Oh Abe, you've aged terribly

The Washington Ikea store has really gone downhill

Yeah, I mean that.

They, like most retailers doing business here, have grossly underestimated their popularity. Based on my experience, I'd say that 30% of the new catalog is out of stock[1]. It's not that the items never came in either -- we asked. They actually ran out of stock in one month.

The store is way too small for the population/income/new-found IKEA popularity combination that exists in Virginia side of the Washington metroplex (the Maryland side has it's own store between Washington and Baltimore). Obviously, they can't hold enough stock.

It's impossible to move through the store because of the crowds. The lines to check out were overflowing into the carpet and art print area even though they had 14 of 15 lanes taking money. I saw people get up to the crush and just decide not to make purchases (they all just had small stuff). By moving one display (containing the world's cheapest picture frames), they could eliminate a lot of the confusion and maybe retain some of those impulse purchasers as customers.

There were no carts of any kind. Just try and shop there without one. If you're purchasing anything resembling furniture, it ain't gonna fit in that stupid shoulder bag. One had to exit the store, find a cart outside, bring it back in and then fight their way through the crowds and other carts to actually select merchandise from the shelves. I had to do this twice because our stuff wouldn't fit in the shopping cart alone (not even close, really).

Find more space guys. Open a store out in Ashburn or Leesburg or Cascades or something -- then all of us in the north part Fairfax can use that one. Yes, I'm sure there's enough business.

The spare parts counter was unable to locate either of the things I needed. Both items missing the parts were currently in stock on the floor, so there's really no excuse for this. I first waited 20 minutes for someone to wait on me, and then I waited another 20 minutes to walk out of there empty handed. This is pretty fucking discouraging.

They've printed their bags with the phone number of the HR department. I wouldn't be surprised if they are losing employees by the boatload. I know that I'd have a hard time coping with the chaos, and I bet they do too.

The cafeteria now has ONE vegetarian item -- a salad. They won't make you french fries anymore -- Tino frequently made a meal out of those, but no more. And they discontinued their vegetarian sandwich. God only knows why. Now there is absolutely no hot food available if you're a veggie or just don't feel like eating meatballs that day.

I'm not even going to go into the fact that the cafeteria closes 90 minutes before the store. Why on earth?