The Home Depot — Local services in Lakewood

Horrible experience today.

I entered the construction door, (east entrance) and while I was checking 2 x 4's and employee took off with my cart. Another employee had a cart and was now closer so I took that one and asked him to send someone to the saw. Waited a while for that and finally had to track down someone else who DID put the call out.

I checked out at the construction register. I put my military ID on the counter with the small stuff. While in line I heard the clerk say several times that she was off and ready to go. Her accent and command of English made her almost impossible to understand as she scanned my last item, then waved her hand in about a 120 degree arc across most of the store and said, "you have to check out over there." I asked her what she meant and she repeated the same phrase 2 more times. I then asked if she meant I had to have everything scanned again and got another "you have to check out over there." After much confusion she said "I take you" and walked me halfway across the store. To the self-serve.

Again I was faced with an employee who appeared to not care about much. I gave him my card and ID. He used his register to do something with my receipt handed it all back to me and said nothing. I asked what to do and he pointed behind me (which was also toward the construction entrance where my card and items were) and said "over there."

Me: "what do you mean?" He pointed again and finally grabbed my credit card from my hand and stuck it into the machine at a self-serve. Not a word and walked away. I watched the card reader screen for several minutes while it said "processing, do not remove card." I asked him why it was taking so long and he came to the checkout screen and pushed a button. We had not used that screen at all and he did not tell me that I would need to use it to check "no" for a PO. Had I used the screen to scan my items I would have been watching it.

So, I go back to the east entrance, get my cart and went to my truck. I had forgotten to take in a return. So, as I returned my cart to the store, I used the west entrance and was soon to find that the entire store seemed to be staffed with children.

I took a return to the CS desk. There were 6 employees behind the counter, only one worked while the others laughed giggled in a circle and ignored customers. Clerk "M" had just finished a return and was putting the items in their proper go-back areas.

I put my items on the counter and waited. All of the other employees saw me and made eye contact at some point. After several minutes I used my finger to count how many employees were goofing off. "M" was aware of my presence while she worked and told the other employees that I was waiting. They looked over and went back to socializing and actually screaming like 6th grade girls over a boy.

A minute or so later "M" left her work and came over to process my return. It was clear that she was the employee that picked up the slack while the others goofed off. After she was done, I asked her to write down the names of the other employees who had blatantly ignored me.

Quickly one of the other girls came over and leaned over her shoulder asking, repeatedly, "what's going on?" She kept leaning closer and got more demanding. I asked her to please step away that this was none of her business. She relied, "Well, this IS... MY register." (The irony was palpable.) Her tone was very nasty .

I had stood at HER register for about 7 minutes while she socialized with the other girls and ignored her job , (even though she was asked by "M" to take care of me), and now it's HER register?

At Lowe's ALL registers (even construction) process military discounts. HD's garden department does them. Why are there a bunch of children running this store and why do they have such a RIDICULOUS protocol for military at ONE set of registers?

Home Depot...

This is my closest home Depot and I either have really good experiences here really bad experiences. It all depends on two particular things. (1) do I have to buy lumber or have anything cut in the lumber section (2) does the associate try to actually listen to me or do they just assume they understand

I have a lot of small house repairs I have to make around my mobile home. These include electrical outlet repairs, painting, tile laying, that sort of thing. I always try to bring photos and measurements, and I always try to explain as clearly as possible. The best employees at this place are the ones who repeat back the information to me to make sure they understood me. It always leads to a smooth and easy interaction and makes me actually look forward to the next time I have to come to home depot.

The worst ones are the ones who will disregard information I give them and assume I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to my own home. Mind you, I don't know the technical terms for a lot of the hardware I'm looking for, materials I'm looking for, but that's why I bring photos and measurements and if I can, examples from my house to show what I'm looking for. I had a 30-minute conversation with one guy where I had to explain to him that the electrical outlets in my house were installed without any sort of plastic casing, it just goes directly into the drywall and insulation. He disregarded this for 30 minutes until I finally showed him the detailed photos and zoomed in so he could see what I was talking about, and then he repeated back to me exactly what I had told him as though I had not said it before. It's f** infuriating. I told him I had sent that to him and explained it to him, and his response was, "no you didn't." Absolutely infuriating.

The good news is in most of the departments, the employees will make sure they understand you before they try to help you. And I appreciate that. But God forbid I have to get anything done in the lumber section. I have never had a good experience in this lumber section. Every time I've had to ask for help from an associate, only to have somebody else call the lumber associate over the intercom in the store, and then to wait between 10 and 30 minutes for an associate who never arrives, and then have to go and seek out another associate to tell them I've been waiting and ask if they know how much longer it might take or if there's somebody else who can assist me, if I should come back in a different time... And each time they act like it's not the standard, but considering I bought from this lumber section four times now and every single time this has happened, it's obviously the standard.

If you need to buy from the lumber section and no you're going to need help there,, find another supplier or another store. The lumber team at the store is next to useless, or at least elusive. If you need to buy from any other section, this is a...

Because Home Depot is a store for DIYers and professionals, I typically ignore the general lack of assistance that Home Depot is known for. Also, there are the occasional flashes of brilliance that sometimes meet a higher standard of customer service. Today I just can't.

Today, I woke up to my truck being burglarized. I lost both my DeWalt drills and as a Maintenance Technician for a busy property management company, a drill is a must. I thought it was fortunate that the Home Depot app had a drill set for $99. So, off to Home Depot Lakewood I went.

Finding items is really simple with the app. I discovered the the drill set I was looking for in a locked cage. The only help I needed was getting someone to retrieve the set for me. There were two associates in the aisle so I thought it would be pretty simple... First obstacle, one associates was helping someone else but standing in front of the item I needed. I tried to alert him to the fact that he was standing in front of my item. I was dismissed. Not deferred. No apologies. No request for patience. No looking for another associate. Dismissed. The second associate made a snap decision to help someone else before me. So I waited.

Second obstacle, the price was different. The associates didn't say anything about it. We both just made sure the item I was looking at on the app matched the item we were looking at in the store. We did. The associate took my item to the checkout stand for me. I finished shopping and went to checkout.

Obstacle three, the price at checkout STILL didn't match. Now, I'm familiar with the app and items available online versus items available in store. Nowhere in the app was the price listed as online only. When I mentioned it to the cashier, she told me to buy the item online if I wanted the price. I considered it but I only had cash on me so it would require me going to the bank and coming back. Also, I was told that I would have to wait 2-4 hours to receive the item I CURRENTLY HAD IN MY HANDS. So that meant I would have to give back the item and wait for them to put it back on the shelf and wait two hours before an item picker decided to go back and get my drill...

So, I paid a higher price. As I mentioned I was burglarized earlier and now I was being robbed. As a professional, I have been given arbitrary discounts for items. So, I know it was possible to be given some consideration.

As someone with a strong customer service background, I know that service is the only thing saving many jobs like the ones I encountered today from being replaced by robots. Experiences like today are hard. I support human interaction and strong customer rapport. However, at this moment, I am looking forward to the Amazon version of Home Depot. If workers are going to be impersonal and unaccommodating, then bring...