I've been trying to think of the perfect literary work to describe what Andrew and I have been through with our latest household project. The Trial comes to mind.

One thing is for certain, if Existentialists like Kafka and Beckett were alive today, they would be setting their works in IKEA… oh, and they wouldn't be fiction.

Two weekends ago, Andrew and I went to IKEA on a mission - find a closet.

Andrew and I actually 'inherited' the closet we've been using from the previous tenants. It's a white pressboard number on which two of the three drawers don't work, the bar that our clothes hang on sags and the whole structure lists to one side.

It's also way too small. Half of Andrew's clothes are living on a rack in the spare bedroom and half of mine are in a heap at the bottom of the closet. It did the job four the past two years, and it was free, but it's time to move on.

The IKEA closet of my dreams has been bookmarked in my catalogue for quite some time now so it wasn't a difficult choice. I had even checked the availability of the closet on the IKEA website the night before and everything was supposedly in stock.

We went to the 'closet help desk' and told the clerk what we wanted. Unfortunately the baskets that I wanted for my sweaters weren't in stock but she gave us the aisle numbers for the rest of the parts.

When we arrived at the aisle for the closet and doors – The doors were there. The closet was not.

We went to the warehouse information desk. The clerk there informed us that they had a shipment arriving tomorrow morning. Great, just what we had hoped to avoid – IKEA on Saturday… if only we knew the worst.

We had to make a trip to Antwerp on Saturday so we thought we would be smart and go to the IKEA there to pick up the missing baskets. We thought we were so smart…

First off, getting to the Antwerp IKEA involves some interesting Belgian road trickery that involves driving by the store about 8 times without actually being able to get to it, then diving across 47 lanes of traffic and into the tiniest parking lot in the free world.

By the time we made it into the store, we were already more than slightly frazzled. We asked the clerk for the baskets and amazingly, they were in stock.

We arrived back at the house at 7pm and dropped off our purchases. Andrew was determined to see the closet fiasco through to the end. So, we jumped back in the car and headed over to our IKEA to pick it up. We bypassed the store and walked into the warehouse - Still no closet. We went back to the info desk. Andrew put on his serious face.

He explained that we had been told that more closets would arrive today and we had made a special trip to pick it up. Apparently 10 closets had arrived that morning and 10 were sold before we got there. There would be more arriving Monday morning.

Fed up, Andrew decided to go to the customer service department and file a complaint. We waited, and waited and waited, until finally our number was called. Andrew explained our saga and how we had been told repeatedly that the parts we needed were available. I chimed in that the website had also said the closet was in stock.

The clerk looked at us with a mixture of pity and fatigue. 'Well the website isn't updated that regularly,' he explained as if talking to a very small and slightly dim child. Well, obviously not…

Andrew asked if they could simply hold the parts we need when they come in on Monday. Not possible. He did write up our formal complaint however and spoke to one of his higher-ups to see what they could do for us.

It amounted to a big fat nothing – they gave us a copy of the written complaint and told us that the next time we were in the store to get the closet we could be refunded for mileage. We live less that 5 km away from the Zaventem IKEA.

If they had offered to pay for the minutes wasted in the store, we'd have a free closet.

At noon on the following Saturday, Andrew called the IKEA warehouse as instructed by our helpful customer service representative. After a bit of fuss and ten minutes on hold, they agreed to hold two closet bodies for us.

After running a few errands, we made it to the warehouse. Andrew dutifully stood in line at the info desk, only to be told to go to a different part of the warehouse. I waited on a bench, resting my feet, which were stupidly wearing cute (read as impractical) boots. After several minutes, I saw Andrew heading back to the info counter, trailing behind yet another IKEA employee. With a shell-shocked look on his face, he told me they couldn't find our order.

I jumped up and marched over to the counter. After some banter back and for between the two employees in Dutch, and lots of pointing to the computer screen and shaking of heads, the younger of the two looked up and said, "There seems to be a problem with your order."

Half laughing, half freaking out (in a polite Canadian sort of way) I replied "There has been a whole week's worth of problems with my order."

He didn't bat an eyelash at my comment and proceeded to tell me that whoever had taken the order had failed to set it aside and the closets were sold out… again… but, he added helpfully, there would be another shipment arriving on Monday.

I thought Andrew's head might explode, but he calmly asked for the name of the manager of the customer service department and he very deliberately strode to the service desk.

Back in customer service purgatory, we watched the numbers slowly be served at only two of seven counters. I idly wondered what I had done to anger the gods so much that they would send me here twice in one week. Finally our number was called.

Andrew immediately asked to speak to the manager. After fifteen minutes of calls, he was finally rounded-up and he didn't look too impressed to see us.

Andrew explained our story – the entire story. Without so much as an apology, the manager proceeded to tell us that there was nothing he could do for us if the item was out of stock.

Andrew, with amazing calm, informed the manager that he realised there was no way we could have the closet today, but as soon as they arrived back in the store, he wanted them delivered to our house free of charge.

Surprisingly, the manager agreed that this would be an acceptable solution. However, instead of apologising for our frustration and wasted weekends, he actually scolded Andrew for not taking down the name of the customer service person he had spoken to that morning. Bad, bad customer for trusting that your order would be attended to…

When the manager left, the original representative started to type up our complaint. While he was tapping away at his computer he paused and gave a puzzled look. "My computer is showing 33 of those items in stock," he said. He had a feeling our missing items were located upstairs in the warehouse, however they could not be accessed while there were customers in the store, for safety reasons.

He promised to call us on Monday and if the missing closets were found, he vowed to deliver them himself Monday evening.

Andrew actually received a call on Monday, as promised, and Monday evening we had our closets… well half of our closets. Because IKEA sells everything separately, we still had no closet doors.

So Andrew made a final trip after work on Tuesday and picked up the doors and a new bureau for himself.

I figured we knock them all together and have clothes hanging in them the next day…

At 11:30pm we called it a night. We had one closet base together… without doors. We were exhausted, and um, slightly cranky (There might have been a bit of name calling).

Wednesday night we were driven. We worked until after midnight. There were some not so nice words uttered, a minor injury or two and a couple of sore backs but we finally have closets! I spent the following morning organizing and putting everything neatly away.

Now that everything is finally resolved, I've learned two valuable lessons: 1) Persistence pays off (eventually) and 2) If you really, really hate someone – send them to IKEA on a Saturday… and ask them to pick up a closet.

2 February 2007

Cheese Web

© Alison Cornford-Matheson