They have the worst customer service in the world. Everytime I go there, it is always filled with people who know nothing about the products they are supposed to be selling-that is if you can get a hold of one.
Last year, they were supposed to repair my husband's chain saw that he purchased there, and was thankfully under warranty. They fixed it wrong, and when they fixed it again, they lost it. Finally they called a week after he went to pick it up, to say they found it. When he returned, they could not find it for a half hour. I have tons of HD stories like this, so it is my fault for returning there.
Today I had a cut and simple chore. I went to the customer service desk, and when I finally got the attention of the woman behind the counter:
Pansy: Hi (smiles), do you have lye in stock?
CSR:(bristles and speaks very loudly and very slowly) IIiiii don't know. That would be in the garden section which is mostly empty now, and I can't guarentee it would even be there...
Pansy: Um, OK.(baffled...considers walking away, but just had to ask)Why would lye be in the garden section?
CSR: Lye! Lye! Isn't that what you put in a garden?
Pansy: (Even more baffled, and resists the urge to say "no, you are thinking of lime which is calcium chloride, I am looking for lye which is sodium hydroxide" but figured I would sound like a smart ass, because if I said that, my purpose would to be a smart ass...)No, it is what you pour down a drain...
CSR: Well Honey, what you are looking for is (long, and slowly again) draaaaiiinnnn cleeaaner(at this point, the woman thinks I am nuts for wanting to put calcium chloride down my drains...). That would be in the "plumbing" section.
(Incidentally, I looked down the wrong aisle in the plumbing section, but with my husband's aid, not the CSR's I did find the right aisle.)
People annoy the heck out of me.
People are such a pennance.
Yes ... Home Depot is always my last resort ... we have a locally-owned True Valu up the street ... much smaller than HD but, man, they cram a lot of stuff in that store ... the expertise is outstanding there ... the same dudes have been there for 20 years and have walked me thru many a weird plumbing project ... so my advice is to find a local hardware store in town and stick to it and always go there first ... use HD as a last resort ... once you throttle your expectations back to the lowest setting, your HD experience will be much better ... as a matter of fact I have an epic home repair scheduled for this weekend and I just went the local shop yesterday ... now on to HD for a few more supplies tonight ...
A final thought ... there are some really cr*ppy local hardware stores out there so it may take a bit to find the right one.
I had a similar experience at a grocery the other week: I wanted some wheat germ, and a young lady there had never heard of it. What next? Will they not have heard of witch hazel?
Wheat germ, RC? Another granola con?