P S.
Yelp
I always find IKEA utterly exhausting. But like a *****, I keep going back. After this time, I feel like I'd rather spend top dollar at somewhere like Crate and Barrel than endure another trip to IKEA. After spending approximately 3 hours making my way through the maze of showrooms, I thought I'd treat my exhausted, hungry self to the famous Swedish meatballs for dinner. But they were out of gravy and jam, making for a virtually flavorless meal.
Then, I finally manage to find and collect most of my items and try to find a checkout with an actual human. Nope, it's all self-checkout now. I did not spend 18 years in school to be a checkout clerk, but apparently the price of cheap home decor is absolutely no customer service. I did my best to figure out how to use a scanner while screens everywhere flashed MONITORING IN PROGRESS. Despite my best efforts, apparently I missed something, because I was forced to endure an audit and lecture by the very slow, very methodical, lone IKEA checkout employee who rescanned my items, slowly. My feet ached, my back ached, my neck ached. I did not care how much I paid at that point. I just wanted to cry and I wanted to go home.
A few days later, blessedly at home, I finally had the energy to unpack my shopping bags and start putting my new things away. Only to discover that the 3 sticky labels on each and every bin and lid I'd bought (about 2 dozen or so; I lost count, as evidenced by the scanner) could not easily be removed. In fact, they could not be removed without great difficulty -- painstaking scraping with a tool that Martha Stewart herself designed for probably just this purpose. I already ***** myself for buying so much **** plastic and subjecting myself to a 4.5 hour endurance test at IKEA. Now I **** myself for not returning every single one of those sticker-encrusted plastic bins.
I've tried to order online before and failed. (It's just as well. I found something I liked better elsewhere.) But I will never, if I can help it, set foot in IKEA again. It's painfully clear they don't give a **** about their customers.
(And now, my earnest review is being flagged for profanity by IKEA. Let's see how many words I have to censor before it will let me publish. Still no? OK, fine. I'll publish it on Yelp. Minus one more star.)