On Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:00:06 -0700 (PDT), y_p_w
wrote:
(PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Nate Nagel:
I'm in the exact same situation; there's at least two HD's between me
and any Lowe's. And HD pretty much sucks.
Anybody know what happened to Home Depot?
Few years back I thought they were pretty good and the sales
people were knowledgeable and helpful.
Last few times I went to Home Depot, the sales people would sort
of look down or scurry in the other direction as soon as they
perceived that you might be looking for help.... and the
inventory (at least little nuts-and-bolts stuff) seems to have
gone downhill.
Too much competition? Bean counters running the show?
Who knows. The best help I ever got at Home Depot was at their store
in Santa Clara, California. When I asked the guy who helped me how he
knew so much, he indicated that he was moonlighting from his job at
Underwriters Labs, whose West Coast offices were in the same city.
Had an engineering degree, has a thorough understanding of the safety
of the electrical items he was selling, and only had the job because
he was paying for kids going to college. Of course that's not
typical, but I have noticed a steady drop in the quality of the help
from Home Depot employees.
Home Despot used to make it a point of hiring such people, or retired
electricians, plumbers, carpenters etc. They actually used to brag
about it in their early ads.
Then they started having problems hiring such people because of
internal politics, labor law issues and so forth.
Frankly...anyone with a strong background in the trades would not
allow themselves to be treated the way HD treated these people...so
they found themselves unable to hire these people. ACE Hardware and
so forth started picking up the cream of the crop in many areas.
Much the same way small manufactures in the US will no longer, for the
most part, have anything to do with Walmart.
Once the word got around that once you got into bed with Walmart..you
would at best be ****ed in the ass regularly, or lose your business to
them, or the bankers, most folks will NOT do direct business with them
anylonger
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html
Just one of hundreds of such links