A frugal life is an easy life!

I get my fair share of stick for criticising store staff who are employed by high street companies.

I understand that they are, "just doing their job" but I believe it is fully warranted. After 17 years in the retail trade, if I was to treat customers in the same manner that is done today, I'd quite rightly deserve severe criticism at the very least. In some instances, the "customer service" I have received would warrant the sack - clear false information, misrepresentation at the point of sale, etc.

On occasion, one such type of store staff (for want of a better term) are those that represent their companies in the DIY sector of retail.
I loathe dealing with them, as their advice (using that term loosely) is often inaccurate, completely false, or down right dangerous!
Sales staff in stores are the face of the company to the customer. When combining potentially dangerous tools/chemicals, etc, with these people, I would surmise that it would be in the best interests of the company concerned to at least arm their staff with some basic product knowledge?

Take for instance the two (yes 2) B&Q staff that advised me that the reason why their 50,000 square foot warehouse no longer had any 15mm copper pipe fittings instock was because "they have stopped doing them!" - with an industry standard of 10mm, 15mm and 22mm copper pipe on sale at the very same store, and every home in the country having some form of 15mm pipework, I questioned the validity of their statement, which received a wide open-mouthed gawp, that could only be said to resemble catching flies.

However, there are occasions when I need to resort to visiting these DIY stores, Sundays, late evenings, bank holidays, etc.
This evening, I logged on to two DIY company websites, B&Q and Wickes.

My request was a simple one, specialist high temperature paint, for a fire surround.
On the B&Q website my search resulted in pages of fire doors?
On the Wickes website the results listed several types of wood screws?

Not to be defeated I rang Wickes order and reserve type of thing and spoke to a young man.
"I need high temperature paint, but for a fire surround, so therefore radiator enamel paint will not do!"
Five minutes of coldplay instrumental later, the young man returned on the line to advise that what I needed was "enamel radiator paint!"
*sigh*
"As I explained, radiator paint will not do as it will bubble, crack, peel and give off dangerous fumes, I need paint that will withstand temperatures upto at least 1200 degrees"
Another five minutes later, came the reply, "You need enamel radiator paint that does high temperatures, but it is not something any of our stores will do."
Thanks for nothing then...

Next up was a call to B&Q, which hardly inspires confidence at the best of times.
After ringing for 10 minutes finally I was transferred to the operator, only to have the phone picked up and put straight down again.
I called them back and had five minutes waiting on the line for the person to "find a member of staff"
That simple task was too much for them, so they took my number and said they would find a member of staff and ring me back.
Obviously, they are the only person working tonight, as one and a half hours later, I am still waiting a return call.
Utter rubbish service.

So the upshot of all of my dealings today with Wickes and B&Q, one didn't listen to the customer at all, then advised I purchased something that would have endangered life of everyone in the house, the other company, B&Q, [apologies for the bad language] simply could not be arsed to find a member of staff or ring me back when they had promised to.

Both DIY companies wasted over two hours of my time and a simple job of painting a fire surround has turned into a two day, over complicated process.
Evidence if ever there was for people shopping in local shops!

UPDATE:
At the request of my better half, we decided to chance it and drive the 28 mile round trip to B&Q warehouse, enquiring in person as to the possibility of buying paint suitable for for coating the surround in which our multi fuel burner will sit.

I may as well have tried to plat sand!

On arrival, we made our way to the paint section, where the man on the desk had to ask another member of staff "do we do high temperature paint?"
* Please note: B&Q sell wood burning stoves, they also sell high temperature paints in an extensive paint area, all the omens for finding a product suitable and safe were looking good.
A lady appeared and took us to the temperature paint section.
"It's for painting a fire surround, so radiator paint will not do, also, we need brush on not spray please"

"We only do spray on paint"
"In all these paints you don't have a brush on tin of high temp paint?"
"I had someone phone in about this earlier..."
"I know, that was me, I was promised a call back but two hours later no one had the ability to pick up the phone and ring me back as promised!"
"The lady on the front desk passed it on to someone else, who came and asked me. I told them to ring you back...."
* Please note: It is of no concern to me what-so-ever the inner workings or reasoning behind why I was left waiting hours for a call back. I took my time and expense to call your business, if you cannot be bothered to pick up the phone [or train your staff to do so] then you are not deserving of any custom.

No apology was forthcoming, [clearly my time and money are not valuable enough to B&Q staff]  the lady continued,
"How far away from the fire is the wall you want to paint?"
I should have asked her if she was HETAS qualified to sign off an open/multi fuel fire fitting but I am not that quick these days.
"The only other thing I could recommend would be exterior paint, which we sell as a brush on?"
"But that would be no good would it" I added sarcastically, "as it is designed for outdoor use and is not high temperature paint is it?"
No reply...
"Using a non high temperature paint instead would give off fumes when it heated up and I'm not into gassing my family..."

With this I walked off, muttering about how rubbish B&Q were and yet again, I'd driven 28 miles round trip to find that their huge warehouse didn't have a basic item instock.
One consolation though, sprog2 has a habit of repeating certain words I say, right on cue, as a couple walked past, she shouted "Rubbish!"