IKEA, My BAD!

I moved a couple of months ago and had originally planned on writing about how much moving sucks and how purging items from our lives on a regular basis can make life’s transitions smoother. Instead, my move took me to the crowded aisles of IKEA. Not much purging occurred during our move which resulted in several IKEA purchases. I can now proudly say I am very proficient at assembling their boxed gems. One purchase was a closet unit to store Stephanie’s extensive collection of clothes and shoes. I learned having more than a life-time supply of shoes, belts, scarves, jeans, sweats, and dresses isn’t classified as hoarding if you’re a girl.

Stephanie asked a friend with a truck to go with her to pick it up since the boxes were too long for any of our vehicles. Apparently, there was quite a bit of confusion when they purchased the closet unit because I remember Stephanie not being a happy camper when she got home. After we lugged the boxes upstairs, I removed a side panel and maneuvered it into the bedroom in an attempt to stand it up. To my surprise, shock and horror, it was too tall!

I remember being concerned it looked too tall in the store, but I had asked the salesperson if the unit would work with standard 8-foot ceiling and was assured it would since the unit was only 93 inches tall. I am not 100 percent sure how I didn’t notice our bedroom ceilings were not quite 8 feet tall. Maybe, I had just gotten use to the high ceilings in our old house and had just assumed these felt shorter. But, how I overlooked the fact I can touch our bedroom ceiling without jumping and I’m only 5’ 10” tall, I will never know. All I do know is the closet unit we purchased wasn’t going to fit in our 7 ? foot tall bedroom.

I cowardly explained to Stephanie I had messed up by assuming we had standard ceilings and we were going to have to return the closet unit. So, we hauled all the boxes back down to the garage for storage until we could rope our friend into making another trip back to IKEA. Two months later we roped our friend into hauling the boxes back to IKEA.

When we reach IKEA, an employee cheerfully helped me unload the massive boxes on to one of their cleverly designed carts, I pushed my enormous load to customer service, I took a number (492) despite no one being in line, I was quickly called over by Christina, my lucky IKEA customer service representative, I handed her my giant receipt and she immediately scanned all my boxes with her gun.

Just as I was beginning to admire the speed and efficiencies of the IKEA experience, I watched Christina’s face change. She looked puzzled which I knew wasn’t a good sign for me. She explained, I had two extra boxes not on my receipt and was missing the doors. I knew this was going to cause a hiccup in my return, however, I assumed after I carefully and calmly explained what must have transpired a supervisor would come out and make it all right. I figured, I might be slightly delayed but I could deal.

I won’t go into the gory details of Christina leaving for 20 minutes twice without any explanations, or how IKEA policy mandated a stock count which took 30 minutes, or the joyful experience of waiting two hours with a bored and hungry seven-year-old , or how IKEA insisted that since the paperwork for the doors had a stamp on it meant I was wrong, or the fact a supervisor never bothered to speak to me face-to-face and when I did ask to see the supervisor they let me talk to one that had nothing to do with my return.

No I am going to let that all go!

In the end IKEA did the right thing and credited us back for all the items, but they went about it so poorly they lost a customer for life. Well maybe not for life, I really like their stuff. Plus, if you really think about it, I was to blame anyway since I didn’t bother to check the height of the ceiling.