Steve and I each spent a good portion of this past weekend working, so we did not get a whole lot done around the house, other than some general cleaning and making the place ready for some dinner guests. We did close out our weekend with a quick trip to Home Depot, though. We ran out of painters tape several weeks ago, so we grabbed a couple of rolls of that. We also needed some lengthy trimmers to neaten up some trees in the front yard we can’t reach.
We also wanted to look at bathroom fixtures, specifically to replace the gold-toned fixtures in the downstairs bathroom we just finished painting. We looked at the displays and picked one out, but there were none left on the shelf indicated by the display. I searched for someone to ask if everything they had was out on the shelf, but I couldn’t find anyone. We went and did some other things, intending to come back later and see if we might have better luck.
While Steve examined some energy efficient light bulbs, I went back to the plumbing section. Still no one there. I went another aisle over and finally found an employee, who was fixing her hair. I asked her if she could help me track down a plumbing fixture that did not appear to be on the shelf, to which she responded “oh, I don’t know nothing about plumbing.” I realize she did state she had knowledge of the plumbing section, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what she meant. I asked if she could help me find someone that did know about plumbing. She said, “oh, I don’t know.” And continued to fix her hair. I looked at her for a second, expecting her to go on and suggest where I should look or who I should talk to, but she didn’t. I turned and walked away and she didn’t say a thing.
My next step was to press the button in the plumbing section that says “press for help.” I hadn’t gone that route to begin with because I did not expect anyone would actually respond to it, and sure enough no one did respond.
Just as I was about to give up, an employee walked by the end of the aisle with a full shopping cart, I assume putting items back on their assigned shelves. She clearly did not want to help me either. I finally said, “look, I just want to know if you have any more of these in stock. I can’t believe there is nobody here that knows how to find out.” She walked over to the computer and 15 seconds later I had my answer: no.
So we left without a new faucet, and determined to buy a new faucet somewhere else. Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have had this problem at Home Depot. Despite the safety orange aprons the employees sport, they are hard to find, and when you do find one, they inevitably will know nothing about the product you are looking for. Steve says that’s why he prefers OSH or Ace, because the employees at those stores tend to know what they are talking about. I guess to get the Home Depot savings, you are sacrificing on service. Is it worth it?
Another reason to prefer OSH or Ace – metric hardware! Good luck ever finding that stuff at Home Depot.
That sucks, I’m sorry. We have had a much more positive experience with HD here. But it definitely does have it’s weaknesses. Our alternative here is Lowe’s. I do miss OSH.