OT: Treatment of Women In Hardware Stores (Yes, this is a Rant)

[Beekissed]

If I wore a tight shirt into the hardware store the employees would avoid me.... just to not have to LOOK at it!!!

 

[redoak]

Yesterday my wife went into Lowes to get 1 1/4 inch wood screws. The associate said they were out of wood screws and gave her 1 1/4 inch dry wall screws and said they were the same thing as wood screws.

Of course I had to tease my wife for listening to the guy from Lowes hardware department.

 

[dixygirl]

Quote:
This attitude only perpetuates the problem. Women should not have to act like sex objects to get what they want and need.

Huh!

SAY WHAT!

Look at it this way Joe, would you want your grandmother to have to be subjected to that?

 

[Yanna]

drom wrote: "Those boards aren't heavy or difficult, don't require a power tool, don't need two people to lift and cut them.

They cost about $1.20 each out here. After material cost, shipping, facilities overhead, labor, etc... I'd be surprised if the margin left on each one is 20 cents. It doesn't make good business sense to me, to lose money paying your employees $8 to $10 bucks an hour to cut inexpensive lumber that people really, truly don't need help with.

I don't think they were trying to insult Yanna smile. Why would anyone want to do that. wink"


For the record, I needed those 2x2s cut because I drive a very, very small car. Yes, I needed them cut.

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
I always keep a saw in the spare well in the trunk for occasions like that

That said, yes it was poor (but quite likely gender-independant) service, and yes poor customer service is rampant these days.

All the *more* reason to carry a saw in the back of your car

Pat

 

[drom]

Quote:
Yes, I'm sure you had a good reason Yanna. No offense intended!!
I have a big Diesel truck because of my horses and it sure does come in handy when I need to bring large items home! Otherwise, things are sticking out of the window and you can't see where you're going....It's a hazard!
You know, they used to rent trucks at Home Depot so you could bring stuff home if you didn't have something with an open bed. At the time-it's been a few years- I think they only charged about $19 bucks to rent them. But, not sure if that would have been worth it with the amount of things you were taking home with you.

Well, anyway, you can still always try the tight shirt thing next time... AH! JUST KIDDING!!!! REALLY!!!

 

[chiknlady]

Nope can't say I've had that problem at Hardware stores...
but at Sporting goods and outdoors stores--I feel like an alien. I just hurry in to get--fishing lures etc cause its like an alarm is set off and men start peeking over the aisles

But I have fun in DIY stores...I know I don't know what I'm doing and they know I don't know--so I ask for help and I get it. My DH is deceased--so there is no one else to send for supplies or lumber... Thank God I married a Marine who wasn't afraid to teach me how to do things...

 

[MissPrissy]

Home Depot here is the absolute worst. Lowe's has 2 guy working in lumber who try their very best to NEVER cut lumber. I have had to create a scene at times to get rough cuts for what I need.

 

[Yanna]

The margin on the lumber is immaterial.

The store offers a service which is supposed to be available to all of their customers. Not only were other department staff ignorant of the service but one of them attempted to let me know what a pain it would be for someone to provide that service for me.

As to "why" I would need the lumber cut - that's really not their business, is it? Their business is to provide the service their corporation has told them to provide - at $1.00 a cut (there goes the margin question, since it takes all of 5 seconds to line up and make a cut)!

As it stood, I needed about ten cuts just to get everything into my car. Even if I had had a saw in my car, I still wouldn't have stood there in the parking lot wrangling lumber just because someone couldn't be bothered to do his job.

I was willing to pay for their service but it was "too much trouble" for them to provide.

Some of you may forget that people who live in the city may live a little differently than those of you in the stix or even in the suburbs. We often drive small cars, we usually don't have much in the way of tools (being a renter, there's not usually a need - I'm just now buying my first house) and we certainly don't have the skills that day-to-day life in a setting with outbuildings and livestock to maintain (or even Better Homes & Gardens projects around the suburban house) would tend to reinforce. This doesn't make us stupid - it means we have a different skill set. I can parallel park fast and accurately on either side of the street, hail a cab in under 20 seconds and exit a standing-room-only bus so crowded that you can feel the specific contents of other people's bags as you stand squished together during morning rush hour. I don't smirk at tourists when I see them trying to do those things - I had to learn, too.

I went to the lumber store to get what I needed and received crappy service - whether because I'm female or because their service stinks in general is open to debate, certainly. How some people can suggest that it was because I was "unreasonable" ($1 a cut is unreasonable - asking to have them provide the paid service they're supposed to isn't) is really a headscratcher.

 

[cheeptrick]

I have had this problem at a local hardware store and then Home Depot came to town. Then they started being NICE to me when I stated....NEVER MIND...I'll just go to Depot!!

One day my DH and I went to Home Depot to pick up a few things...I stayed in the car with half our brood and he took the others in with him. As I'm sitting there in the parking lot this man drives into the parking lot barreling past me. He pulls into a space all crooked, runs into the curb, and stumbles out of his truck. He then begins to vomit on the ground next to his truck and walks aimlessly around collecting beer cans and throwing them in the back of his truck. Another patron walks up to him...I'm in my car and did not hear the exchange. The patron shakes his head and gets in his car and drives away. The drunk man then opens his truck door and lays across the seats in his car. I AM very upset at this point...the man appears to be passed out so I take my youngest out of her car seat and go into the Home Depot. A WONDERFULLY, Sweet older 'Italian gentleman' who was a store employee walks straight up to me and asks me if I need anything. I guess I looked worried...and had the LOOK! I explained to him the situation with the man in the parking lot and he HUGGED me and said...NO worries I'll take care of IT! That sweet man walked out to the parking lot...gathered the man up and walked him into the store and called him a CAB!!

Every time I walk into that Home Depot...that sweet little man comes to ask me if I need anything!! I guess my tears while describing the drunk driving man GOT to him. I now have my own personal attendant every time I go to DEPOT!!