OK, which Dombås stuffed Windows 10 to bursting at Swedish flatpack flinger? Considering the origins of the word "bork!", we were delighted when news reached Vulture Central of IKEA getting in on the act. Spotted at the Swedish furniture and household tat supplier's doomed Coventry store by Register reader Simon Jones, today's borkage is brought to you by the number 10 and the words "Windows wants more …
Guaranteed to cement long lasting team resentments..!
Easily solved. Get cement, invite soon to be ex-partner to participate in building a lovely new patio, where they can spend may happy hours outdoors.
Meanwhile, you can go find a non-Ikea sofa that has more chance of not producing ominous creaks or splinters when breaking in a new partner. Be gentle with me, this bed is from Ikea..
I am being constantly afflicted by Peppa Pig at the moment. One episode requires them to assemble a wardrobe. The instructions say there are -0.8 of one type of screw, and to place part V5 near A, with arrows heading in all directions.
Daddy Pig's conclusion? "Hmmm. It's no good. It's nonsense."
AFAIK, it ain't the instructions.
It is the shopping experience itself.
If your local IKEA is heavily visited, you'll struggle from the moment you try to find a parking spot. Next you will be squeezing by perfect strangers, while YSO starts going on about "ooh, we need a new bookshelf" and "look! a three legged coffee table! Great idea!".
Basically it should trigger all your fight or flee instincts.
The actual assembly is bliss in comparison. (unless you accidentally forgot to buy all the components you needed)
I make sure to visit my local IKEA as early in the day as possible. I once managed to go there when the roads were almost closed to to a nasty snow blizzard. I got the entire parking lot all to myself. There was very little friction that day.
@9Rune5
My wife and I solved those IKEA problems.
We order online with in store pickup.
No charge, reserved spaces by the door, all required boxes together so we know we didn't miss one on the shelves.
And if you buy the non-particle board furniture it actually is pretty decent.
It is the shopping experience itself.
I'm happy to say that I've never (to the best of my recollection) set foot in said store. I prefer to have proper furniture..
(When we got married we went on a nationwide tour with a van, blagging old furniture off various family members. I think the only self-assembly stuff we have is some bookcases.. And those were (possibly) MFI.)
Ahh, but the problem is that without fail there will be only 7 out of 8 bolts, or screws, or whatnot.
It's happened to me the last 3 times I bought anything from Ikea (mind you the last time was 10 years ago, I refuse to go there anymore). I've learned to live by Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness, meaning I buy quality that last instead.
After the first two times I thought that at least buying kettles should be safe. Nope, the handles on the covers get lose after some years. It's also amusing with the rust on the so-called stainless steel.. And don't even get me started on the "quality" of anything electronic. Had to return one lamp when it melted the plastic parts inside. Good thing the house didn't catch fire, though the smell was awefull. Other things either stop working or the plastic clips inside break so nothing is fastened properly anymore.
Aha...that explains why I often have more items than I need...they just don't like you and pass them to others.
BTW. IKEA goods are often rebranded mainstream items.
I once bought a cooker by an "unknown" brand having found it was the company that supplies IKEA....for a fraction of the cost.
"Ahh, but the problem is that without fail there will be only 7 out of 8 bolts, or screws, or whatnot."
This has never been the case with anything I've ever bought from IKEA (and I have lots!) in fact the exact opposite is usually true.
Honestly, anyone who struggles with Ikea stuff must be a numpty of the highest order.
My experience is totally different. I have bought IKEA-stuff in 4 countries, including for our rental houses, and I am deeply impressed. I may have missed 1 or 2 bits in total (out of what, 40+ packs? More?) and nothing that ever stopped me assembling things. One I had to drill a new hole.
If you have experience with alternative suppliers (of self-assembly stuff), you realise how well they actually do.
"If you have experience with alternative suppliers (of self-assembly stuff), you realise how well they actually do."
1 million times this. The stuff's never pre-broken, the instructions are a doddle, and you can buy Swedish meatballs while there. (not forgetting the jam!)
Message them, like I do, on Twitter and they'll sort out replacements. But yeah, their stuff isn't exactly top quality. I only started going recently, didn't know what all the fuss was about, thought they were high quality, expensive staff. But no, all cheap and OK quality but at least their instructions are as good as Lego.
It's also amusing with the rust on the so-called stainless steel.
Stainless steel isn't as rust proof as you might think: it won't rust on its own accord, but it'll "catch" rust from ordinary steel - and stainless things(even those meant for outdoors use!) frequently come with non-stainless fasteners.
If you think it's bad shopping at Ikea with somebody else, you should try doing it solo. (There's nowhere more depressing than places like Ikea, B&Q etc when you're trailing round at 7:30 after a day's work.)
Having amazingly found all the stuff I needed in the warehouse and negotiated the checkout, I find myself on the pavement outside the store, where some dickhead has erected a set of steel hoops to make sure you can't take the trolley into the car park. So you have the choice of carrying several hundredweight of chipboard to the car all at once, or leaving your valuable purchases to be pillaged while you go to look for your car.
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In the stores I've visited there are a few shortcuts but you need to know they exist and look for them carefully.
Do they sell chainsaws and axes*? Or would that be taking Ikea's self-assembly ethos too far? But fastest way to find the exit might be to simply ask where their WW2 memorabilia section is.
*Proper Swedish superstores sell those, presumably for the section of Sweden's population that doesn't live in Stockholm, and shares that Australian habit of going bush. Or disappearing into the woods to get hammered on their snowberry booze. Which is awesome. Stores are also a great place to stock up on decent winter gear.
>Follow the arrows. It will take you to the exit by the longest possible route covering the entire floorspace, but you are at least guaranteed to get out of there eventually.
It would make for a good prank to break into (or hide in wardrobe at closing) an Ikea store and paint some arrows pointing in random directions.
Many years ago, an ex-partner of mine would occasionally get a sort of claustrophobic panic attack in confined spaces. She started to have one when we were in Ikea, and I got hold of one of the rare shop floor walkers. When trying to explain the situation, I was haughtily told to just follow the arrows. Even though my partner was now visibly shaking the guy still wouldn't help. Eventually I lost patience and moved determinedly towards a fire door. To the cry of "Don't. You'll set of the alarms." I said "I know" and turned towards the door again. He at last decided it would be a good idea to guide us out quickly. I was almost carrying the girl by the time we got to the exit, and we never went there again. We also made sure all of our family and friends as possible knew of the experience.
P.S.
I got no reply when I wrote in a formal complaint.
It is for this precise reason, no REAL instructions to way out, that I have abandoned buying at two stories in Warrington Marks& Spencer and IKEA.
No ROOF marked guide (easiest way in flat topped warehouse size stores) to fire exits and no visible way out when in aisles.
I have experienced in other stores where they put a small speaker box on all the aisle end caps with a small illuminated number sign above it.
You press the button, someone asks you how they can assist, & you then tell them what you're searching for.
The rep tells you on the aisle which the item can be found, or in the case of being lost, how to get to the customer service counter at the front of the store.
This is for adults that have lost their kids, kids losing their adults, members of a group to reconnect with other shoppers from their group, etc.
This cut down on the interruptions the floor employees had to handle from folks trying to find stuff, report missing kids, & alert the store that there was a situation that needed dealing with (spills, injuries, etc).
The money spent establishing the system was balanced out by the increase of productivity by the floor staff no longer constantly interrupted to do other tasks by armies of clueless shoppers. Not that all the shoppers are clueless, but the smart ones see the "Need Help? Press the button." boxes & prove to the employees not *all* the Human race deserves to be removed from the gene pool.
One game that we played to while away the long winter evenings was to get into a group and give the IKEA catalogue to someone who opened it at random, picked an object from the page and read the name out. The rest of the group then had to guess what the said object actually was, chair, bed, cup, light etc. If anyone guessed correctly, they took the catalogue & the poor devils that guessed wrong had to down a nubbe of whatever brännvin the Swedish postgrad student had bought on her way back through duty free last time. Rinse and repeat until last man standing and everyone else is comatose.
"Simon Jones", eh?
What would Douglas Adams done with IKEA?
"After following the instructions, you would have something that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike a bookshelf"
"IKEA will re-open when we have received a shipment of those little screw things that you never seem to have enough of. Until then there will be a short delay. RETURN TO YOUR SEATS."
"There is a theory that states that if anybody figures out what IKEA instructions are all about, they will immediately be replaced by something even more bizarrely inexplicable. There is another theory that states that this has already happened."
"Arthur read through the instructions to the last line, which was 'A suffusion of yellow'"
Sorta like this.
https://doom.fandom.com/wiki/Baron_of_Hell/Doom
Mine's the one with a copy of everything but Doom3 in the pocket.
IKEA sometimes use Norwegian monikers. "STAVANGER" does not sound very Swedish to me.
"BORÖY" is another somewhat curious one. In Norway we use 'Ø' instead of 'Ö' (mostly a typographical difference but still). "Øy" is the Norwegian word for "ö" (island).
And good luck finding "BRIMNES" on a map of Sweden.
So the article author isn't wholly off-base here. DOMBÅS could easily make it as a future product name. (or might have been used in the past for all I know)
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