Husband wanted something to help him organize some of his office supplies. We decided to visit the one place we were sure we'd find some solutions. We're from Atlanta so we've been to the Container Store there before... and spent a lot of money there at times. After moving to Durham we rarely make it there, but today we made the trek with our four-year-old in tow. He wasn't sure what he was looking for... as we could really do a lot with the space that we have. When we arrived we saw lots of signs for the Elfa systems being on sale. We drifted around the store a bit before landing in the office area. My 4 year old child sat quietly in an office chair pretending to "type" on a fake keyboard. I was 10 feet away from her, trying to help my husband browse the loose, individual Elfa components. I saw an employee approach my child with a look of confusion, at which point when I stepped a bit closer and made eyecontact, I detected a hint of annoyance. "Did you need something" she says. Not, may I help you? Not, can I assist you? Or even, what can I do for you? I dunno... it just seemed mildly rude at first. Then, yes, we had a question. The Elfa components like shelves and baskets and stuff were all priced. Even the brackets were priced. But the slats were not (the bits that actually secure to the wall). We wanted to know how much they were. My husband was actually holding one in his hands. As I could tell she seemed annoyed at my child, I went that 10 feet over to be closer to her, and remove her from the chair she was quietly sitting in. When I turned around, I noticed that my husband was apologizing to the woman, saying that "sorry I wasn't aware it worked that way". When he came to me I asked and he said that you have to put a top rack up high from which to hang the other vertical mounts and that those pieces were all different prices depending on what we wanted to do. I looked back at the woman and she said, "If you'd just tell me what you're trying to do with them because they all do different things". I get it... it's a track system. Now tell me how much the "tracks" are lady. My husband asked if the heavier-duty tracks were on the opposite side of the store. She said yes, so we practically ran from this woman. Don't want to help us? Want us to feel bad about having our child in a store? Want to make our shopping as complicated as possible and make us feel like we can't belong to your exclusive Elfa club? Well, you did that in very short time, lady. On the opposite side, we found EVEN MORE cool accessories, tracks, baskets, shelves... you name it. None of the vertical slats were priced. Again. Then we saw a male employee. My husband approached him, and again reached for one of the smaller vertical slats to ask about a price. THE SAME WOMAN practically sprang from an adjacent aisle before my husband could finish asking and the male employee pointed him to her. (was she following us?!) "What's, what's the issue here?" She said! THE ISSUE? We weren't being rude. We just wanted a price. My husband asked about a price. Nicely. I think he said "sorry" about 20 times in 3 very stuttered sentences... he's shy, and bless his heart, he doesn't do very much shopping... or like it. So you can imagine my excitement when he ASKED to go shopping for something. "Look," she says, "it all depends on what you want to do, ok? Like, what are you trying to do?". My husband began to stutter. I could tell by how red his cheeks were glowing that she was also making him angry. Asking about prices makes us nervous. So, I stepped in. "What's up? They don't have prices?" I asked of him. She answered for him "I mean, I could give you prices if that's what you want but the way this works is that we try to work with you on what you're designing and then... you know what? Why don't you just visit the Elfa site. You can design whatever you want there and get a good idea of what you want there." OHHHHHHH. I didn't realize I could buy things on the internet, lady. We were bummed. I could tell she'd just taken the wind out of my husband's sails. On the way out, I spotted an end-cap in the kitchen-organization area that had Elfa product and baskets and stuff and decided to check it out. You know what I found... PRICES! (Well, not on everything but at least on ONE piece of track just to give us an idea of a jumping off point - not expensive... so I don't get it). I also found a fellow customer who told me ALL about Elfa product and sang it's praises. We returned to the car empty-handed and pissed. We'd just been basically shooed away from what should have been a simple "Ohhh! Let me show you some options. See this simple set up, this runs $blah blah blah dollars. And this one here is $blah blah blah dollars." How hard would that have been? I think they're trying to push design services... which we DON'T need. Just no need to be rude to us. We can design on our own. read more