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Is B and Q the gateway to hell?

It is sad to admit but on this beautiful sunshine filled day I have wasted an hour of my life walking to and from B and Q in New Malden. Thankfully DIY does not form a major part nor often any part of my life. Today however the annula battle I wage against the flying ants in my garden necesitated such a visitation. Could this be the most miserable place in the world? The inhabitants staff and customers shuffle aimlessly around giving good theatrical interpretations that fall mid way between Shaun of the Dead ( a film essentially about lifeless zombies who cannot ever die) and those queueing at the gates of hell, or worse those doomed with Fulham FC season tickets.

I recall a TV advert for Persil washing powder where housewives were challenged to use this new powder to make their clothes ” whiter than white” ( a curious concept really, how can something be whiter than white? Surely it still remains white? ), my challenge to B and Q could be regarded similarly as impossible. Two separate endpoints. Firstly to make the customers smile,  well at least one, secondly, to make the staff smile. I do not recall where staff walked around with the miserable demenaour of the eternally damned, looking like group bulk ECT might be a feasible option, perhaps an electrical point in the electrical section. All of them without exception did not smile once in my 30 minute visit. The customers looked to a man miserable and fed up. Possibly as nothing could be found anywhere. Possibly because of this hideous systme that is creeping in of ” self payment”. The curious thing is that even though fewer staff are working on the checkouts as customers scan the items themselves ( is this good customer service?), there seems no reductions in prices. Mostly they edged around the store in vain attempts to find anything looking like they were preparing to enter the seventh circle of hell, which in a curious way they probably were. The music playing also was a curious choice to accompany this unbridled misery, “love story” from Taylor Swift.

So come on B and Q do something about it. Or at least dont pretend in your adverts that your staff are so happy and smiling that they border on a psychiatric diagnosis of mania. Or I am going to get more profuse in the use of my new phrase this week ” miserable complaining”.