Don't worry, Mary's mom. They treat most of their customers that way. Even us men.

Wowzers I have the exact opposite issue here in Tampa. The Lowes around me are usually dead and I have people stalking me asking to help me find things while at Home Depot I can't get a single question answered.

I'm surprised that she has never experienced this before.
Customer service is often a thing of the past at most retailers.

Where is Mary's Mom? I have installed at least three mailboxes, and don't mind going over to help install a new one. Probably go a lot easier and w/less complaints than when I put my Mom's in...

I get this all the time in stores. It's certainly not unique to women in Lowes...

Same thing happened to me at the Chula Vista, CA Lowes. Got in there at about 6 PM PST one late afternoon looking for some appliances, got up to the customer service counter and asked for someone to help me. They said to go the appliance section of the store and that somebody was going to be there in a few minutes. 30 minutes passed and nobody came.

Walked back to the customer service counter and asked for help again. They said to wait there for somebody to come. 20 more minutes passed and nothing. I asked for a supervisor and the lady there was clueless. When I asked why nobody was helping me all of them at customer service just walked around and ignored me ! including the supervisor. It was clear they didn't want my business so I left and purchased my appliances at Home Depot.

When I got to Home Depot somebody came up and helped me without me having to ask.

Lowes lost 1200.00 that day (Refrigerator purchase).

Lowes was best in my mind but their service has gone down the toilet recently and I am not going back.

Home Depot has been working very hard in the past few months to have lots of people around to help you. In fact there are almost TOO many people, if you're the kind of person that knows what they want and doesn't want to be hassled. At any rate, I predict she will get satisfaction at HD.

i hope she's not expecting anything different from Home Depot. At either of these stores, unless you happen to get the 1 in 10 employees that gives a crap, you'll never get any help. That's why the demise of the actual hardware store is such an unfortunate situation. If you go to some local hardware stores, they'll not only give you plenty of time and answers, sometimes the guy will come over after the store closes and help you install. Crappy customer service is a biproduct of corporate ownership(of course so are the low prices which is why these places are driving real hardware stores out of business).

Way to make a nice lady cry, Lowe's!

This is why Ace and True Value can exist. While they can't always compete on price, they offer help and service that you just can't get at the large hardware stores.

It's nice to be able to get in and out of a store in 5 minutes, instead of 5 minutes just to get from the entrance to the plumbing aisle.

She would have been better off to go to a local hardware type store. Even Ace stores are independently owned. They typically work harder on the customer service because of the competition of the big box stores.

@yagisencho: Agreed. Except the "man" part, I have no basis for fielding that bit. If I go into Lowe's I need to know exactly what I need and where to find it or I go somewhere else.

Basically, the only ones being helped were men. The women with them (the "couples") were probably ignored as well.

:(

However, I get this in every videogame/home improvement/weapon/etc store I go in.

My brother started at lowes not to lon ago so this doesnt surprise me, and example of something he has told me:

"people come up to me all the time asking where stuff is and I just tell them 'I dont know, Im a cashier'" then he laughed. It sucked because I have been the confused guy in home depot before

Really, this is getting tough. I stopped going to Home Depot because their service got so bad - now it's swung back the other way?

OK... who lives near enough to Mary's Mom to go over and make this right for her?

Have any of you folks seen the Canadian home improvement buy Mike Holms? When he see's crap and mistakes and people being taken advantage of... well he does something about it. Up here lots of us are just like him and when we hear about this sort of corporate idiocy we do something about it. We are good neighbours and don't sit on our hands thinking some one else should do something.

So come on... who can help Mary's Mom with her mailbox? Maybe a hours actual work followed by weeks of knowing you make a difference.

@yagisencho:

Yup. Gender is irrelevant to Lowe's employees. I too was ignored this past weekend. Went across the parking lot to HD, and was promptly asked if i needed help by multiple orange aprons. It was also cheaper

Wait a sec here...she's mad that she was treated in a stereotypical way by a hardware store...so she responded by tucking tail and running to cry in their parking lot?

Come on, now. That's the stuff bad sitcoms are made of.

@harlock_JDS: I get it all the time when I go to any auto parts store to buy oil and an oil filter for my car every few months (I change my own oil). I always get a "Are you sure that's the right filter for your car?" or "Are you sure that's the kind of oil you should be using?" My dad taught me how to change the oil in a car when I was 10. I may have ovaries, but I definitely know what I'm doing here auto parts store guy.

Store staff either seem to be too aggressive or flat-out indifferent. Which is why I am so thrilled when I encounter someone who falls into the happy medium.

However, why didn't her mom go and ask for help again? This has happened to me, and sometimes it's either that the employee never told another staffer help was needed. And while she may have looked lost, I wouldn't count on a staffer figuring that out and approaching her.

Sometimes you just have to speak up.

I once asked the PAINT CLERK at Lowes if they had Krylon Fusion in stock. Krylon, you may recognize, is a well known paint company. Krylon Fusion is their line of all purpose paints, mostly advertised for their ability to paint on plastics.

He told me it was on some aisle next to the "other rust removers."

@WhiteGuyOnWebCam_GitEmSteveDave: Tell me about it...the only time my mom invites me over it's because she needs computer help. She is also one of the most impatient customer's I've ever had to service.

"Why does it take so long to load?"
"You have a lot of stuff set to load on startup...mainly AOL, you really should remove that."
"No, I like AOL"
"If you don't remove it, it won't be fast"
"You should make it fast without removing AOL"

It's like that simpsons where skinner's mom was at the grocery store and told the bagger to put all her groceries in the same bag...but make sure the bag isn't heavy.

Did she at any point ask any of the employees for help? Obviously whomever was at the customer service desk dropped the ball!

I know it's annoying but sometimes you have to show a little extra intitiative.

Maybe they were just worried about providing hyper-customer service and decided to hold back.

most of the locals aren't much better, at least around me anyway. And you can't honestly expect every employee in the store to know everything about every product and department. They don't even know you need help unless you ask them. I'm actually disappointed in the consumerist for posting an exagerated sob story like this, that's mostly the fault of the own customer.

@GreatWhiteNorth: ...by the way I have had similar experiences in Home Depot... on a couple of occasions I have resorted to abandoning carts and dollies full of materials at the checkout because I couldn't get suitable assistance to find special items or complete the purchase.

Does anyone else think most stores need to rethink the self checkout strategy they have been forcing on us? I avoid it like the plague.

@dreamsneverend: I stopped going to Home Depot after I was there picking up some light bulbs and two employees were having a rather loud discussion about their respective paroles and the crimes that they committed. Now, I'm all for hiring ex-cons but the complete lack of discretion is what drove me out. It was completely indicative of what Bob Nardelli did to the company.

Did Mary's mom *ask* for help? She should have asked one of those zombie employees for help-- repeatedly if necessary-- instead of getting upset. Unfortunately, she took this slight personally when employees at pretty much all stores treat people this way. She's got to learn to stand up for herself, now more than ever. And *usually* the zombies are willing to help when asked. They just don't take the initiative themselves to find out if the customers need help (which is a-okay with me, because I hate being accosted by employees before I have a chance to look around for myself).

@econobiker: Agreed. I always use Ace or our local store. The last time I was in a man took a few minutes to talk plastic funnels. A 69 cent sale.

My boyfriend goes to HD a lot. If I tag along, it's mostly for the hot dogs.

@Axel Aguado: /agree

A few things:
1) At my local Home Depot she would have had at least 3 people helping her. They really seem to be making an effort to provide service. I'm guessing that they have realized that having people walk out of your store empty handed because they can't get anyone knowledgable to help them is a BAD THING.
2) I would love to see Ace and True Value and mom and pop hardware stores make a BIG come back due to the crappy service people receive at Lowes and HD. The two chains stayed small, focused on service and seem to have weathered the worst that the big box stores could dish out.

:( I totally understand. It's hard to try to get people to help you (again) when you're on the verge of tears.

Why do we beg companies to take our money? I had a similar experience over the weekend.

Every business has its competitors. If one business doesn't want my money, I'll go someplace that does.

I'm sorry, am I missing something here? Couldn't she have been a bit assertive and used the words, "Excuse me?" I've been to both Lowes and Home Depot and when those words are used, I've never been ignored. Also, if the guy I happen to stop doesn't have the answer, they are usually gracious enough to call upon their colleague who does know the answer to my question. Sorry, I don't see the problem here.

"I even noticed that the employee was only talking to the man in one couple"

My mom wanted a deck built around our my parents' house. She had the type of brain where she'd figure every detail out. She also could draw really well. She drew out the plans for the entire deck, including every piece of wood and nail and all measurements. Those plans had everything the builder needed.

So the builder came out and started looking over the plans. Of course he had some questions, so he'd ask my dad, who'd turn and look to his wife, who'd answer the question. This went on and on.

Finally, my dad said, "Let's make this simple. My wife drew up these plans. She knows them better than I ever will. Instead of asking me the questions and having her answer, why don't you ask her directly?"

So the contract turned to my mom and started asking her. I was amazed at how oblivious some people could be.

My mother was actually outright taunted at Home Depot once a couple of years ago.

I forget what she was buying--possibly a concrete form--but she asked an employee to help her with it, and the employee and another customer started making jokes about women and their craft projects, and how she probably didn't even know what [whatever the thing was] was really for.

She's 70 years old and a widow, but even when my dad was alive, she was in charge of home and car repairs, because she was better at it than he was.

She corrected them and told them they being rude and stupid, but unfortunately, she didn't take her complaint to management or anything. I wish she had.

My boyfriend pledged never to go to Lowe's after this happened: We were buying balsa wood rods to use for an awesome DIY kite project. Problem was, they only had a couple of the right size that were unbroken. So we figured we'd take up a whole bunch of the broken ones (which were long enough for our purposes) and see what kind of deal they could make us. Surely we wouldn't be expected to pay full price when some of them were less than half the length of a full one. Big surprise (now), that's exactly what they wanted from us. The manager came over and offered 10% off the broken ones. After several minutes of conversation between my (now baffled) boyfriend and the (increasingly unhelpful) manager, he gave in and bought the things because it was 8:50 and there wasn't enough time to go somewhere else.

It's the closer store but he refuses to go there *ever again*.

@The_IT_Crone: Odd. I get more attention in video game and weapon stores than the guys, it seems. It happens at the shooting range too.

my wife and I have experienced the same thing here in N. Jacksonville. I even had an altercation w/one of the older employees on the phone to one of his buddies complaining about how dead it was in the store when I was right in front of him! we were planning on purchasing at least 1k in crown moulding. went to home depot instead and had 5 people in a busy store at my beckon call. wake up Lowes..wake up.

@spanky: She should have dropped that concrete form on one of their toes.

If I were a minimum wage Lowe's person, I would have shrugged off the request as "not my job", helpfully directed the woman to the isle for mailboxes (isle 47 or whatever) and then told her to look for someone with the blue apron "there should be someone over there".

I love Lowe's, and prefer it over Home Depot, Ace or True Value. Lowe's style of help is way less "in your face" than Ace or True Value franchisees, and they actually have people who know more than I do, in stark contrast to Home Depot.

I suspect the author's mother didn't understand she was supposed to flag someone down or press the little "customer service" button. I also entirely suspect it was the fault of the front desk staff not using the right words to make sure the mother knew what to do.

They do this to everyone.

I once had at least 3 Lowe's employees make eye contact, and then avert their gaze and keep walking while I struggled to lift a towable steel lawn roller (heavy and awkward) onto my cart. I would have appreciated an extra set of hands, but they couldn't be bothered to help. That was at least 5 years ago, and I'm still pissed about it.

@squinko: Next time that happens, without missing a beat you should respond "Who said it was for my car?" This will be sufficiently confusing that I'm sure they'll just ring you up and be done with it.

For extra fun, try different variations where you put the emphasis on "car" instead of "my."

I thought thats how all Lowes treated its customers, truthfully I think Lowes has a nicer store layout and more consumer goods then home depot but home depot blows lowes out of the customer service water...oddly enough.

Since Mary's mom already has a wooden post, she should look into Rubbermaid-type mailbox combos. She can saw the wooden post to size and screw on the new assembly. Its extremely easy to do and her mom will feel a sense of accomplishment when its done.

The HD folks have found the light. I did a bathroom renovation.

- HD employee stayed after her shift to cut a shade because her replacement was at lunch.
- Other HD employee walked me and my Bro-in-law to the aisle where the parts we needed were, then found the specialist for that dept.
- That specialist cut his break short to talk to us.
- One Employee helped me process a return, told me who to talk to in a dept to get "the right answer" and remembered my name the next day when I returned to pick up more stuff.
- Consistently employees would ask if I needed help, and more than a few had really good suggestions.

Lowe's- not so much.

Home Depot got most of the materials budget. The only reason Lowe's got anything is that the HD tile dept has a lame selection.

I like Lowes because everything isn't covered by some type of gray powered cement-like substance but I never rely on anyone actually being able to help me. I always go in there expecting to be on my own and usually am.

There are 2 Home depots near me. In one store the checkout time is typically slow and the employees always look too busy to be bothered. At the other location the employees smile, stumble over each other to be the first one to offer help, and thank the customers for coming to their store. I suspect the management in the second store is really good at training and keeps the staff motivated and happy to work there.

I was super disappointed in Lowes this weekend. I went in to buy a bunch of wood and supplies to build a table. I don't own my own saw, so I was going to have them cut it to size for me (I knew what lengths I wanted).

I am fairly confident the guy who was cutting the wood for me was drunk. He was slurring, couldn't stand up straight, moving slowly, wasn't measuring properly, etc. I thought a few times he was going to lose a finger in the saw. What should have taken 20 minutes of cutting took over an hour (A few times I had to go get some new 2x4's because the guy cut them to the wrong lengths, then he complained that I had him cut more stuff than he thought I would originally).

I didn't say anything, but now I have to go buy a handsaw because a few lengths are 1/4 of an inch too long.

Absolutely awful service, and I will be going to Home Depot in the future (which I typically prefer anyways, but the Lowes is much closer). I've told all of my friends about what happened and they won't be shopping at Lowes anytime soon either.