Open letter to IKEA

Dear IKEA,

It was 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, when I walked in to your store to purchase a Butcher Block oil-treatment for a kitchen counter top. First, let me express my experience with your product. On the metal container of the product there is a small round-shaped booklet, which when you open is supposed to be the instructions, but instead, it becomes a three feet long ribbon with small two sentence instructions written in many languages. I don’t mind that it is written in so many languages, but what I really need is English; for God’s sake we already have non-English speakers in California, so please don’t make our immigrants lazy enough to avoid learning English. One of those “instructions” is “apply every six months”. However, in reality I have to apply the solution every two months, because its content is like a mixture of water and some baby food without the vitamins. It costs me little over five bucks to buy it and waste it all on your so-called Beech counter top, which doesn’t look anything like German Beech, but more like a Chinese Bamboo!

Anyway! I am still happy with it, so I let it go. But what I am unhappy about is the shopping at Ikea! First, when you enter the store, there are driving signs all over the floor. Where do you think I am? Disneyland? Arrows that give direction to nowhere! It is like a labyrinth with encrypted signs! There was a moment when I was making several circles over one department and when I finally gave up the escape, I approached to your “customer service representative”.

“Excuse me Sir…” I asked him with curiosity and started to find out what his name was on his badge.
“Yes?” Replied he while typing in something on the computer.
“I am trying to escape your labyrinth”, I told him jokingly.
“I am afraid I cannot help you with that. Please ask he customer service department, which is located on the first floor”, he replied.

Then I finally understood, that there is only one way to escape. It is to use the ancient method, by placing things on the ways that I have passed through. It really worked out! Now that I am safely escaped, and writing this letter, I wanted to apologize for making mess by misplacing items on the ways that I have passed through. But what my message is really about is that IKEA stores are not designed to American Standards. We, the people who live in the United States, are busy enough to not waste a single minute of our time by trying to escape. My request, or shall I say proposed solution for this issue is very simple. If you can not change the layout of your store interior, then please add all items in your website that can be available for the On-line User. I think that way I can save my time by buying the product quicker and not waste it trying to escape the labyrinth of the IKEA.

Sincerely,

Hakob Gevorgian