Yes, that’s right. You either like it or you hate it!
Personally I am happy going to IKEA, so long as it’s no more than once a year. It’s not the products I resent; it’s the IKEA experience I detest. The slow and laborious circumnavigation of a torturous route strewn with dawdlers, kiddies, prams and buggies when all you want is the storage solutions. There is no direct ‘Advance to Go’.
So you find the item you came for, carefully write down the product code and head for the warehouse to find the flat pack. Only it’s not where it should be, there’s no one to ask and the only way to check you have written down the right number is to go back through the store. But that means battling your way back to the beginning to throw a double six before once more attempting to skip down the IKEA yellow brick road.
You now realise you have been in the store so long you need a break, sustenance in the form of coffee and meatballs. Where’s the restaurant? It’s at the end, the wrong end to where you are now! No, I don’t like the IKEA experience. And I am not alone.
The other day a friend of mine won the IKEA game hands down, hoist them with their own petard. She had gone to resolve a storage solution in her kitchen larder. A unit (actually bought a few days earlier from IKEA, and a whole story in itself!) had a shelf underneath and if kitted out with some new boxes or suchlike would just finish it off. She hunted high and low, here, there and everywhere but just couldn’t quite find the right size of box. Then she espied it. The perfect solution. Long narrow storage cardboard boxes with a cut down front so you could see the contents. The only slight problem was the boxes in question were actually full of multi-packs of batteries. They weren’t an IKEA storage solution product at all. Not perturbed in the slightest she emptied a few and asked an assistant if she could take the empty boxes. How could he refuse and best of all, they were free!
Care for a taste of Marmite now? You might just like it after all.
Now why does this sound so familiar .. ha ha ! Jolly good for your friend .. perhaps since Ikea rhymes with idea maybe they could hire your friend to come up with more of her innovations . Loved this … thanks for sharing it .
A trip to IKEA
I liked your idea
So it’s crystal clear
Please persevere
Whisper more in my ear
Then together my dear
We’ll write more cheer
You’re hired!