Thursday, October 9, 2014

And the $tip goes to

I had the pleasure of visiting home depot recently in order to make some slat legs for my bed. I had a little "design" in mind with the intention to make it easy to put together and take apart. A little bit more than screws and wood, I found one of the staff and explained how I envisioned. He not only helped me find the pieces I need, but offered suggestions, which I took, to make it a bit easier to construct. We put together the needed hardware and then headed to the lumber section. We sorted through a number of pieces of 2x2 spruce to find a reasonable straight piece with few pressure cracks. Then he cut up 5 7 inch pieces (4 + 1 spare) and I headed over to the tool section to see if I could rent a drill.

I explained to this guy the plan and how I wanted to rent a power drill and a few bits to do this. He said they don't rent drills (or bits, I wasn't sure what he said) but that instead I could come to the back room and he'd help me drill the holes. I drew X's on each end of the legs so that he had a target to drill. We drilled all the pieces and I assembled the hardware onto the legs. After being rung up at the counter there, I basically left home depot having gone in with a rough design and come out with a finished product.

I know it's their "job" to be doing this, but that had to be one of the best service experiences I've had in a long time. When you think about all the different types of folks who "ask for" tips for doing their job, it puzzles me that these folks (who go out of their way to help you build things and offer advice on design, hardware parts) I would rather leave something extra behind for these guys rather than someone who offers you a friendly smile and interrupts my conversation asking if I want another 7 dollar beer.


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