Click and Forget

Overheard while watching The Crown:

Chairman: "I note Michael Fagan was alleged to have entered the Queen's bedroom, not the Queen and Prince Philip's bedroom. Even if your snoring drove me to distraction, I wouldn't sleep in a separate bedroom to you."

Hay: "I would."

Had a go at IKEA's click and collect service yesterday. Not an experience I wish to repeat in a hurry.

I'd bought some big, church candles on-line and opted to click and collect them from the Bristol store. The process was to phone a specific number and, through a tortuous procedure, you eventually enter your order number and mobile phone number. You then sit in your car in the carpark and wait for a text to tell you to proceed, in your car, to a specific bay in the collection area, where your consignment is waiting for you.

Well, I did as instructed and waited, and waited, and waited. After an hour and a half of seeing cars going into the collection area I had a wander around the carpark, but noticed that the vast majority of the cars there were empty and must have belonged to staff, although the 2 cars next to me had people in them who were waiting too.

I decided to walk to the collection area and enquired about my order. I was given profuse apologies and presented with my order in a trolley within a couple of minutes.

The system works well if it works as planned, but not if there's a hiccup somewhere in the chain of events, as there was in my case and that of the two chaps parked next to me.

No big problem, but I would have preferred not to sit for an hour and a half waiting for the non-materialising text.