As long as we're on the theme of retail home improvement, let's talk a bit about common sense. Retail sales is the very heart of our capitalistic economy, from the purchase of food and clothing to vehicles and motorhomes. We repair our cars and trucks with parts bought at retail, whether directly or indirectly, and the same is true for our home repair projects. With all that in mind, you would think that, as a society, we would be experts in the field; that the entire process would come as second nature.
Of course, you'd be wrong.
I spend most of my non-driving day completely surrounded by 'Do-It-Yourselfers', otherwise known as 'future insurance statistics'. People who take a simple job, like replacing a fifty-cent light switch, and turn it into an all-day $300 project, complete with a visit from the fire department, should not be allowed access to repair materials. This becomes obvious the moment they walk in the front door.
What is the first thing most people do when they enter a grocery store? They select a shopping cart. They know they will be purchasing many small to medium-sized items which would be difficult to carry, so they obtain an ambulatory container to make their job easier. Why, then, in a DIY store in which the average item weighs between 25-60 lbs, most everyone walks right by the mass of shopping carts at the front of the store to tell a moderately disgruntled employee, "I need that one, there," pointing to a 24 cubic-foot box on the top shelf. Of course, once the employee retrieves the item in question, knees buckling as he or she wobbles down the ladder, the customer almost ALWAYS says, "Oh, I need a cart, don't I? Would you find one for me?"
Continuing on through the store, this pattern repeats in every department until they reach the registers. Once paid, the customer engages in the ultimate form of tragic entertainment, the 'loading'. Usually help is requested, because the customer truly has no idea how they are going to fit six foot-long boards, sheet goods, and an 80,000 BTU gas grill into the trunk of their Ford Focus. They walk in blissful ignorance to the vehicle that dutifully carries them and their purchases to and from their local megastore, without giving a second thought to things like 'spatial mechanics' and 'displacement'.
Of course, the employee tries to semi-calmly explain that the task before them is impossible in this universe, and the customer grudgingly agrees (though usually after a few failed attempts) to purchasing the store's delivery service. Sometimes, though, this isn't the outcome, and the story ends with blown tires or a broken axle at the end of the parking lot.
Perhaps I'm not being fair. I am merely citing DIYers tonight, but 'professionals' are just as prone to bouts of senselessness, too. One instance that pops to mind is of a stern dressing-down I received from a dockbuilder who, after a trying time at the store's return desk, stormed to the hardware department to complain about the 'cheap (explicative deleted) garbage metal' that the stainless steel fasteners were made from. After enduring a five-minute tirade, I was finally able to ask how he had come to his conclusions. Was there a defect? Were there unthreaded screws in the packages (which DOES happen, sometime)? His response: "None of this cheap (string of explicatives deleted) would stick to a magnet!!"
If you fancy yourself a DIYer, I recommend you consult any of the numerous volumes of books and software that are available on just about any project you can think of before you embark on your adventure. Be safe, and remember, whether or not you do your job properly, someone will always be coming behind you down the road, be they trained professional, or just the next owner of the house. If you are a professional, watch what you're doing, do it well, and listen closely to the guys at the store. They may not make as much as you do in a day, but they do know that stainless steel isn't magnetic.
No comments:
Post a Comment