Nastygram to IKEA

To whom it may concern,

I recently had a very poor experience at the Philadelphia IKEA store. The staff in the display sections were helpful and well-informed, the checkout staff was also helpful.

However, the staff at the pick up area was a total disaster. I checked out att eh cashier at 10:47, packed the self-serve items in the car and went over to the waiting area to pick up my full serve items. There, I see a sign telling me it will be '7 minutes., +1 minute per extra item.' This means that I should, by your own reckoning, wait either 8 minutes or at most 10 minutes as I was picking up 2 of 2 diffferent items.

However, I found that this was a lie on your part. had I known it would take as long as it did, I might have gone for lunch, or to another store to shop, or anything.

After 45 minutes (of watching several IKEA employees seeming to do nothing and only one IKEA employee actually carting stuff out now and then) I asked one employee what was the hold up. He went back to check and after several minutes returned to tell me that the order was 'being taken care of'. I returned to waiting. I watched as several people who had arrived after me get their orders.

After _another_ 1/2 hour I was getting downright fed up and asked the same employee why, if the order was 'being taken care of' was it still not brought out yet? He went back again, then came back to tell me he would pick the order personally. I guess that meant that my order was most certainly *not* 'being taken care of'!

It took this employee about 20 minutes to get the order our, minus one item that was not actually in inventory. I was told to take a piece of paper to the returns department for a refund . In other words, go wait in another line. I almost exploded but I just wanted out of there. Arrangements were made for delivery. By the time I rolled my items to my car it was 12:45, I had been waiting almost 2 hours for something your store promises in 10 minutes.

I have been a customer of IKEA for many years, and have had to wait for Full Serve items in the past, sometimes for orders with many, many more items than the four things I ordered today. Never have I had to put up with such a excessively long wait or had to put up with so many lies and nonsense from the staff.

It is my hope, that since there were other customers with long wait times (though none as long as mine was) that you will takes steps to shake up the completely incompetent management & staff of the Full Serve department at the Philadelphia store. I await your answer on this matter.

I could have done without this, really.

I got a call from my Real Estate agent that there is a potential buyer of the store building. This is kind of a 'ehhhh' reaction from me. I have a contract, so they cannot tell me to get out without massive compensation (to the tune of 3 years of rent). But there are several possibilities.

False Start: The buyer is not serious or doesn't like the price and no sale takes place.

Bad Version: The buyer buys the place, wants me out, but doesn't want to pay or I refuse the buyout. So he grumbles, breathes down my neck, and neglects the building for three years, then jacks up the rent to sky-high levels when I wish to renew.

Mercenary Version: The buyer is willing to pay the money for a buyout, and I decide to accept it. The store is opened elsewhere after a delay of several months. I spend much of that time apologizing to those whom I told it would open in November.

Life Goes On Version: The buyer buys the place and simply starts taking the rent payments instead of the old owner. The property is an investment for them.

**sigh**

Ow.

I hurt.

Today my brother helped me sand the floors of the new store. Since floor resurfacing runs about $4,000 for a space my size I took his advice to rent the gear from Home Depot and spend a day sanding and finishing the floor.

Well, one out of two ain't all bad.

We met at Home Depot around 8:30, got the Drum sander, as well as an edging sander. Sandpaper for the same, as well as floor coating and the like. We took the stuff out to Manayunk, only to find we had left the drum sanding belts back at Home Depot. So James drove back down to South Philly, picked them up, while I tried to get stuff out of the way and take off some of the quarter moon molding from the wall bases. We started on the second floor, and the sheer thickness of the multiple layers of the old floor coatings, as well as the uneven surface of the older floors meant that the 60 grit sandpaper wasn't going to cut it. So Jim drove back down to the Home Depot again while I did a bit more work as much as I could. By the time he got back it was almost noon, and little had been done to show for it.

But we got started; its a slow laborious process where the drum sander strips a section about 6-8" wide on each pass, sometimes a second pass is needed as well. This takes time, and you should do passes in coarse sandpaper (to get the stuff up), one medium sandpaper (to get out the rough points) and one in finer sandpaper (to clean up completely). All the while we were fighting the uneven surface and resistant coats. The edges are done using the 'edge sander' which is another word for 'uncontrolled mechanical beast that weighs a ton and will give you massive back trouble'. Seriously, if I never use one of those machines ever again it will be too soon.The drum sander was better to operate but was no prize for ease of use since you were fighting it and it shook your hands a whole lot as well.

But we got the 2nd floor done in the middle afternoon and went down to start the work on the 1st floor. We realized that we weren't going to get around to any coating that day. So we concentrated on what we could do, which was get the sanding done so we could return the machine to Home Depot.

The first floor was easier, but a much larger area to work with. It took us the until around 7 PM to finish, and we actually skipped the fine sanding. We were both exhausted and beat by the machines. Once done, we packed everything up into Jim's car and drove ... to Home Depot.

We were both coating in sawdust, and despite wearing masks could taste the dust. I had a nice sickly grey pallor from the film of dust all over me.

Tomorrow, I will try to start the coating process. This requires vacuuming, the mopping, then mopping again, then finally putting stain on the floor. Some sanding may be needed, but I will be using the belt sander for touch areas that the drum and edge sander couldn't get.

Tired now.

Painty Paint Paint

Much paintin' going on at the new store. Many thanks to math5 and Violet-Amy for their much needed help.

Need shower.

New Contacts...

..might be causing this small headache. Good thing they are tryouts from the Optometrist.

But they are easier to get in the eyes!

A Productive Day

Today had me taking a look at the retail property with my Dad and the building inspector. Even though I will not be owning the property, the nature of Commercial rentals is such that you are pretty much responsible for almost everything in the place, so you want to see if it is sturdy before you go putting all your inventory in it.

My Dad and I took measurements and he went home to make a CAD model of the first floor. That was really fast but I think he wanted to do it quickly since he is leaving for Portugal this evening.

The inspector was great, he found some problems, but nothing major and I think they can be negotiated over for quick repairs. The structure is sound, as is much of the internal features. Some of the items are old (like the heater) but are not showing any serious signs of breaking down anytime soon.

The really good news is that I started sending emails to various local science folks and got an email back almost immediately from Derrick Pitts, the Chief Astronomer at the Franklin Institute. He's going to be calling tomorrow for a chat about the store.

On Monday I had my lawyer put in the paperwork for the business license, and on Tuesday I met with my new accountant who was very helpful about the things I need to set up the business. It looks like my plans to go with Intuit software was a wise one as the online service is easy for accounts to check on things without expensive on-location visits.

I take control of the property on Saturday and will likely either start working on the floor or painting the walls as soon as I can. Which depending on who helps me will mean I am doing the floor on Sunday or the walls on Monday. One or the other.

Fun fun fun!

I Has a Retail Space!

Woot! After much wrangling I have a retail space! Its 2800 square feet over two floors, with a backyard and a third floor for offices. All of this stuff is located in Manayunk. My Science Store is soon to be a reality! I have some pictures that I have been holding on to for some time that give you an idea of what the place looks like.

First the front. Taken from across the street.



A closer view, with the realtor in the doorway:



Here is the inside looking out:



This is looking to the back, from about midway (I didn't get a full shot from front to back, sorry to say.



Here is the impressive staircase leading to the second floor of the store:



Here is a shot of the second floor. You can see the ugly chandelier.



The place has a backyard, here is a shot from the small deck that comes out of the second floor, a good place to place a telescope for day viewing.



(note the old store sign and the astroturf previously used for testing putters. If you look closely you can see the golf holes.

The store has a good set of track lighting already in place:



This is a very good place and while I might have preferred a place downtown, the costs of location being around $12,000 per month kinda makes that untenable.

I sign the papers on Sunday, and barring a massive problem with discovered by the inspector I will be in on September 15th. Yay!

Time to Get Snipped

Zot is at the Vet. She's having 'the operation'.

Semi-Annual Long Ride

OK, I've written about these before, but since I have been double writing my blog to livejournal as well there might be some who don't know what I am talking about. Suffice it to say, twice a year (Memorial Day and Labor Day) I take my bike on a ride that is at least 40 miles long, just to be certain that I am still able to do it.

This year Labor day caught up with me and I almost forget that I had to ride this weekend. I elected to be rather boring and rode the Schuylkill Bike Path up to Valley Forge. Not really a hard effort, but it qualifies. I made several stops on the way for one reason or another, and I think that may be why I returned with a fair amount of energy. Things that happened on the way:

1) Had a nice conversation with a young lady at the 'rest stop' (Actually a gift shop that is on the bike path that wisely sells gatorade and snacks). I met up with her a couple times after that. Odd.

2) My seat position popped about three times, requiring a stop for repair.

3) I hit the back of a jeep on Main street in Manayunk. Not hard, mostly annoying. The car in front of the jeep stopped suddenly and my brakes couldn't stop me in time. The guy was cool about it and stopped to ask if I was OK (I was). I was mostly just annoyed with myself for being too close to the Jeep.

4) Chamois Cream is a godsend for long rides, but it doesn't keep your butt from getting tired. Seriously, my legs could ride forever, but my rear end gets annoyed with endurance runs. Don't laugh until you've tried a few. Thicker pads do not help the problem. At least the cream stops saddle sores.

I'm still uncertain about the retail space, BTW. There was a counter offer made with only one change... a minor one. I probably won't know until Tuesday if we are good to go.