Sisyphus in Ikea

An alternative title to this entry could just as well have been Vladimir and Estragon in Ikea, but it wouldn’t have had quite the same ring to it. And technically, neither Sisyphus nor Waiting for Godot are perfectly analogous to my situation. But I feel like Sisyphus, so that’s the one that will stay.

That disclaimer out of the way, it must be said that there’s something quite comforting about discovering that not everything in Australia is better than it is in South Africa. Take customer service, for instance. It’s just as bad in Sydney as it is in Joburg. Possibly worse.

Take my battle to procure a bed.

Two weeks or so ago, I bought a bed, a sofa bed and a bedroom pedestal as well as various soft furnishings from Ikea. Just attracting the attention of a sales assistant long enough to procure his help in hauling the flat pack onto my trolley was a magnificent achievement, so by the time I reached the queue for the home delivery counter – run, incidentally, by a separate company called Kings — I felt a blissful rush of relief.

How little I knew.

After waiting over half an hour for the bedside pedestal to be replaced after the delivery counter assistant spotted some damage, I finally got to pay $75 for the privilege of having my stuff delivered. I could expect a text message that night which would give me a three hour window of when I could expect delivery.

Naturally, no SMS arrived. But the next day, someone did phone to tell me that they would only be able to deliver the next day. Fair enough. The next day, same again: they’d only be able to deliver tomorrow. That night, the promised SMS showed up in my inbox, giving me a window of 11am to 2pm.

Just before 2pm, the delivery truck arrived with two laidback Samoans who unloaded everything except the bed, which, as they pointed out, had been damaged, probably during loading. Not to worry, they said; they would take it back and a new one would be sourced from the store and delivered.

That was more than a week ago. Since then, I have phoned Kings — a company that promises same day or next day delivery — every single day to find out where my bed is and when I can expect it to arrive. And every single day I get the same answer: it’s in the system, Ikea has to source it. Translation: it’s not our problem. Nobody I speak to gives a damn and, because I have already paid for the thing, and I am dealing with not one, but two companies, my chances of getting any joy are dramatically reduced.

I fear that years from now, I will still be sleeping on a mattress on the floor. Every day, I will ritually call the national Kings helpline in order not to be helped, and every day I will tell myself: tomorrow, tomorrow the SMS warning me of the delivery will come.

But it never does and all I experience is the ineluctable despair of phoning, phoning and phoning again and waiting, waiting for the bed that never arrives.