This weekend, Michael and I headed to a nearby Home Depot for a fabulous experience with a clueless individual.   You see, we’ve got this project on the back burner of our minds, hoping to complete it soon or “get around to it”–You know how these types of projects go– it’s a domino effect of things to do, and frankly can be overwhelming when it comes down to getting the actual task completed.  So, there is a washer smack-dab in my kitchen.  To hide the eyesore, we plan to buy a compact washer and dryer, keep them in the kitchen, but enclose them in cabinets so they look relatively normal and avoid being such an eyesore.  Our first stop on our estimate-making journey was to stop at the counter tops section to get estimates for replacing our kitchen counters (which look like a gigantic cutting board.)  Let’s just say that I  have overly expensive taste, as I love the granite. Now granted, Granite is nice (sorry couldn’t help)…BUT, putting granite in our small home would be a dumb decision because installing them would about double any asking price we’d eventually need to sell our house and break even!  Okay, kidding, but it’s still WAY steep.  After making our way to the counters, we meandered up to the washer and dryer area where we were quickly pounced upon by a eager salesman.  I’d been helped there before, but by another individual.  I told the salesman what I was looking for–and since I’d been here before, I knew they had it available to be ordered.  He got out his little catalog books and started searching.  Soon, he was telling me that what I wanted didn’t exist.  I gently tried telling him that I’d been helped here before, and I know they exist AND in fact, at one time they had a model on display.  But no, of course, I was wrong.  I continued to insist there was a front-loading washer smaller than the one he was showing me, but he said that washers that small are not front-loading.  After a few minutes of getting nowhere, I thanked him for his help, and left (muttering mean things under my breath about salespeople who don’t know what they are talking about).  Returning home, and searching for the item on the Home Depot website, I quickly found exactly what I was looking for. Sigh. 

I couldn’t help but stewing about how useless some customer service people are– how they speak like they know everything, when in reality, they don’t know much. But then, the tables turned, and I thought about my job.  I’ve recently received a small promotion, and it requires much more technical knowledge and lingo that I’m still learning-  Realistically, it will take me about a year to feel comfortable in my current position and about the same time to gain the knowledge that I need to handle calls (and not ask for help on every call…).  I probably sound to my callers like the goofy Home Depot man sounded to me.  Definitely something for me to think about and to learn from: I want people to be gracious to me while I’m learning, so I should be the same to the clueless salesman.  But perhaps I can also learn from this experience by realizing, too, that it’s okay not not have all the answers and to humbly admit it when I don’t.

Life, Gotta Love It!