Biting the (Big, Orange) Hand...

I recently went to Home Depot, to pick up some parts for weatherizing my basement, and some replacement parts for my dorky homemade bicycle trailer. I was specifically looking for just six inches of braided rubber tubing:


However, when I got there, I was shocked to find that they have changed their setup--they no longer sell tubing by the foot. How dumb is that? In situations like this, I try to cause change (by complaining up the ladder), so instead of berating the salesdude, I sent the following to Corporate, via their website:

I was recently at your Somerville, MA store, trying to purchase a small amount of tubing (specifically, washing machine 5/8"; ID 3/4"; OD braided). However, I was told by the person running the plumbing aisle that you no longer sell tubing by the foot. I was very surprised at this decision, and consider it an exceptionally poor move. I don't know if you are instituting this throughout all of your stores--have you found that selling tubing by the foot results in greater theft losses, or too much time on customer service, or confusion at checkout? If possible, I would recommend you reconsider this decision. Thank you.

Surprisingly, I got email back the next day:

We are sorry that we were not able to meet your expectations. As a good will gesture, we would like to send you a $20 gift card to restore your faith in the Home Depot. We value you as a customer and want you to continue shopping with us.

And the day after that... wow, the promised $20 gift card:


As much as I despise Big Orange's politics, I have to say they have consistently had their stuff together. If you don't know about HD's politics, I was going to point at the BuyBlue website, but sadly, it appears to be defunct. They are massive donors to the Republican party... Lowes has much lower total political contributions, for reference.

I have heard the line, "Good product, good price, good service--choose two out of three." To be honest, I'm fine with half of one, all of the second, and little of the third--that's about what I'm looking for.

I don't expect a highly-trained sales staff, or a bunch of guys I can sit around and schmooz with. The guys working the aisles are sometimes really good, but I have run into woefully incompetent folks working checkout. So I'm fine with using the no-technophobes-allowed self-checkout when the cashiers aren't trained well enough to correctly enter a lookup code that I have copied down for them.

I know that "good product" is pushing it--many manufacturers (e.g., Delta Faucet) have their "Home Depot/big box" line, which is a cut below their usual product, because they know that the big boxes will totally burn them on pricing. But, for instance, a DeWalt 18V cordless drill is still a DeWalt 18V cordless drill.

However, after spending my undergrad years shopping at Somerville Lumber, I have to say that I reveled in the fact that Home Depot drove them out of business. Given the number of times that I asked for help at Slum Lum and got the response, "Oh, I don't work in lumbah," I am glad that economic Darwinism had its expected effect.

The local hardware store is good for some things, but the breadth and stock of Home Depot makes the two stores completely different animals--and I'm not about to go on two shopping runs. Lowe's is a possible alternative, except for the fact that there are three Home Depots closer than the nearest Lowe's, and I've been consistently disappointed with the stock at the latter ("Dammit, this product should be in this aisle somewhere!").

So I guess this has ended up as a cross between a rant and an apologia for the Big Orange Box. I'll admit I have a bit of a soft spot for Big Orange, due to how much of my life I spend there. For instance, on just about every work trip, we end up on an evening run there after work to buy supplies for the next day. Thus, I refer to the Hampton Inn or Holiday Inn Express we're staying at as, "Our home away from Home Depot." Go figure.