The Home Depot — Local services in Sacramento

I just had the most bizarre and unnecessarily hostile experience at the Home Depot in Natomas. I went to the garden center to buy a pumpkin plant. It's our family tradition to buy pumpkin plants from Home Depot and plant them on Memorial Day weekend, which are then ready to harvest in the fall (the average time to harvest a pumpkin is around 100 days).

I couldn't find any pumpkin plants on the outside displays so I went into the garden center to inquire. There was an employee watering the plants and I asked her about pumpkin plants.

She said they didn't have any plants but directed me to where I could buy seeds. And then, for absolutely no reason, a vendor named Cassandra inserted herself into the conversation.

"It's the wrong time of year for pumpkins," Cassandra said.

I told Cassandra that we plant pumpkins every May on or around Memorial Day. It's a family tradition.

(For reference, Sacramento is Zone 9B, and the recommended time to plant pumpkins is between May and early July. So no, Memorial Day is not the wrong time to plant pumpkins.)

Cassandra acted annoyed and said, "Well, you're wrong."

I couldn't believe she was speaking to me this way. "What do you mean I'm wrong?" I asked her. "It's our family tradition. How am I wrong?"

She scoffed and said "Well, you're mistaken. We've never sold pumpkins here."

That's when I asked Cassandra for her name, and she said she's not an employee, she's a vendor. So I said, "Are you the only vendor that supplies plants here?"

She said, "No, but I know my plants. You have never bought a pumpkin plant from Home Depot."

I couldn't believe how hostile she was behaving. Telling a customer they're "wrong" repeatedly, telling them something that their family does every year doesn't happen--these are personal attacks and they weren't appropriate.

I started to walk off, and then Cassandra immediately started bad mouthing me loudly to the Home Depot employee. So I approached them both and said this is very rude and I didn't understand why Cassandra was getting so angry at me. The employee apologized and said she has no control over what Cassandra says.

I don't understand how or why this escalated so quickly. Cassandra should lose her job as a vendor. And vendors should never be engaging with customers or inserting themselves into conversations between customers and Home Depot employees.

The Home Depot employee already had it handled. She told me they didn't have the plants. That should have been the end of it. I would have walked out and not thought anything else about it. Cassandra inserted herself where she didn't belong and went from 0 to 100 in a matter of seconds.

I hope Home Depot will investigate this and not allow Cassandra to work on their property again.

And finally, attached is a photo of my son sitting proudly next to the pumpkin plant we bought from Home Depot on a previous Memorial Day weekend. If you zoom in, you can see the Bonnie plant tag. I don't care either way if this Home Depot location doesn't carry pumpkins this year. That's not a big deal. But do not tell me I have never bought a pumpkin plant there, and do not tell me I'm wrong about my...

The regional mgt team really needs to look into this store. They used to have friendly and helpful staff before covid. Service quality has been gone down to the drain in the last couple years. Staff are rude and laid back. Two occasions that triggers me to write this review. The first one happened over a month ago when I tried to check out some furnace filters which were on promotion. The discounted price didn't kick in because the store somehow put one of those filters on clearance. The clearance price was even higher than the promotion price. I spent over half hour at the check out just to wait three of their staff to figure out what happened. Even after that, they still didn't want to override the price that would only take them two seconds. Worst of all, I was treated like a con who was trying to game the system. I was a customer who tried to buy something that was on sale under their official promotion. Should they be the one to apologize to keep me waiting endlessly because of their crippled system and incompetent staff? The second occasion happened yesterday. I was given some store credit another day from returning an order that was paid with gift card. While it's unfair to be refunded with store credit instead of a gift card, that's a topic for another day. The store credit was supposed to be tagged with my name on the driver license but somehow the staff messed up the name on the credit. I couldn't get thru the system at check out. Again, a supervisor look alike came. In the beginning, she claimed that she wasn't sure if it could be overridden. I ensured her it could because I had seen that be done before. She then showed me her nasty face and very unfriendly reluctant attitude to complete the transaction. I told her that this isn't my fault. It's your colleagues. She couldn't care less. Those are just two of my unpleasant experience in the last few trips to the store. There were always unfriendly faces putting on those front desks. Incompetent staff around the store. They are short staffed, I get it. But I also doubt that the store manager is really doing their job properly. I have never seen the store manager showing up in the store, checking on staff and customers. And staff were doing whatever they wanted to do. They are not deemed organized or dedicated to their job. The Truxel store is a busy one, with lots of traffic. I hope the senior mgt team can take a look into the mgt issue...

For more than ten years, I have been shopping at Home Depot on Truxel. I have requested assistance from several Home Depot associates. Their customer service has generally been excellent. However, none of them compare to Carlos. He is one of the managers. There are not enough words to describe how impressed I am with his performance as a manager.

I had a return. However, before wasting my time and driving to Home Depot, I contacted Carlos. Carlos informed me that I could return the item. Therefore, I drove up to Home Depot. Upon arriving at the store, I noticed a long line at customer service. I walked over to the paint counter and asked the associate to speak with Carlos. Carlos was assisting in customer service and I had to wait in line. Naturally, I did not enjoy waiting in line. However, Carlos made the right decision. Clearly, I did not have a right to cut in front of people who were already standing in line. The line moved fairly quickly.

Carlos assisted me with my return. To do so, we had to walk through the garden area. While we were walking, I noticed he made positive comments to associates that lifted their spirits. I rarely see managers treating their employees in this way.

Carlos is doing an excellent job. It is difficult to find competent customer service these days. It is refreshing to see it with...