Often a place like Lowes has an employee or two SOMEWHERE in the building who is very, very, very knowledgeable about gardening & could be as helpful as anyone ever can be. Unfortunately they are apt to be low seniority people working in plumbing or electrical aisles even if knowing nothing in particular about plumbing or lighting.
I've gotten crappy information from very fine nurseries too. I don't expect much from the Lowe's or HD staff frankly, but there have been exceptions.
I slipped into the nursery department at K Mart earlier this year & though I don't usually bother about such things in such a place, I could not resist telling the worker in that department that the azalea they had labeled as 'Coral Bells' was incorrect because 'Coral Bells' was hose-in-hose &t his was a single, & they might want to change the label to "Kurume Pink" if they couldn't find out the specific cultivar, as many likely customers do like to have that sort of information as correct as is possible. The unconcerned worker said, "The wholesaler tags them, not us," & he really couldn't've cared less if someone bought a mislabeled plant & never found out what it really was. Just one more reason to support the best independent nurseries foremost, as there's a much better chance that they will care, not that mislabeling can't happen even in the best places.
Most people would see that as a major negative and feel the same discouragement about a company. Just read two sentences down and you'll see this is not an exceptable answer for you.
Assumes HD employs someone who knows whatever piece of information you are asking.
Wow, you really bought into that commercial advertisement, didn't you.
Mega-store sales people are not in the business of plumbing, more like simply supplying parts. Honestly if you wanted old-style customer service you'd have to go to that old hardware store that closed when HD opened and everyone stopped shopping there. I don't expect anyone at HD to be a plumber, carpenter, roofer, landscaper, machinist, architect, electrician, stonemason, tile worker, cabinetry expert, botanist, or anything else they sell supplies for. I'm lucky if I can find a human being working there, and that goes for most stores that aren't high-priced and catering to upper class. I expect them to low prices and bulk and the sales people to be few and have little knowledge. Its rare to find someone who does have knowledge, and I attribute that to their personal employment history, personal interests and none of it to their temporary employment with Home Depot.
Oddly we don't expect a supermarket checkout to know which foods are good for your particular situation, or how to assemble a meal. But we expect a company that sells hardware parts to guide and instruct us on how to use what they sell us. We expect them to educate us some. It's weird, I would normally try to find information myself because in my lifetime I seldom find people in businesses that are truly knowledgeable. And when you do they want to be on the clock. Most people freely pass along bad information. Just read newsgroups and you see it happening.
They know how to ring things up. :-) Sometimes
Except it is totally impractical business model that you will never see. To staff every department during all hours with a knowledgeable person about that department is never going to happen. That's the difference between an electrical supply company and a mega store. As the complexity of the base businesses increases the quality of the support has to drop. They CAN'T know enough about all the areas they cover. Not without raising their prices. An electrical supply company focuses on one segment and dedicates multiple employees just to it. A HD is never gonna come close to that knowledge level.
They do, they can point to the sign that says pine and the sign that says cedar. I'm sure if they had dedicated people whose career was HD or woodworking they would know about wood but be rather ignorant about plumbing--but chances are that still wouldn't satisfy customers who were looking for advice on how to do a home-plumbing job. The wood expert would have to point you to the only guy who knew somethign. He'd be the guy who has a line of four other people waiting for him to answer their questions.
Well I've been gardening for three years, done lots of reading, experimented with about 100 different varieties and still need to come here and ask stupid questions from time to time.
DiGiTAL ViNYL (no email) Zone 6b/7, Westchester Co, NY,
I mostly just lurk here because I know squat about plants, but I always pick Lowe's when I can find what I am looking for there. The plants at the local nursery are about 4x's as expensive, and the plants at HD, W-M and the grocery tent look sad compared to the Lowe's selection. It looks like they take good care of their plants, or at least depend on a reputable vendor.
At least the Lowe's near me has the common sense to move the dead plants to the receiving area. That leaves the decent plants on the sales floor.
I like to shop garden centers and spend part of my weekend at such place. Dedicated garden centers have a much better selection than box stores. They have more unusual plants and wider choice of sizes. The plants are generally healthier. The advice is much better. The people who shop garden centers seem to be more friendly. The prices are often higher, but not always. If you just want a flat of impatiens, then you are probably just as well off at Lowe's but for shrubs and trees, the garden center is probably your best bet. To get the best price you often have to buy things after they have flowered and no one is interested. People what instant gratification, so once the daylily or hydrangea has stopped blooming, they aren't interested. The fall is usually a good time to get bargains on plants at garden centers because they don't want to carry them over to the spring.
Since we're comparing apples to oranges.... What I'd like to know is this. If HD employees get paid so much more, then why can't they organize their merchandise so you can find something? I'd shop at a Lowes anytime over a HD because of this reason. Home Depot is also very dark. What's with that lighting? Their aisles seem like they're going into the pit of hell.
Gonna go just slightly off-topic here -- or actually go back on-topic, since it's a gardening-related comment :0) -- This year, when I was trying to buy cell inserts for my growing trays, I discovered that none of the big box outlets (HD, Rona, and the like) are selling straight cell inserts for around $1. Instead they are selling inserts that have been cut into 6 pieces (not very cleanly), wrapped with a light cardboard bit of packaging, and are being sold for $2.50. Who thought of that little gem, I wonder? Fortunately Art Knapps didn't buy into this gimmick.
Sadly in my youth (30-35years ago) I worked for nearly 5 years in a Rhododendron nursery and still don't know what is currently "attacking" my own Rhodies.....The owner if any hint of disease showed up simply trashed the plant and any others in close proximity.....I hesitate to trash my entire back yard and my assorted 25year old rhodies....He'd also on occasion would clear an area, cover with plastic and inject "chemicals" to purify the soil or kill the undesirables...again not a viable choice here....on a humorous note he originally just tossed the sick and maybe sick plants over the bank or in his dump.......The whole neighborhood soon discovered this gold mine of "free plants" and soon peppered the place with rhodies (that neighborhood is still rather pretty to this day), since he didn't really want a neighborhood full of potentially diseased plants he took to cutting them off at the root ball....not a nice man at all.
This spring at HD I saw 5gal rhodies marked down to $5.00, nice looking plants but past the bloom.....I asked the clerk about the plants mostly because the size and price was almost too good to be true (both types were a white and both were ones I had burlaped by the thousand years ago)...anyway she said "both are only $5.00 but she didn't know why the manager priced them so low, there must be something wrong with them"....I just smiled and picked out my plants, he was simply dumping past bloom plants....Rod
"Dana Schultz" wrote in news:2Jwue.11973$ snipped-for-privacy@news20.bellglobal.com:
*snipped blurb about bulbs and dead plants for sale*
I had the same issue with my HD here, my DH believe it or not was from bookeeping. He decided he wanted to move to another department, so he was moved to gardening of course. The sprinkler system we have for the plant is the result of me and another employee getting tired of throwing away $1000+ of plants and just installing some stuff from the hose and sprinkler isle. The plants look much better now and our customers have really noticed and commented about it. Some of us do care (even if we do make only $10 an hour).
Most of the bulbs in my garden came from those very sad forced bulbs that Home Depot brings in in the spring. I asked the manager and he gave me the most awesome deal (25 cents a pot). I bought the whole table (120 pots of straw). The bulbs are gorgeous!!! I was always a sucker for the dead and dying plants and have the most beautiful garden. I don't work in a garden center but I would never expect an employee of such places to know everything about everything. I am considered knowledgeable among my friends and co-workers but still have to go to the books when I am unfamiliar with a plant. I am not ashamed to say I need to look it up and tell them so! If you truly need information about a plant take a reliable book with you. I do. That way I can verify the validity of the information if I really want something unusual.
I worked in a Canadian HD for several years and it was difficult to get a good watering system going when the Manager of the Dept didn't know grass from a dandelion! It was sad and the losses were staggering. But one the ladies on the staff worked for the RBG (Royal Botanical Gardens) and you could ask her just about anything. If she didn't know she would look it up. It is hit and miss finding a knowledgeable person at any garden center. I always to get there when they are on break or lunch. My two cents worth.
Here's a thought: How many of the complainers here are aware of the existence of at least one or three small garden centers staffed by people who care, where the 6-packs of plants are still in nice shape, even though it's late June and those plants should be a bit stressed even under the best of circumstances? If you're aware of such places, why do you care if the
6-packs cost a dollar more, as long as the plants are vigorous? Why even waste the gasoline (at $2.25+ per gallon) to go to stores where there's about a 25% chance of finding nice, vibrant plants?
At some point, you'll realize that the only place to get solid garden advice is from the locally owned people. But, if you don't patronize them, they won't be there when you need them. Remember hardware stores?
You're correct, of course. But, most HD/Lowe's people should also NOT be wandering the aisles, asking "Can I help you with something?", because most of they time, they cannot. They should expect us to respond "I doubt it".
You can't compare this to supermarkets, where people are NOT walking around posing as experts. Yeah...you may find a person stocking the shelves, who knows where to find everything in the store, but that's not product knowledge.
Isn't that the truth! HD is totally disorganized. Items are all mixed-up in the bins. They are often out of items. The isles are stacked with skids of merchandise waiting to be put on shelves along with abandoned carts and those damned rolling stairs that are ALWAYS right in front of what you need. You only need throw in a handful of people yakking on cell phones: "Hi, I'm at HD. Where are you? blah, blah, blah ..." and the store becomes impossible to navigate. Lowe's is always much better organized and cleaner.
In retailing, customer service is largely surface gloss. Having salespeople walk around and ask that presents an IMAGE of customer service. Many people don't need help or what they need is simple like pointing out where merchandise can be found. Those people see a positive c.s. experience. Its when you actually need someonething of substance that you see there is little to back it up. One of the silliest things I see is customers arguing with salespeople about prces, slaes, or discounts. Sales people have no authority to change prices. I think those people just get off on being difficult or are just too ignorant to realize asking for a manager is step one.
Secondly, asking everyone on the floor if you can help them is the best deterrent to shortage (shoplifting). If you suspect someone is a shoplifter you "customer service" them, you don't watch them. You agressive seek to help them, just hanging out and asking questions will cause the non-pros to bolt.
So in supermarkets there is no customer service? WHy aren't we offended by that? A family of four spends $500 easily a month at a store you'd think with that kind of repeat business c.s. and floor presence would be greater. BTW Mine has a help desk on the floor with
1-2 people at all hours. That's in addition to the customer service desk.
In retailing the people who stock are often the people who display, perform markdowns, hang signage, and run cash registers. I did all of those as a salesperson in each retail job over a 10 year period. At Macy*s you were trained about the merchandise-they were the only employee that did that. But again, I can tell you a Pima Cotton dress shirt is the best you can buy, but when you bring it home and your wife has to iron that wrinkled shirt she might disagree with the salesperson's assessment. Usualy people just learn a few facts and toss them out over and over again. (i.e. lensing on a leaf)
Training is not looked upon favorably in business. I've been in the computer industry for 14 years and I've attended about 15 days of real training. And I've progressed from 1st tier PC work through top tier, performed worldwide LAN administration, transitioned to international office networking, firewalls, security and now working on a customer with over 12,000 users. It is always a struggle to get money for training and another struggle to get the free time.
DiGiTAL ViNYL (no email) Zone 6b/7, Westchester Co, NY,
For humorous purposes yes, but not totally. You see this expectation for others to be a somewhat difinitve source of knoweldge because they wear a name tag that says they should. People expect doctors to just know it all. TO be an expert diagnostician, know every drug, every side effect, evey interaction, know your history and recall every visit, to read every page in your file and instantly digest it and just know it. To know how a foot problem can manifest symptoms in other areas, even though they aren't a foot specialist. Meanwile most doctors are purely mediocre, like a salesperson who rings you up but isn't particularly sparkling at their job. Sure he can blindly write prescriptions and advice for all the most comon ailments which covers
60% of his patients, but the other stuff he'll flounder about on.
the bell cuurve says something like 65% of all samples are purely mediocre-average. 15 are good/better, 15 are worse, and the remain 5% are split between very good and very bad. Now we all hope that something is in place to get rid of the very bad, but we all know somehow they sneak through.
I accept that people may take a best guess or actually believe they are saying something true. People repeat urban legends swearing to god they know somebod who knows somebody that it happened to. People lie. Especially when they feel inferior and unprepared. Like an untrained salesperson who is just workign this lousy job before they find a job that's worthwhile that they might care about (I'd say that's a good
40-50% of workers, easy).
DiGiTAL ViNYL (no email) Zone 6b/7, Westchester Co, NY,
In supermarkets, I guess it depends on how you define "customer service". If the person stocking shelves tells you where to find something, is that customer service? Or, do you define it as a cut above: If you go to the cheese department (which may or may not exist in your store), and tell the person that in your mind, you have a recipe halfway dreamt up, can they give you some cheese flavor advice to help you complete the recipe?
I don't go to grocery stores that have high enough prices to pay someone with that skill set to spend 90% of their day stocking the cheese department display, and run a slicer while waiting for that one customer who actually has a real question to come along. Most of my grocery shopping is done at stores that operate efficiently, and provide a pleasant environment for me to make my buying decisions in.
There just happens to be a couple of horticultural degree holders biding their time at the local Home Depot. They'll be out of there for a non-retail job just as soon as they can be. Ask them a question about plants, and you're likely to get a better answer than you will from the gardening hobbyists or grunt labor running around the local nursery.
The problem, as others have pointed out, is that we have a culture that frowns on people saying they don't know. And it starts early in school. Sit around an elementary school classroom, and you'll never see a teacher praise a student for admitting that they don't know something, but you'll see them go nuts with praise when a kid guesses right.
Most standardized tests also reward guessing, too. There's a whole industry built around test preparation, and how to guess the right answer when you don't know.
Go to a job interview, and say "I don't know". See if you get the job, or if the guy who slung the best sounding BS gets the job.
And it's even more important for a guy to learn how to pretend he knows things he doesn't. Turn on ESPN2 in a room full of men, and the alpha males will start discussing the game even if they have no idea what the game is. Comedians convince us every day that guys aren't supposed to stop and ask directions. Real men should have an answer to everything, no matter how absurd it is to fake it.
How many of us have had a close friend or family member fall over in shock when we said, "I don't know" (and didn't really mean "I don't care")? "I'm going to mark this day on the calendar!"
I don't know if this is a part of other cultures. I only know that as I was growing up, not knowing something was the ultimate failure. I was taught never to admit I didn't know anything, and to do my best to fake it when I had to. And this wasn't something that was only taught at home. It was the message every teacher and role model gave.
It's hard enough to admit you don't know something to a friend or family member. So is it really so surprising that someone is afraid to say "I don't know" to a stranger? Is someone making retail sales floor wages going to go out on a limb, and risk their self-esteem for some guy walking up and testing them? "Heck, the guy asking doesn't know, so all I have to do is guess better than he can. I don't have to admit that I'm as clueless as he is."
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