Hell on Earth... X2

My close friends will know how much I hate IKEA. While I love the design concept and the whole idea of making the world feel like they're all good DIY'ers because they were able to assemble a table or some shelving. You can't deny that IKEA furnishings do look okay.

However, the shopping experience is not.

I think the first time I went into an IKEA store was in Rhodes, here in Sydney. I was totally lost. I was bamboozled with so much crap and clutter around the store that I didn't know where to look. Eventually after I did find what I wanted, it turned out wasn't in stock.

So, not wanting to leave empty handed after the drive there, the effort of finding parking and manoeuvring my way around the mouse maze shaped shop. I finally found a sales clerk who could help me. I made my mind up on a product and asked if I could buy it.

Her condescending laugh started off the sentence that went something along the lines of "You're an IKEA virgin aren't you?"

My reply was "Why? Is there a Mile High club here too?"

She didn't quite get it, and proceeded to tell me that I find the item I want, write down the product location for the warehouse and go pick up the item from there.

45 minutes later, I found the warehouse. It was down some stairs, as if it isn't part of the same shop. Once in the "warehouse" I walked around some more only to be greeted with kitchenware, more products, clutter and crap.

Eventually I hit the warehouse part. I found my isle easy, found my item easy. But how was I suppose to get my 2mX1m table top to the checkouts. I looked around for a trolley half expecting to see a nice big trolley I could cart my nice big furniture on, to the checkout and to the car. All I found were shopping trolleys you find at the grocery shop like Woolies.

"That won't do", I told myself and went looking for a better trolley. The best I found was a good hand operated pallet jack. Perfect!

I grabbed it, put my table on it on my own and proceeded to the checkouts. I got stopped by a staff member who told me that this trolley is only for staff. So I motioned he push the trolley to the checkout for me. He didn't want to be part of the fun. So I moved on, with him threatening to call security.

I laughed while walking away, because lets face it, security hasn't ever stopped me in the past.

Getting to the checkouts was a mini-hell within hell itself. Waiting in a queue for 30 minutes. I was greeted by security who asked me nicely to please not use the pallet jack as a trolley. I retorted with "When IKEA make trolleys big enough to carry their furniture, I'll stop using this. When staff are a bit more accommodating and helpful, I'll stop using this."

He repeated the request. I repeated the response. He repeated the request, and I said "Look, we can do this all day. I planned on waiting in line that long anyway. So you can either help me with this to my car, provide me with a trolley suitable enough to safely transport this to my car, or you go away and leave me alone to do it myself, which is what I have been doing before you came along."

At this stage, I'm starting to draw attention from the crowd. A couple more security guards have turned up, no doubt because I look like the violent type. In the end, while negotiating with rent-a-cop. I got the checkout chick to scan my items, pay her, grab my receipt and continue walking to my car.

Security stopped bugging me and I got into the elevator, went down to my parking level and got to my car.

I decided I was too tired by this stage and much like the helpful staff at Hell on Earth, I couldn't be bothered taking back the pallet jack. The least I could do was to place the trolley in the trolley return bay. After that, I got back to my car and drove off, vowing never to enter that place again.

And now, even better news about IKEA. They're opening up an even bigger store. A massive Ikea store. It is to be built on the site of an old rubbish tip at Tempe, in Sydney's inner west. The 37,000 square metre outlet will have a one-way shopping aisle 2.5 kilometres long and stocked with about 10,000 different products. parking will be provided for only 2000 cars.

This is approximately twice the size of the Rhodes store that opened in 2004. Since IKEA closed its Moore Park store in 2005, The Moore Park Supa Centre has really struggled to stay in business. This, with the likes of Domayne and Bing Lee down the road will put the final nail in the coffin for the not so super centre. I guess while IKEA is promoting the idea of creating jobs, it is not taking notice of the shops that will eventually shut their doors and leave hundreds of others unemployed.

While the positive side of this is that it will boost our economy by providing more jobs as well as more spending, something Kevin Rudd is popular with. Though I don't see how the economy will benefit from our money going into a Swedish company. Unluckily it will also provide a great deal more traffic in that part of town that is already congested thanks to a dismal, yet main arterial road of 2 lanes (sometimes three) otherwise known as Princess Highway. Apart from that, there really isn't much more at Tempe apart from Tempe Tyres and the Golf driving range behind it. You don't go to Tempe unless you want some fully sick wheels for your car.

I guess another positive to this is that Tempe might come back to life again. Though I'd imagine the small pass-thru town is not going to be able to cope with the growth so much.

The trendies who live in the surrounding area such as Alexandria will love having an IKEA near them and it will make them feel good that they went out to buy a flat packed piece of cheap wood parts to make themselves a coffee table or entertainment unit.

So, to sum up what we've got here is that you have a massive shop built on a rubbish heap. You're providing work to unemployed people you made unemployed because you took business away from another business centre, and yet the profits go overseas. You get a leasurely 2.5km walk every time you step foot in the door and there's no get out of jail free card either. I wonder what would happen in a fire? After all, it is Hell on Earth.