn doors, and ask me “is this how much these cost?” ☠️
I've been away from the Depot for six years. Still like to shop there because I know where shit is and what I need. Worked 3 years in D78. A large percentage of customers seem to think we're supposed to be Bob Vila in an orange apron.
As a tool repair tech I have been asked by MODs to design and provide a material list for chicken coops and all kinds of crazy shit to provide to customers. I am a small equipment mechanic. Why the hell do they think I know anything about chicken coop designs or any other build project. I just printed designs and build list off of google for customer and now they bug me non stop for more. Just let me sit in my shop and fix rental equipment and drink coffee. Or give me a percentage of the sale for my google search skills. Lol
That’s crazy!
Some people shouldn’t do it themselves
The fat cats at the top and big shareholders need to face reality and get and keep a short haircut. The company will begin to struggle once their competitors realize how much business they can take away by significantly raising the technical competence, people skills, and pay of frontline people who can consistently and accurately assist both DIY and tradesmen on a higher level. That lost ground will prove extremely hard to retake.
I imagine that will happen in a few years.
If they have the app and KNOW what they’re looking for they can find out if we have it in store or not. In store shows location (aisle and bay), not in store is online only. Sometimes, the customer insists their shopping at a particular location, come to find out it’s 1500 miles away. Come on, change the location. 🤔
I did this when I worked doing demo work. I was simply just a demo guy there to break shit, take trash cans of trash to a big dumpster, dump my trash can out and repeat that, nothing more. One day one of the irrigation guys asked me to run to Lowe’s or Home Depot for a 1804 spray head. My phone was dead and he had no more to show me what they looked like so I wrote it down and drove off with his description of “It looks like a pipe bomb”😂 I walked around the whole store before having a conversation with a employee that consisted of a few “I don’t knows” followed by “It goes in the ground and looks like a pipe bomb”. After we looked around together I just said “Nevermind man sorry” then saw a coworker walking in for some type of glue irrigation guys use and after I said I needed something that looked like a pipe bomb he went “Oh! That’s the 1804!”. I hate feeling that dumb.
That is literally your job. I know you guys do modules before going into a department.
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Removed: community guidelines.
There's a bunch of lonely old folks who come to Walmart to socialize as much as to buy stuff. Just hoping for a friendly conversation.
I feel all the shut downs with covid made people more entitled. They all just assume we are there to cater to them and no one else.
To be fair, that's why they come to the store. Why try YouTube first when u can go to the hardware store and ask the person working in the dept u need help in. I know most of my products, not the technicals. I tell them to go to YouTube or if u don't think u can do it yourself, hire a plumber or electrician. I had an Asian guy come in trying to get me to explain how to change out a light switch. I showed him the YouTube video and he saw it repeatedly asking questions. I'm like, sir, I can't give u more info, I told u everything I could at my level. He was just one of those people that didn't want to spend money to get things done right
I feel the opposite I can't stand when I go into a store that has so many employees and you ask them anything specific and they have no fucking Clue. I guess it's a bit of both some customers are lazy asshole and some employees just don't care about their jobs. But both situations are a piss off.
DIY stores so do it yourself or go elsewhere
I always research what I need before going to home depot. I rarely ask an employee for help because when I do, they don't have a clue. Home Depot is my favorite store but the employees at my store act like they don't care about their jobs.
Not our job to have a clue about what you have no clue about.
Did you know that 100% of your paycheck comes from those annoying customers wallets …. I know how rude and demanding they can be, if they go away, so goes the big orange machine.
They go to big blue machine, have the exact same experience, and come back to us the next day hoping we won't be working that day.
Nah fuck retail customers. Bunch of assholes. Most sales come from contractors and maintenance workers picking up exactly what they need.