{"id":52724,"date":"2011-07-23T02:50:28","date_gmt":"2011-07-23T06:50:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/52724\/diary-home-improvement-warehouse-worker-part-1-236\/"},"modified":"2011-07-23T02:50:28","modified_gmt":"2011-07-23T06:50:28","slug":"diary-home-improvement-warehouse-worker-part-1-236","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/52724\/diary-home-improvement-warehouse-worker-part-1-236\/","title":{"rendered":"Diary of a Home Improvement Warehouse Worker (Part 1 of 236)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\u201cDo you sell can crushers?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere are the GFI switches?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cExcuse me,\u201d the smiling middle-aged woman asked me right after I had dispatched a customer towards a product that I only had a vague idea where it was, \u201cdo you have those little pieces that go behind a lighted vanity that make the screws fit better and..ya\u2019know\u2026 fit back behind it?\u201d\u00a0 I had no idea what she was talking about.\u00a0 My shift was nearing its end and I still had stuff I wanted to do, and I was on the end of a remarkable string of one customer after another asking for the weirdest, most esoteric things that I had no idea if we sold, much less where they were located. \u2026 I was on the verge of grumpiness.<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay,\u201d I said slowly, \u201cso this would be part of a vanity?\u201d\u00a0 I knew where those were.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere!\u201d she offered helpfully, \u201cmy handyman drew a picture of what I want!\u201d
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

She showed me the picture I have re-created in a jpeg.\u00a0 What the?<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019ve got these 6 lights up above the vanity and this piece goes between them and the wall.\u201d\u00a0 Oh great.\u00a0 Now we have lighting involved.\u00a0 This expands the department whatever the heck that thing is in the picture (which she was emphatically pointing to, her smile turning into an impatient scowl) to hardware, lighting, bathroom, fasteners and maybe even home organization.\"\" I just wanted to get back to setting up this new GE Profile French Door refrigerator that I had brought out from the back.<\/p>\n

I apologized for not knowing what the hell she was talking about.<\/p>\n

I mentioned that I had just finished up with another customer who I was barely able to help.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t help that the guy was a total ass-hole about me not knowing where what he wanted was located.\u00a0 I looked too. I walked up and down each and every aisle in the area where I knew it SHOULD be, but I couldn\u2019t find it.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t help that he was using nomenclature that I didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cIt should be 14-2 Romex wire with a CEI 23\/16 plug on the end!!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 He scoffed at me like I was an idiot because I didn\u2019t just take him right to what he was looking for.<\/p>\n

Ugh.\u00a0 I\u2019ve sold appliances for most of working life.\u00a0 I can tell you which Microhoods have the best suction, the relative repair histories of refrigerator brands and why, chemically speaking, you should use OxyClean as opposed to chlorine bleach in your new frontload washing machine.\u00a0 And about 2,000 other little bits and pieces of knowledge about appliances.\u00a0 Where to find the never-ending really weird things that the general public expect to find in a home improvement warehouse store that sells 42,000 different items, yeah, that, I\u2019m still an idiot.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always been a little proud of how much I know.\u00a0 Certainly I can say that I use my knowledge to my advantage as a salesman.\u00a0 That and my bubbly, helpful personality is what sets me apart from the salesman down the road.\u00a0 See, I understand that the kind of knowledge I need I need will come with time, but until that comes about, I need to learn how to be an idiot tactfully.<\/p>\n

How does one get to be smartly stupid?\u00a0 Or stupidly smart?<\/p>\n

Just don\u2019t ask me where to find clips to hang your lighted, bifolded, hydraulic doors.<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cDo you sell can crushers?\u201d \u201cWhere are the GFI switches?\u201d \u201cExcuse me,\u201d the smiling middle-aged woman asked me right after I had dispatched a customer towards a product that I only had a vague idea where it was, \u201cdo you have those little pieces that go behind a lighted vanity that make the screws fit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,10],"tags":[895,81,1206],"class_list":["post-52724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-life","tag-business-2","tag-joko","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52724\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}