{"id":152,"date":"2009-09-21T13:46:24","date_gmt":"2009-09-21T12:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.highpeakreview.co.uk\/blog\/?p=152"},"modified":"2022-06-05T14:15:33","modified_gmt":"2022-06-05T13:15:33","slug":"ikea-disservice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.highpeakreview.co.uk\/blog\/2009\/09\/21\/ikea-disservice\/","title":{"rendered":"Ikea DisService"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Being members of the IKEA \u201cHome Club\u201d we received a mailshot offering us a \u00a310 discount plus a free salad bowl<\/em><\/strong> (worth \u00a39.99 – subject to availability) if we visited soon. Needing a new cabinet for the bathroom plus a display case for our showroom we collected Grandma last Sunday and set off.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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\"1Although<\/a>
Copyright Gerald England. Click above for more information.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Grandma always grumbles that she doesn’t want to go to Ikea, this might have something to do with us telling her that we don’t want to buy anything, we are simply going to give her some exercise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0We got there and did the \u201cIkea Walk\u201d (a bit like the Okey Dokey Shuffle \u2013 from Beverley Hills Cop 3 – but far more tiresome) and eventually got to the Warehouse Area on the ground floor armed with a few bits and pieces and some written details of where the flat packs of the cupboard and display unit we wanted where located, these of course were wrong, when we got to Aisle 34 there wasn’t a location 57b. Monster took great delight in running to the Computer in the middle of the store, locating what she thought was the product and sending us in search of ever more exotic \u201clocations\u201d, then we had the issue of whether the cabinet we wanted part of the BJ\u00d6RKEN range or the GODMORGON. (where do they get these names I’ve watched Mama Mia and no-one there has names like this?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually we located our cabinets, put one on our trolley and decided that the other one was far to big to fit in the car along with us and Grandma (despite Monsters suggestion that her and \/ or Grandma could be strapped on the roof rack, we felt this might cause a unwelcome interest from the local Gendarmerie) and decided it would have to await another visit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0Now whilst the trolley and Management joined the interminable queues at the checkouts (it’s my opinion that Heathrow terminal three was modelled upon Ikea) yours truly was sent to get our \u201dFREE\u201d Salad bowl worth \u00a39.99! from the Oasis Department. It seemed to me that this would be near the checkouts so you could collect your freebies on the way out, \u00a0I collared a guy in a yellow shirt who had no idea what I was talking about (note if your sad enough to spend your day off shopping in Ikea don’t wear a yellow shirt), next I tried a couple of yellow shirted guys first making sure that they also had badges saying Ikea, they didn’t seem to have much more idea anyway, but suggested it was at the warehouse entrance near the bottom of the escalators, as this area had lots of plants etc. it seemed a good bet. When I got there this was clearly wrong and eventually I found some staff hiding behind the undergrowth, they said it was on the first floor. A trip round the first floor found no sign and another Ikea employee said perhaps the second floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0On the second floor no-one knew but suggested it was near the checkouts and, if not. the customer information centre there would get it for me!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0When I got back to the checkout area our trusty team where now within hailing distance of the checkouts, and the young man there directed me to an information centre in the middle of the warehouse area, the operator there tapped some keys on his computer and told me the Oasis Centre was on the first floor and that they might<\/strong><\/em> have some of the bowls left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0By this stage I had twigged that this Oasis was obviously a mirage<\/strong><\/span> and that Ikea are probably in league with the department of Public Health to keep us all permanently knackered, no salad bowl worth \u00a39.99, or not, was worth another trip round the store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0Upon getting home that evening I eagerly started unpacking my new Bathroom cabinet, as all the outer frame is coated with mirror effect covering (and according to the instructions quite easy to scratch when they are new) great care was taken removing all the cardboard and polystyrene packaging and pushing it into a bin bag, finally the four glass shelves were unpacked and two of them were \u00a0completely crazed and promptly fell onto the carpet as a large pile of glass diamonds!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0An email to Ikea complaining mainly about the broken shelves but also the missing \u201cbowl\u201d (worth \u00a39.99) elicited a reply on Tuesday morning that the whole unit should be taken back to the store and exchanged. We responded that this was difficult as<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Packing the whole thing up was impracticable as we had damaged some of the packing and anyway who can ever package things up the way they manage in the Chinese factories?<\/p> <\/li>

  2. It mean’t a round trip of 20+ miles, surely they could take our word and simply send out the broken and missing bits<\/p> <\/li>

  3. Anyway returning the undamaged bits improperly packaged was more than likely to result in further damage.<\/p> <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Ikea’s response was that they didn’t send things out and that we must return the whole unit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u00a0I now fully understand why it’s called DIY and it’s much simpler to forgo my \u00a39.99 bowl and get a couple new glass shelves from a glazier<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u00a0But \u201cIkea family\u201d?? no way, mine are much more helpful (even grumpy Grandma)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Being members of the IKEA \u201cHome Club\u201d we received a mailshot offering us a \u00a310 discount plus a free salad bowl (worth \u00a39.99 – subject to availability) if we visited soon. Needing a new cabinet for the bathroom plus a display case for our showroom we collected Grandma last… Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[40,38,37,33,39],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highpeakreview.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highpeakreview.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highpeakreview.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highpeakreview.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highpeakreview.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.highpeakreview.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2065,"href":"https:\/\/www.highpeakreview.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions\/2065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highpeakreview.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highpeakreview.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highpeakreview.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}