Very disappointed with IKEA right now! Ikea was one of my favourites stores but after today I cannot say the same anymore. I understand Covid measures need to be taken given the current situation. However, the security personnel are-over eager and overzealous to the point of becoming unprofessional and aggressive.Right at the entrance of IKEA’s car park, one is met by a set of barriers manned by a group of security personnel which seem to conflate an household with the set of passengers travelling within a car, thus precluding customers who legitimately depend on transport assistance to shop at IKEA. Despite my best efforts to convince these people that a set of two passengers within the same vehicle can legally be considered as being from two distinct households and social bubbles, I was met by an array of troglodyte-sounding grunts citing “IKEA law". The mind boggles. Of course, the perverse side of this is that households with several cars or creative individuals who drop family members 100 meters up the street can quite easily cheat the system by impersonating single individuals visiting the store, and, as one of the barrier-manning gentlemen helpfully pointed out, I should perhaps forego any sense of honesty and do the same... Suffice to say that the stream of customers coming either by "foot" or "public transport" has dramatically increased recently.Fast forward a few weeks; after being subject to an interrogation by out barrier-manning friends, you are finally tagged with a bracelet and allowed in. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that once inside, the Orwellian tendencies of the security personnel do not improve. I was caught red-handed, in the apparently unlawful act of saying hello and talking with an acquaintance which I met by chance in the store. Soon enough I was approached by an angry-looking fellow who proceeded to inform me that I wasn't respecting any of the "Three Covid Rules" (how quaint), and threatened to call the police if I dared to talk to my acquaintance again. Obviously, as part of the process, I was also found guilty by the ad-hoc one-man tribunal of being part of the same household and social bubble as the person I spoke with, implying that we came together to Ikea... And thus implicitly admitting that the system is broken to begin with. And so any hope of having a reasonable conversation with this individual went out of the window, along with any respect, politeness and reasonableness expected from someone qualified for the job. I felt harassed, threatened and was treated as a liar by a man who simply saw me talking to somebody else. To me this is specially painful since I have always associated IKEA to joyful, family moments. Clearly times has changed and social distancing is maybe being taken too literally by some.
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IKEA is a Swedish-founded multinational group that designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture, kitchen appliances and home accessories, among other useful goods and occasionally home services.