@Front_Towards_Enemy: 9 times out of 10, they have one checkout person manning the self-checkouts, twiddling their thumbs, begging people walking by to use them, no other lanes open, and EVERYBODY in line at customer service.

MOVE the bored self-checkout person to a regular lane, to get people out of the customer service lane.

CLOSE DOWN the self checkouts when the store is not very busy. People only use them as another option when the checkout lines are really long.

So why is it that I can seldom find what I'm looking for? Here are examples from the last few weeks:

* 5-gallon water storage container
* A 12" x 24" plate of 1/4" steel
* A pipe cutter suitable for 1.5" diameter steel pipe
* A simple oscillating floor fan
* A vented wall-mount propane heater

None of these are particularly exotic (especially the fan). All of them are items I'd expect to find at a home improvement store. And yet somehow in their billion square foot building, which has every size and variety of rake I can imagine, these basic items are nowhere to be found.

I love how the apron gives this guy the "everyman" touch. It makes him look like he is almost in touch with the blue collar folks in his company.

I hear that. It's been pulling teeth to get my wife to come with me into a HD store, even when we're picking out paint colors or bathroom fixtures or something else that requires her opinion. If I ever have to ask a Sales Associate a question, she just sighs and goes to browse the magazine stand because she knows that interaction is going to take forever.

Mistyped. I meant to say I found a store online, saw they had snow throwers, and then went there to buy one.

And who doesn't have a problem with Home Depot?

More than once I've gone into a HD to get something but ended up leaving without buying. One time I was headed out and was asked, "Did you find what you were looking for?" Foolishly, I answered the question by saying no, and telling the person what I was trying to find. That cause an eruption of discussion among a bunch of employees to find it. I spent another 10 minutes being sent down various aisles until I finally said I'd had enough and was leaving.

I've done most of my hardware shopping since then at a local hardware store.

I've also read stories in the media about how intimidating it is to shop in HD, and how there are lots of other people who are eventually discouraged enough to leave without buying anything. I've also read that HD claims to know this and wants to do something about it ... but curiously, they refuse actually to DO anything to improve the situation other than just to SAY they know it's a problem.

I can only assume, then, that HD's CEO actually WANTS his stores to be run like Byzantine labyrinths. Which is why I assume this complaint will fall on deaf ears.

A secondary beef with HD is that they sell stuff half a year in advance and never in-season. Last year on December 30 in fact, I looked there for a snow thrower. I was driving past the place at the time and decided to price them. Snow throwers would not be hard to find, they're always in the seasonal section, and displayed in the open, so my usual reason for avoiding HD didn't apply, in this case.

I found out that they didn't have any left. But in the place where they had been, until about a week before, were a bunch of gas grills.

That's right, gas grills. In Connecticut. On December 30, with most of the winter still ahead.

I asked an employee if they would be getting in any snow throwers, but was told no, they'd sold the last of them and that was it. I said, "Does that make any sense to you?" and got a blank stare in response. I don't know if the guy didn't understand me, or if he did, but just wouldn't say that the policy didn't make any sense to him.

So I went online, bought a snow thrower from a different store. They had lots of them left, and the employees there thought it hysterically funny that HD refused to sell any more. I can only assume this threw a lot of business their way, and cost HD some in the process. Again, I can only assume that HD and its CEO know that December 30 is far too early in the winter to stop selling snow throwers in New England ... but they do it anyway.

Can you imagine running a mega chain store with such crappy service from coast to coast that the only way for a lot of people to get what they want is to have to contact the CEO?

This should be setting off alarm bells way lower that the executive suite.

Poor Chrysler is now finding out about Hank Nardelli's managerial talents...

There are actually quite a few ways to reach us with a consumer concern, a question, or to provide feedback:

Twitter: @homedepot
email: sarah_care@homedepot.com

Both methods reach me, and a couple people in our customer service team who are eager to help you.

Thanks!
Sarah, Home Depot Communications
sarah_care@homedepot.com

So if you are a HD employee in say, Cherry Hill, NJ, and you see some people shoplifting from the sotire, is it OK yet to call the cops on them, or heaven fobid, oh, I don't know ... try to stop them?

After the Midwest City, OK incident a few years ago, you can't be too sure.

One email to Frank Blake and within two hours I had a much kinder rep calling me to set up an estimate, plus calls from local store and district managers.

Because of that response, plus the no interest/no payments for 1 year offer, we went with them to do the work, which was a mixed bag.

The actual workmanship was fine, but the moment we moved out of the sphere of influence of the good estimator we were put in touch with, coordination completely fell apart. Our Project Coordinator never followed through on anything without us hounding her. Another estimator who couldn't spell, let alone use email, got involved and bunged up some stuff. It was a huge hassle to get everything back under the purview of the good estimator.

So Home Depot is a mixed bag. As a larger company, they have financing options that smaller companies just can't match, but the trade-off there is a byzantine system of vaguely competent people you have to navigate in order to reach someone with half a clue.

Ha, yeah really? What are you guys going to talk about? The sales going on at Home Depot.