Darwin's Theories Blog

New Theories for a New Time

Failing Web Site du jour: Home Depot

2021-05-30

I tried, I really tried, to buy a sharpener for my chain saw chains. The equipment rental place that used to sharpen them for me now charges C$15 each. And I need about 4 or 5 sharpened per year (I’ve a lot of old trees that are literally falling down and need to be cut up). Since I can apparently buy a sharpener for about $40, it seemed like the deal. Since I’ll be at the Home Depot store in nearby Orangeville later this week, what could be better than to pick it up there, instead of having them send a truck around to my place (20 minutes each way from the store to my place if you know where you’re going, much longer if not)? Even better, the web site even has an option for 'Pick up in store'. And, since I’m logged in to the site, it even knows what my default store is. But when I try to select that option, lo!, and behold! The web site decides I want a different store than the one it pre-selected. It thinks I want to drive across the whole of mainland Canada to pick it up in Vancouver, BC, a drive akin to the road trip from Buffalo NY to Seattle, Washington. Worse, the store chooser can suddenly find any store in the country except the one I actually want! This is so brain-dead that I can’t expect you to take my word for it, and no screen shot could do justice to this epic failure. So here is my Youtube video showing the failingest web site of the week in action. Or, in inaction.

Frankly, I’d love to take my chainsaw to their server :-), but (a) it’s probably out in the cloud someplace and, (b) my blade is too dull!! Cue "There’s a hole in the bucket, Dear Liza".

[Update: turns out that some items are (secretly!) not available for store pickup in some provinces/states, but the web site can’t tell you that. I still count this a failure until they provide better messaging.]