Jose's Revenge - Or What the Lower Classes Are For

[neonlyte]

Please treat this as glibbly as it is intended.

We are about to move apartment, just four metres to the newly refurbished apartment below and I've been buying flat pack wardrobes, bookshelves, etc fitting out the new place. I go over to a big store in Lisbon (Ikea), choose a van load of furniture and have it delivered. Yesterday's delivery was a nightmare.

Two guys in a white van, one so large I thought he'd die coming up the stairs, and the other had clearly declared personal hygene a 'no go area'. I had to open all the windows once they'd gone.

Some of the packs were 45 kilos in weight, I know 'cos I'd pushed through the checkout and I had a nice new 10 Euro note in my pocket for the delivery guys, just to say thanks.

It didn't work out that way. The fat guy decided the best way to deliver was to drop a 35 kilo flat pack onto my new wood floor, this after his mate gouged a chunk out of a door frame. They didn't get their tip and the store got a heavy phone call, they've agreed to cover the cost of repairs.

Ok... it's not nice work but when you have trouble with words longer than one syllable you might have to accept you are going to struggle finding a decent job. And I'm sure the pay is lousy so you'd think a bit of savvy - be nice to the customer and get a tip - might be on hand.

Back to the store this morning to order more stuff. My thinking was to get this first lot assembled before the second lot arrived. I called in at the Manager to give him the photo he requested of the damaged door frame, he told me he'd taken an appropriate course of action.

I paid for my new stuff and rolled two laden trolleys down to the Transport section. Sorry, they told me, next delivery date is two weeks away. How's that possible, I ask, Thursday's order arrived Saturday. How has it suddenly stretched to two weeks.

The Manager sacked some of the delivery staff

Yes... it might be my own fault. And, Yes... tomorrow I have to hire a van and bring the stuff myself; and there is no need to point out I should have ordered it all on Thursday... the wife got there first.

I don't knw why we have the lower orders, they are about as much use as a giraffes' todger to a pikingese.

 

[Pure]

on behalf of the 'lower orders'

sloppy or lazy workers are not the 'lower' or 'working' class. they are

marginal folks marx referred to as 'lumpenproletariat.'

the manager is responsible for hiring and firing, supervising; he's rather incompetent.

[deleted] as 'petit bourgeois', small business man he is a miserable excuse. as you say, he's hurt his business in trying to save a few bucks hiring riff raff.[deleted]

sorry to hear of your problem!

 

[rgraham666]

Hey! I'm one of the lower classes and comfortably polysyllabic. 'Class' has nothing to do with position on the socio-economic hierarchy.

Worse, when the 'no class' people at the higher end do damage, they do a lot of damage. Just look at Ken Lay or the current U.S. administration.

 

[tickledkitty]

I don't think it's a matter of "saving a few bucks by hiring riff raff." Ikea is a huge company. They probably have a set salary range for people who hump furniture around, and it's probably not much. The manager probably has nothing to do with it. More educated "quality" folks wouldn't be willing to do that hard physical labor for that salary. The manager is probably lucky to get anyone to apply for that position at all. I'm more inclined to think the problem is more due to lack of training and guidance.

This kind of goes back to another thread about group homes for mentally disabled people. The real problem is the lack of pay. Quality people are not willing to work for the paltry salary offered, so these organizations have to take what they can get. It's the same here in the states.

 

[neonlyte]

Hey! I'm one of the lower classes and comfortably polysyllabic. 'Class' has nothing to do with position on the socio-economic hierarchy.

Worse, when the 'no class' people at the higher end do damage, they do a lot of damage. Just look at Ken Lay or the current U.S. administration.

Rob, I did say glibbly. Just needed to vent, I'd gotten over yesterday only to run head long into my 'complaint' today. Serves me right... that and the fact that by the time I'd finally worked through the store, their van hire department had closed for the day It's Shanglan's God of Irony taking revenge for my inferring the God was female.

 

[rgraham666]

Rob, I did say glibbly. Just needed to vent, I'd gotten over yesterday only to run head long into my 'complaint' today. Serves me right... that and the fact that by the time I'd finally worked through the store, their van hire department had closed for the day It's Shanglan's God of Irony taking revenge for my inferring the God was female.

I know, Will. No worries. You handled it better than me.

If that had happened to me I'd have boxed those guys in a crate with no air holes and have them delivered to Kamchatka, third class mail.

 

[Pure]

i somehow missed the IKEA part. i think it shows you can try for a Swedish operation in Portugal, but 'transplanting' doesn't always work; the 'swedish' virtues--e.g., efficiency-- will be clouded over, if not absent.

sort of like McDonalds in Beijing.

===

around here, Ontario, IKEA tries to avoid deliveries by making them quite pricey, like 50 bucks to deliver a nightstand, 10 miles away. so almost all people handle it themselves, and the few who do get delivery are dealing with better paid workers.

--

rg-- of course class is roughly a reflection of socioeconomic position.

unless you're talking moral 'class', i.e., virtue; or style, as in "a classy model."

Lay was going through the motions of running a business, and enterprise; i.e., looking like an 'owner,' bourgeois. In fact he was crook who didn't build up anything. He's analogous to a 'worker,' who only goes to the factory to steal, or sell drugs, not work.

 

[neonlyte]

i somehow missed the IKEA part. i think it shows you can try for a Swedish operation in Portugal, but 'transplanting' doesn't always work; the 'swedish' virtues--e.g., efficiency-- will be clouded over, if not absent.

sort of like McDonalds in Beijing.

Yeh... we love that Swedish virtue, where's Liar when you need him. And thanks for the consolation in your first post, I'll need it tomorrow when I hump the boxes up the stairs. Maybe I could slip the layabouts in the park a few Euro's to do the carrying.

 

[R. Richard]

Maybe I could slip the layabouts in the park a few Euro's to do the carrying.

Neon:
You need to review the phrase, "Out of the frying pan, into the fire."

 

[Stella_Omega]

Neon:
You need to review the phrase, "Out of the frying pan, into the fire."

You said it before I could

 

[neonlyte]

Hey... don't be like that. They are good boys. Sometimes. Ok they drink, and do drugs, but they mind my car while I'm away (except that one time when it was stolen). Seriously... these guys don't cause any problems, they are on the lowest of low rungs but they work hard to get enough money to feed the life they've chosen. Mostly it's guiding people into parking bays after market finishes, then scavenging. For example the card packing my flat pack units comes in disappears from outside the house in seconds. I don't need a contractor to cart it away, 'the boys' do it for me. If I can get back before the mid-morning drinking begins, they should manage to get the stuff up the stairs without breaking too much.

 

[Liar]

Yeh... we love that Swedish virtue, where's Liar when you need him.

Slacking his ass off.

sincerly,
L

 

[Lauren Hynde]

From some tales I have heard of Lisbon's IKEA, you're lucky to have had a delivery at all! They usually don't even help you get the stuff from a shelf and into your shopping cart.

 

[neonlyte]

From some tales I have heard of Lisbon's IKEA, you're lucky to have had a delivery at all! They usually don't even help you get the stuff from a shelf and into your shopping cart.

That's because you're a 'foreigner', they are really helpful to English people who speak like four year old Portuguese children.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

That's because you're a 'foreigner', they are really helpful to English people who speak like four year old Portuguese children.

Ah, they automatically assume there will be a tip.

 

[Liar]

From some tales I have heard of Lisbon's IKEA, you're lucky to have had a delivery at all! They usually don't even help you get the stuff from a shelf and into your shopping cart.

Isn't "haul your own damn sofa" the entire idea of IKEA?

 

[gauchecritic]

What the Lower Classes Are For

as glib as I can get.

(very intricate blah about capitalism and the unwillingness of 'higher-ups' to admit same, despite their protestations of education and equality.)

 

[starrkers]

Oh dear. You make a complaint about inferior work and then are surprised when action is taken?
Oh, but of course, now it's impacting further on you. How dare they?

Stiff.

 

[Pure]

Liar--//Isn't "haul your own damn sofa" the entire idea of IKEA?//

it is around here. almost no one asks for delivery, since they overpriced it. simple. effective. after all, IKEA has a way to "make furniture" cheaply. to pack the pieces tightly together, and get it from the boat or plane to their giant box store. hauling shit around the city streets is not how to make money, unless it's small packages by courier at $100/ a pop.

 

[ishtat]

1

I detest Ikea for an entirely different reason. Every time I go I feel like a rat being almost required to walk a route past every damn thing in the shop in order to even get out. The ultimate disaster is to forget something at the beginning of the tour because it's almost impossible to shortcut back to the beginning .

 

[neonlyte]

It is a conspiracy. I hauled the flatpacks back only to find the guys from the park obviously read AH and had conveniently disappeared and my electricians had decided to take a day off. Luckily for me, but not for him, my Architect turned up to inspect the electricians work, since they were not there he had to help me with the unloading

 

[rgraham666]

Strange the way life works, isn't it?

 

[R. Richard]

It is a conspiracy. I hauled the flatpacks back only to find the guys from the park obviously read AH and had conveniently disappeared and my electricians had decided to take a day off. Luckily for me, but not for him, my Architect turned up to inspect the electricians work, since they were not there he had to help me with the unloading

Probably just as well. Once layabouts find a place with nice stuff, they tend to try to acquire said nice stuff via a non-cash, nighttime transaction.