I had another interesting "retail" experience last week on Monday. It was forecast to be freezing temps all week except Monday was going up to 40. I was doing work for a customer prepping his house to listed for sale in a couple weeks. Monday was "the day" to take care of an area of foundation parging that was loose and coming off.
I stop by the nearest Home Depot for a couple bags of Portland cement on my way there. Dump a bag in the mortar pan and it was in clumps from being mishandled... allowed to get wet. No good! I hurry up and stick the bag in the Suburban with the full bag and rush back over to Home Depot to return, grab a cart, and roll it up to customer service. The girl says "We can't accept an empty bag for a return". That I did not need to be hearing, "You sure can", and I explained the content was faulty and in my mortar pan yet to be disposed of. She gets the other gal involved,"Where's the product? You can't just return an empty bag". I was under the gun to get back ASAP to do this work and let the last warmth of the week from that afternoon sunshine be getting on my completed parge job like now. I said, "Look. This ain't no food store and that ain't no empty bag of potato chips. I am a professional contractor and this is a building supply business. Your product is defective, unsellable, and I am losing valuable time to complete the work I am committed to get done today. I need this returned so I can buy something else and get back to do just that!". Eyebrows raised all around, a manager was brought over, and he instructed them on how to go about taking a return. I thanked him and said time was of the essence and shoveling the bad product into the bag was not an option. He said "No. We wouldn't want that in here anyway" and I replied "I wouldn't think so".
Those places take returns for all sorts of stupid reasons including "I changed my mind" from home owners without question. They were telling the wrong guy on the wrong day "No". They are so big and so focused on marketing to everyone and anyone they forget they stepped into the age old slot of supplier of building product to (gnarly
) professional contractors making their livelihoods who buy by the truckload. I avoid them all I can, but can't shoot myself in the foot over my feelings toward them.