A little venting at Home Depot...

[gw]

I think you're missing the point...

The cashiers and roving idiots *can't* do anything about it - at least the understaffing of the registers and various departments. If the store only has 2 cashiers on shift, that's it. I doubt there are 10 more cashiers squirreled away in the break room laughing at the long lines. Corporate has decided that for peak efficiency, store X only needs 2.3 cashiers on weekdays between X:00 and Y:00. Done deal. Efficiency is measured in labor expense, not keeping the sheep waiting in line. They put in the "Self Checkout" hoping that at least some of the unwashed will use them. I do (does that make me unwashed?) because I know that I am more likely to accurately wave the item over the scanner than the average dullard who can't tell a vice-grip from a toilet flange.

On the other hand, the zombies in orange roving the aisles seem to be half-and-half. They either drive me nuts by asking if I need help every 4.2 seconds, or they scatter like roaches in bright light if I find that I *do* have a question.

[NJTrout]

You've hit the nail on the head here.

I worked at HD for a few months in between being laid off and finding another "real" job. Currently I work in the retail software management busineess....anyway.

HD calculates the number staff (in person hours) based on historic sales information on an hour by hour basis. From this they build the employee schedule. They use prior year and prior month sales information as well as seasonal factors to come up with the number of employees needed on the floor during at a specific hour. The store manager is allowed a specific labor budget for the month. The problem lies in overusing his/her budget early in the month for whatever reason..be it a special sale day or a local blip in the demand. They have to budget carefully to avoid what happened to you.

The blame clearly goes back to district office or Atlanta HQ, NOT the store manager. He can only work with the budget he is given.

NJTrout

[Swingman]

understanding

Well said!

Home Depot is in business for the convenience of its employees/stockholders, not its customers. It's that damn simple ... around here it starts before you ever walk in the door, with the lumber carts stored at the opposite end of the gigantic parking lot from the front doors, and goes down hill from there.

When HD opens a shiny new store everything is rosy, then, over time, like a calked miter joint in a poorly made outhouse, the smell creeps out.

[Doug Miller]

You have a way with words. Nicely put, and dead-on accurate. I've been watching that process taking place at my local HD over the last coupla years.

[George]

The fact that people were standing in line 12 deep indicates this is one very busy and money making store. It's like the old joke "This place will go out of business because the check out lines are so busy I had to wait an hour"!

[Duane Bozarth]

Sounds a lot like something I heard Yogi say once upon a time... :)

[John Thomas]

Duane Bozarth wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Look Boo-Boo! Pic-a-nic baskets!

Oh, wait ... that other Yogi.

Got it.

Regards, JT

[Dave Balderstone]

Apparently not. You'd have people like you willing to stand in line, no matter how long it took... Take your business elsewhere, and just stop in for hot dogs.

;-D

[D. J. MCBRIDE]

Agreed! I'm a remodeler and spend more time in these sh-tholes than I like to admit, certainly more than I want to.

And, let me add a couple of more to the list. : 1. It seems that no two of HDs are laid out the same. I often find myself wandering around, wasting time looking for areas that are supposed to be somewhere else. 2. For the last couple of months, the store on Hwy. 290 has taken up a couple of complete rows of parking by warehousing their crates of surplus tile out in the parking lot. It's hard enough parking n F250 Crew Cab with an eight foot bed; now I'm pushed even further away from the building.

[hammerhands]

My wife works for a large grocery chain here in SoCal. The store manager's bonus at the end of the year is dependent on the profits of the store (i.e. the total sales versus the total payroll). If you get a store manager who cares more about his bonus than the satisfaction of the customer, you will find the store consistently understaffed. Especially when he is not there to take the flak from disgruntled customers.

Just my 2¢

[Dave Balderstone]

A friend used to be with the Wegman's supermarket in NY state. Employees were (are) shareholders.

I had a couple of tours, and it's a hellluvan operation. Most impressive.

[cm]

About three years ago HD started taking the top 10 selling items from every vendor they buy from and having those item copied in China. Check out the Drywall tool section. It still looks like ALL the tools are from "Wallboard Drywall Tool Company" (Made in USA) but 10% of the items are made in China and directly imported by Home Depot. Yet they keep hitting up their vendors for larger discounts while raising the price at the retail end!!! I was a vendor to Home Depot for 12 years. They made my little vendor business into a $10.00 an hour job. I have since opened a new business and deal with customers who truly appreciate my work.

cm

[Dhakala]

Well, that's good! The last sentence, I mean.

Do vendors have to stand in line for an hour to get screwed?

[nailshooter41]

Gawd... I was just recovering from the last 3,000 entry thread on the insanity and horrors of Home Depot that went on about 45 days ago.

Now I feel myself falling into depression thinking of all the people not smart enough to stay out of those stores knowing what they obviously know about the stores themselves and the people that work there....

I know, they can actually be more convenient and take less time... laziness can generate a powerful argument to actually rationalize convenience... and bitching about getting screwed is so much fun...

I'll be taping Dr. Phil to see how he deals with you guys. Best of luck to you all.

Sigh... what happened to the Norm bashing that went on for years here? It used to be a solid ass kicking and whining about HD, then Norm and his brad nailers, then Lowe's, some fringe players tried to bash Menard's, and even our Canuck buddies used to hammer the "whatever" Tire company.

At least it brought some variety to the bitching.

Robert

[Mark & Juanita]

i.e, the time of their cashiers costs $7 and up per hour plus any benefits, the cost of your time to them is $0. As long as you are willing to wait, the trade is an easy one. That's one of the things I really despised about colleges -- students' time was considered a free and expendable thing, college staff time cost money, thus, even if you had to walk across campus to pay 10 cents to get a receipt in order to make a copy, that was the process. Didn't like it in college but I was a captive audience, I'm not a captive at retail stores -- if I walk in and see that things are going to waste my time, I turn around and go somewhere else or come back later.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[Larry Jaques]

Nah, COSTCO is the place to go for dogs. $1.50 buys you both a soft drink and a delicious hot dog. Choose from Hebrew National All Beef or Kosher weenie on your dog: big, meaty thangs. I make it a point to do my shopping in Medford about noon so I can stop by COSTCO for gas and a dog, in that order. (Luckily it's not the other way around, even with sauerkraut on the Pdog. ;)

- - - Brain cells come and brain cells go, but fat cells live forever. ---

Website Application Programming for YOU!

[Larry Jaques]

My very first job (age 15, 3rd year in CA) was as a box boy at an Alpha Beta grocery store for $1.95/hr. (That was my first and last Union job, BTW. Non-union pay was $1.65/hr and my net pay after Union fees came to $1.69/hr.) That was in 1968 and cashiers were starting at $8.65/hr even then. Can HD's pay rate nearly 40 years later be that much lower? I thought that being able to use a cash register and/or having any 10-key experience almost doubled the minimum wage pay for those jobs.

Anyone have data on cashier pay rate trends?

- - - Brain cells come and brain cells go, but fat cells live forever. ---

Website Application Programming for YOU!

[Bob Schmall]

Exactly the situation at HD. They open with well-paid pros in all the departments who drift away, especially after the first profit review when the manager has to cut his payroll. The replacements are paid about half as much and don't know even that. My local HD ran out of an item three weeks after they opened. I've talked with department managers there who say that it's almost impossible to get reorders from the warehouse in a reasonable time. Don't get me started on the last time I made a special order with them.

And HD wants to own the Chinese market...

Bob

[Duane Bozarth]

Larry Jaques wrote: ...

No data, but I'd suspect it has been pretty flat, at best...

[Ron Magen]

I've been following this thread and struggling to keep my big mouth shut.

More than 'a few years ago' I grew up in Atlantic City, NJ. {That's the 'city' itself, which is one of FOUR municipalities on the island that people think of as 'Atlantic City'}. I was easily able to WALK to school . . . from Kindergarten through High School graduation.

Within the short walk to Grammar School there was a 'local' hardware store that seemed to have everything for every season. From storm windows in the winter to a wide variety of 'sinkers', line, and other fishing tackle in the summer. Almost always the same faces 'behind the counter' . . . you actually grew up with them. Literally across the street was a 'glass company'. Kind of like an iceberg . . . a small 'storefront' but a huge workroom & warehouse behind. The other way from the Grammar school, about an equal distance from home, was the High School. A bit beyond that - across a grass & tree lined park - was a PAINT Store. From powered additives to the gallon cans to anything the 'real PRO's' needed. A bit beyond this was a store only about twice the width of the front door. Maybe 50 feet long, at the rear was a 'counter opening' in the wall for the proprietor - Irv of 'Irv's Tackle Box'. If it was about fishing - especially Salt Water - he had it.

Fast forward a lot of years, and about 60 miles away to suburban Philly. There's an old line about the 'definition of a boat . . . a hole in the water in which you pour money'. When you buy a house, you find the 'landlubbers' equivalent . . . the title of the Tom Hanks movie . . . 'The Money Pit'. The 'handy' type develops an intimate knowledge of the local 'sources of supply'. About this same time the 'Big Box Stores' phenomenon started.