February 6, 2017

Dear Baby,

With your sibling coming and with us living in upper downtown Toronto- or the city aka. a small house with thoughtless layouts and NO CLOSETS, we have decided to do some work to make this space more spacious.

Something to consider one day is that babies take up so much damn room. Don’t get me wrong, I love your toys and crap everywhere- it makes me feel joy to see your stuff all over- like we are really living BUT your stuff is everywhere and honestly, it makes house feel even smaller. Throw in a 60 pound dog and 2 adults and we are a little tight.

So anyways, with a new person coming, we needed space. One thing for sure was that third bedroom would need some work. It currently holds our clothing and all my “beauty” crap and it is FULL. As we have no closet in the bedroom, this room has served as the closet but our time of having a closet room is running out and IKEA was having a sale on their huge closet unit things so I went to buy one for stage 1 of making room.

When I was younger, I found IKEA to be the most serene place I could imagine. Neat rooms with optimal storage and carefully curated accessories made my heart swoon and the thoughtful gadget and house decor was enough to make me think that IKEA was akin to paradise. WHAT IN THE FUCKS NAME WAS I THINKING. Yes, IKEA is thoughtful, well designed and priced right but serene it is not. Take away the 400 other people who are there with you at any given time and the persistent sickly and delicious smell of meatballs and you are left with long lines and heavy boxes. Ok.

As a side note, IKEA also has this child care centre with a room filled with balls. I have actual childhood memories of going there and now I think- what the fuck- I would literally never leave you in a random ball pit. It must have been nice to raise kids when lunatics didn’t put needles in ball pits at Chucky Cheese and you could leave your kid in peace.

So, there I am- it’s Monday am and there are 6 groups of people in line ahead of me to create and purchase a PAX closet unit on the last day of their sale. Great.

I get called and then have 1.5 hours with perhaps the dumbest of all sales professionals ever. And now I get to my point. I am stuck dealing with this total dick who is basically unwilling to help me do anything, the leaves me, then won’t help me again because he in on a break (um, then get off the sales floor, k??) and I have lost 1.5 hours of my life that I will never get back for a job that could have taken 1/3 of the time in capable hands.

Listen close Baby, being a floor person at IKEA is not a glamorous job, we can agree on that. And in fact, there are many such positions in life that are not really glamorous. I worked in fashion for a year and it was perhaps the least glamorous job I have ever had so…

I just feel like you should take pride in ANY job you have. Why not? What is so crap about working at IKEA that you would visibly not give a shit. There are so many people out there who would love to earn some money and would be happy to help people with their budget furniture needs that you should be fucking ashamed to have such a cavalier attitude about your job.

Anyways- the lesson here is that I hope you have a good work ethic and never have a shitty attitude about working. It’s really important to learnt he value of a job (whether you need one or not) and the value of hard work. People who don’t get this kind of lesson are less for it. Also, wear deodorant to work- a lesson that this man at IKEA reminded me of that should be standard at this point.

xo

Mom