IKEA - Long Live the Home (once they get their Customer Service right!)

On Cyber Monday last year, IKEA had a promotion of free delivery. This was an offer too good to miss, so I tapped away online and ordered a new bed and some other items. Ordinarily, we would struggle outside the store on a rainy Sunday afternoon, straining, lifting and cursing while trying to balance the ridiculously oversized piece of furniture we'd just bought on to the car roof.
I did experience a few issues whilst ordering online and all was going smoothly until it gave me a delivery date of 3 days before we took possession of our house. The page was stuck and I couldn't alter it in any way, so I resorted to their Customer Help line - ugh!
The woman was painfully slow and repeated everything I said at least 3 times before entering them on her system. She then took it upon herself to keep offering me alternatives, such as size, colour etc. I had already made up my mind and knew exactly what I wanted, so I found this all very irritating.
After what seemed like a decade later, she clicked the button to give me my delivery date,  I asked for a few days after we took possession in mid-December.
There was a long un-nerving silence, then she spoke to tell me that my delivery date would be January 8th, between 9am and 9pm. What? How could that be? She explained that they were very busy and all the delivery slots had been filled whilst we had been talking (more like she had been wasting my life). Anyway, I had no choice so she e-mailed me the details.
To my horror, my husband informed me some weeks later that his Christmas Party for work was on that very date and it started at 5.30pm.


Visions of my new bed faded as I picked up the phone to Ikea Customer Service Dept. again and asked for a new delivery date. I did think he would offer me a date in 2018, so I considered myself fortunate when he gave me a delay of just 2 weeks.
Due to the stupidly long time to wait, I've gone and bought my daughter's chest of drawers already and then asked if I could change the order and remove it. Not possible, so they will deliver it straight in to my car and I'll take it back for a refund - what a waste of time, money and effort. I am still looking forward to our new bed though and some bar stools too.
If I'm really lucky, the delivery guys might even offer to carry the enormous bed up the stairs for me without taking a few chunks of plaster out of the wall corners. If I smile sweetly, they might take their snowy boots off too before traipsing across our new carpet.
Anyway, I'm not the most patient of people and it seems like I ordered these things from them last century. I feel we've been waiting forever. I think next time I'll hire a van and go and collect the items from the store myself.
Oh yes, I can picture it now, raining or blowing snow as my husband and I argue whether the item will fit in or on the van as my daughter gnaws away at an Ikea hot dog and our blood pressure soars to a dangerously high level - IKEA, you could make our lives so much easier....

RIP My Trusted Acer Laptop

A few days ago I switched on the laptop as normal and waited for the screen to light up. After about 10 minutes I began to realise something was wrong...
I tried and tried but to no avail. I used my phone to access the internet to see if anyone had a remedy. There were plenty but none worked. I fiddled with the battery, drained the laptop and tried again - nothing. My heart sank.

What is it about these machines we own that makes us feel like we've lost a long lost friend when they break? We'd had this laptop for 6 years and though it had crashed a few times, almost everything I've written or photographed was on there.

I reluctantly took it in to a local computer shop and left it with them. Luckily I'd bought a 'Passport' years ago to back up information etc, so I took that in along with the Recovery discs.

I received the fateful call. There was nothing they could do to repair the laptop, but they had retrieved all of my files - horray!

I almost cried when they bought it out to show me, it was in bits and so was I.

The reason for its demise? Apart from old age, it was full of dust. The fan stopped working and couldn't cool the inside down sufficiently, so it fried itself. That's what living on a dirt road for 6 years does to laptops I was informed.

So now I am sitting in front of a new sturdy computer with a keyboard and mouse that just doesn't feel the same. I have had to try and create shortcuts on to the desktop and have failed miserably.

I want Google back, not Bing. I want to see all things familiar when I switch on, not weird and wonderful upgrades that I don't understand nor will ever use.

Wow, I can't believe I'm so stuck in my ways and I'm not even a 'Senior' yet! Just call me Victor Meldrew and I won't be offended......

Happy New Year!

I was sauntering around Walmart yesterday, taking my time to browse whilst the majority of shoppers around me looked more like a National Emergency was about to occur. They were dragging groceries from shelves like things possessed and I felt a bit left out of the frenzy.
I walked down the 'chip' aisle, that's crisps to my UK readers, of course chips are French fries and crisp here is crumble. Got it? Anyway an assistant was laughing that she'd never seen the chip aisle looking so empty and commented that the locals would be celebrating New Year's Eve with 'chips and alcohol' - nothing wrong with that!





As I wandered round I heard an announcement and my heart sank. It was asking for all trained cashiers to report to Customer Services. That's always a bad sign - I had visions of queues 10 deep at each check out. A few minutes later, another voice boomed over the loudspeaker that anyone with less than 15 items could pay for them at Customer Services - another bad sign. I felt even worse when they repeated both over the next 10 minutes.
By the time I meandered to the checkout, it wasn't so bad but I wondered why everyone was buying so much when the store is open the following day. Beats me.
Anyway, today, New Year's Day, we cleared the garage. It was a mammoth task moving all the boxes of clutter out of there to another location. I do admit to having a small pile of 'stuff' in the middle of the basement floor that I promise solemnly to sort this year and get rid of the majority of it.
Tonight our cars are languishing in a cosy garage, something mine has never known since we bought it. I can almost hear them snoring.....




Well Happy New Year to everyone and may all your dreams for 2016 come true.