home depot - Forget "qualifications" for a job, people hire people they like

[Don Haynes]

all you people pissed off at h.d. get a life

[toller]

I bought some pipe fittings marked 3/8" at Chase Pitkin Tuesday. When I found they didn't fit 3/8" tubing I took them back today, but misplaced the receipt. CP refused to give me store credit, despite a sign saying they give store credit without a receipt. I called the main office who told me to fo fly a kite. I called the credit company and reversed the charge.

I also took a smoke detector back to Home Depot today. I bought it 6 months ago and just got around to installing it, when I found it was defective. They no longer carry that brand, but gave me a full refund without a receipt.

Guess who is going to get my business. Say what you want about HD, but they perform.

(yeh, I know; take better care of the receipt...)

[Another Phil]

I think you may be missing some of the point to their anger-- In my metro area, I can reach 4 HD, 2 Loews, 2 Wal-Marts, several Sears, K-Marts and so forth without a major drive. Each individual store has their own unique 'culture' or flavor if you will. The two Wal-Marts are the most extreme different. There is an indescribable psychic feel to the stores. Everyone who enters can feel and react to this psychic flavor. And to some extent, the reaction by the customer results in anger; a very strong anger.

Two of the BORGS and one Wal-Mart near me I will never go into again. Darn outright surly and go out of their way to be unhelpful staff. Yet last summer when a new Loews opened up a few miles north of me, I was shocked, and down-right jaw dropped surprised at the warm friendly atmosphere of the place plus the shelves were fully stocked and, if you can believe it, the shelf price stickers actually had something to do with the merchandise on the shelf above the sticker. Not so on my last two visits. No one around to help, stock missing, and some merchandise on wrong shelf or out of place. (the can was shellac, the shelf price label was for Deft.) That turn around took less than a year for that store.

The problem is not the customers, the employees, or the store location. Faults like these are management, fully and specifically problems with management.

I do hope your nearest HD or Loews, or Wal-Mart are still stores that you feel at least welcome into, and you can find what you want, when you want it. and there is someone to answer your questions (and who knows the answer). This is not so in each and every one of these stores in my area. And my anger is doubled because I now must drive to the next store, again, to get what I wanted.

Phil

[Robatoy]

Uh-oh... sounds like somebody is miffed because somebody poo-poo-ed his employer. You should have finished grade 5 and got a job at Lowe's instead.... . . . . . . . wait the customary 3 minutes before the ass-wipe realizes he's been insulted....

[Stephen Young]

To me, 99.999999% of all corporate failings are management fueled. I will give management only the occasional & rare rogue employee as a part of the corporate puzzle piece that they can't control or reasonably predict. EVERYTHING else is within their grasp to manage. Yet they continue to fail & whine that it's someone/something elses' fault why they fail.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

.

Like people, businesses have personalities. If the people at the top are cheerful, customer oriented, the probably hire others that are of similar attitude. Forget "qualifications" for a job, people hire people they like. The DMV and post office hire people that took a test and had a passing score. Look at the personalities of those places.

I tend to go to stores that are favorable to my personality.

[Vito Kuhn]

Home Depot is a tremendous resource. Thirty or forty years ago, a chain of stores with such an impressive inventory wouldn't have been believable by most folks. Like toller said, their customer service is top of the line. Some of us in rural areas are also very impressed with their prices, too. I like to support small businesses whenever I can, but with HD around now I'm seeing less and less reasons why I should go anywhere else for so many things.

VK

[Norman D. Crow]

Don't know about the "feel" of our HD, but I go there somewhat regularly. Living in an area that is "employment challenged", they have quite a few employees who had worked in hardware/wood-working related businesses, are now @ HD. They have the knowledge and abilities. I frequently use an Ace hardware which is closer than HD. They have a little of everything, including a small wood supply and a large tool rental service. They also have a staff of *R.O.F.'s*(Retired Old Far^^) who are VERY helpful and knowledgeable.

[Glen]

I have a life, thank you very much, but I am pissed at HD, not for the things normally mentioned in this forum, but for what is OT here:

[George]

Forget "qualifications" for a job, people hire people they like.

Not just the test, since we're doing reparations with hiring preferences.

However, well said. Seems back in the Hillarycare days someone mentioned that a government-run healthcare would feature the speed of the post office and the compassion of the DMV.

[Upscale]

Every time I seen mention of the older people working at Home Depot I get the idea that many of them work there to be active, or to gossip with other 'home renovation' people, or just for something to do. Considering the low wages they get, I hope expect too many of them are working there for the money, at least I hope so.

[Mortimer Schnerd, RN]

I had a friend who worked there after a full career as an electrician. He went because he enjoyed it and the extra income helped him out as well. He didn't

*have* to work.

[Charlie Self]

electrician. He went

I knew a guy who retired from contracting and worked PT at a local HD, mostly setting up and teaching classes. This was a few years ago, but as I recall, he got about $18-$19 an hour, which isn't bad money in this area (or a lot of others). He didn't have to work either, but found the extra money helpful.

[Upscale]

That would be the best case scenario.

[Upscale]

That's not half bad. I'm of the mind that they mostly take advantage of employees like most conglomerates.

[Charlie Self]

I'm not sure I'd called the big box stores conglomerates, but, in fact, I've seen Mom & Pop stores taking advantage of employees just as much as larger companies. The kicker is, they do it two or three at a time. As an example, years ago, my wife worked for a small store (four or five employees, total); no benefits, which was expected; no raise for either four or five years (which is why she quit). Her work was way above satisfactory, but I was making good money, so her boss simply didn't think she needed the money.

If you think that kind of idiotic thinking is unusual, take a look around you at some smaller stores. My first mother-in-law ran into the same problem many years ago. She was by far the best-qualified science teacher at a local high school, but the men working in the department got raises because her husband made excellent money. I never did figure out what Ben's job had to do with Faith's job performance and pay, except in the minds of '60s educational admin types around Orange County, NY.

[George]

From each according ....

[Swingman]

It's a tossup what goes through the minds of most educrats in this country. From a taxpayer's perspective it appears to revolve around milking us for all they can get. That it is not "education" has become so bloody obvious that it should be a source of everlasting shame.

[Mike Marlow]

message

I'm not so sure. I've never applied for a job there, but I do see people of all ages there. Most younger ones pass through pretty quickly as I would expect. Middle age to older folks - and I don't see a lot of retired people working at HD or Lowes in my neck of the woods, seem to stay there for a long time. Seems they must like it pretty well. The job market is not hopping around here, but it's not so bad that a fellow would stay at a terrible, minimum wage job for several years just because there was nothing else for him to do.

It's amusing to watch the conversations here. So many of the regular posters here seem to love taking shots at the people at HD simply because they observed some simple human failure at work. Some little factoid that the HD guy didn't know, or somehow slipped up on, or in some other way didn't pass the test of doing everything to the absolute satisfaction of the poster. I'm convinced that most of these complaints or "observations" only come from frustrated people who have nothing better to do than to find the issues (or exagerate them in order to really create an issue) in other people (HD employees make such a big target in a group like this) in order to feel somehow above those folks and part of (this) "elite" group. The same thing comes through often is the way simple questions are answered with all sorts of obtuse, irrelevant mantras which wander off into bizzare threads - just to sound "authoritative".

Oh well - Saturday morning rant compete. BTW Upscale - this is not directed to you. It's really more of a generalized statement about what I see here every time a thread comes up involving people who work at BORGs, and the like.

[Gary]

Its sad to say, but pay for seniority is a dying concept in this country. Pay for performance with meager cost of living adjustments seems to be the norm now days.