Imagine, if you will, that you’ve just come home from you favourite swedish, self assembly, furniture megastore. You bring the carton inside, (as well as some coasters, a few pillows and 100 pack of tea light candles) and open it up. You start assembling, your wife watching adoringly as you masterfully work you way around the new piece of furniture without needing to swap any parts around. You come to the legs (or other vital component) and find one is missing.
You re-read the instructions to find that it’s not a mistake. It’s been left out on purpose. Instead there’s a note saying that the leg will be “delivered over the next 12 months in small parts that you will have to assemble without further instruction Lycka till och njut*”
You’re annoyed. You were expecting to use the bookcase/table/Selje Bedside Table straight away. You went through all the effort to find it. Drove across town to get it, even said no to a few nights out to afford it and now – it’s pretty much useless. Sure it looks lovely, until you try and do ANYTHING WITH IT…. LIKE SLEEP FOR MORE THAN 40 MINUTES AT A TIME!! (oops – slipped out of my clever analogy for a second there).
You ring up and complain but the Swedish furniture megastore is smarter than you. As you leave the store dizzy with excitement about you knew purchase, thinking about the time you’ll have to play with it, sit quietly adoring it, they ask you to tick a little box at the bottom of the receipt confirming that you’re happy to give up any rights to a refund, especially in the case of “partially complete, broken or defective products”
You ring up the support desk, desperate for help. The person on the end of the phone is lovely but has nothing to say that can actually help. “Have you tried using other things to use as a leg until the new pieces arrive?” or “It’s quite normal to have to wait for some parts to turn up later on” or the frustrating “Lot’s of parents people have been in a similar situation to you, don’t worry, in 12 months ors so all the pieces would have arrived and you look back on this and laugh”
You deflate. Your once adoring wife has changed into clothes more appropriate for sitting on a couch, waiting for the parts to arrive. She’s also over answering the front door 6-8 times per day hoping that it’s the part being delivered to only find out that it’s different parts that we never even knew we were missing.
You look at each other and wonder what the hell you’ve just done when out of the corner of your eye you spot the Billy book case you bought 2.5 years ago on the other side of the room. The one that started as a single set of shelves and now covers most of the wall. That has drawers and cupboard doors with soft-close latches and you know at that moment, at that one split second… that this won’t be the last thing you buy from ikea.
So – if IKEA made babies would you have tried to take your’s back? Was your’s broken or did all the parts arrive on time?
Sharing with Jess over at EssentiallyJess.com for I Blog on Tuesday
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the illiterate infant 
I wanted to take mine back on the 2nd day we got him home! We had bulk rubbish pick up that same week & the pile nearly got added to. Slept in hospital, oh so beautiful look at him sleeping, get home NO SLEEPING! Breastfeeding every 2 to 3 hours for an hour at a time aargh. 2 years later & I still wish there was a bloody manual at times. Sleeping better though (mostly)
Ahh Karen – the old bulk rubbish pick up trick!
The Jakk entertainment unit I purchased 10 years has recently grown out of all it’s clothes – I mean compartments – at once and now nothing fits! This unit has also started to SMELL when it does physical activity and forgets to put it’s pine-scented furniture freshener on.
The thing is I am STILL getting parts for this unit on a weekly basis – how can I stop this? What is the helpdesk number again. I’ll even learn Swedish FFS!
Took us 11 days to get it out of the box!
Morning Kev,
Another great post. I love your style, homes.
How do you do the ‘read more of this post’?
It’s a great way to drive traffic. Good thinking.
D
Sent from my iPhone
Beatch! Thanks for the ups G. Are you a WordPress user?
Great post again Kev!
As for the “read more” link if you’re using WordPress just hit “Alt + Shift + T” where you want the read more link to appear in your post.
As a pregnant mum of 2 very noisy bookshelves already, I’m starting to wondering if it’s too late to ask for a refund on all 3. Yet to receive all parts. Hilarious post!
Very clever, Kev. Made me chuckle.
tee hee hee. 🙂
I have a Billy book case. In fact, I have HALF OF IKEA.
Hardly the point though is it? I’m sorry, what were we talking about?
*Single me has the attention span of a goldfish.
Haha, good read. Wouldn’t have taken them back, but would have asked for clearer instructions. And paid extra for the home delivery and assembly.
I wouldn’t be able to take them back but maybe they could of taken retraining when it came to sleeping.
I still have days were I want to take mine back and yell at the customer service desk “this does not match the description on the packet!!!!”. But then the bloody bookshelf smiles at me and all is right with the world again!
Ha! That is so very true.
I always stop at the Swedish Meatballs and never get any further into the store. Until it is time to go home and then have to fight the maze to find the exit.
Pretty poor (and frustrating) service.
Loaf in Ikea – parenting nightmare #75446
I remember wondering if mine (the eldest) was broken… but that wasn’t until he six. Guess that warranty would be well and truly kaplunkt by then though.
Thankfully he survived… if somewhat imperfectly. *phew*
oh the trouble with Ikea is complex isn’t it? You walk in wanting one thing and walk out with something you didn’t even know you needed?
The meatballs get me every time – turns out you gain a bit of weight with them – so after two visits – we never went back 😉
Josefa from #teamIBOT
They DO make babies. They are either white or black – floppy – fit in that little IKEA cot and don’t say a word. I paid for one – if I can buy one like that I figured why not.
Funny post. I love Ikea, it is my favourite store. Sadly more often these days it is more window shopping than buying. I do find the paths confusing and a bit frustrating. I love the idea rooms, and have wonderful dreams of one day having an Ikea home. But I don’t think my hubby would agree though. Talking about babies and Ikea in the same sentence……after waiting the 6 week deadline of no driving after my c-section when I had my twins I was going stir crazy and wanted to visit my fav store. Well long story short I didn’t last as long as I had envisaged, and needed to go home as I was exhausted after 2 hours. Of course still in baby brain mode, I put my twins in the car first, folded up the double pram in the boot and drove off, leaving the baby bag in the Ikea carpark. The bag wasn’t an average looking baby bag, as it was just a black gym bag that could fit two lots of baby stuff in. I later found out when an Ikea member first found it he thought it was bomb (the store was brand new)! And it took forever to get a brave enough staff member to open it up. I stressed out when I got home cause I couldn’t find it, rang the store and I could hear multiple people laughing in the background. It was so embarassing picking it up the next day! I nearly set off a major incident at Ikea.
Hi Michelle – welcome to the Illiterate Infant.
That story is hilarious – there’s a post in that!
I’ve never ever been to IKEA.
But I do wish the kids came with warranties. I could have done with some repairs over the past 18 years or so lol
MC
#TeamIBOT
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Now I’m scared – I have my first purchase from IKEA scheduled for delivery in August – hoping it comes with an instruction manual! 😦