Parks Place

Where to begin with flooring? If I’m honest with myself (and with you, dear reader), I’ll always have a soft spot for my time in the Flooring department. It was the first point in my life where I was (eventually) put in charge of a team and given expectations and metrics to meet. At the same time, anyone who has worked with flooring for any length of time will agree with me—it’s a pain in the backside. It’s heavy, it’s particular, and there’s real skill involved in making sure it’s set correctly.

Before I was transferred into the department, my entire flooring experience amounted to exactly one thing: walking on it. Exciting, I know—but it’s the truth. Sure, I could tell the difference between tile and wood, but that was about it. Still, I was hungry and eager to learn, and I felt ready for the challenge.

The Flooring team was the least cohesive group I’d worked with, and I don’t mean that in a negative way. Our Department Supervisor, Doc, was relatively new. The other Specialist, Hammer, was brand new. In fact, the only member who’d been there for more than a year was one of the grumpiest people I’ve ever met. We’ll call him Hook, since he liked to fish. Hook could find a way to complain about free food—and did, more than once.

Both Doc and Hammer were retired military. They were rigid and strict, but we worked well together. I respond well to structure, and while none of us had a wealth of flooring experience, we were good at asking questions—and I’m particularly good at finding answers. That became something of a calling card throughout my career. Unfortunately, Hook wasn’t much help despite being the only one with real flooring experience.

Flooring had a few quirks that set it apart. For starters, we had a carpet machine—a massive piece of equipment about 17 feet long. Our carpet rolls came in 12- and 15-foot lengths. The machine worked like a giant pasta roller, feeding the carpet out into a reversed roll (backside facing out so it was ready for installation). This process doubled as part of our inventory control, since we always rolled a little extra to ensure there was enough material.

Specialists also carried more responsibility than in Appliances. When a customer requested a detail, a third-party service would measure the space. They’d send us the measurements, and we’d calculate the square footage and create the material list for the installation. We had to account for overage, waste, transitions—everything. It was a lot to learn, but once you got the hang of it, you felt like you really knew your stuff.

You still had to track special-order products the same way, but installations were where you really had to be on your game. Get the math wrong and you could have a $15,000 install blow up in your face. Nobody wants that nightmare. I’m happy to say I never had one of those disasters, largely because I made a point of talking with customers and steering them away from potential mistakes.

Here’s an example: we once had a customer interested in hardwood flooring for their entire home. Nothing wrong with that—except they were snowbirds. (For clarification, I was living in Southwest Florida at the time.) Snowbirds typically leave their homes empty for about half the year. Hardwood floors, however, don’t handle humidity changes or moisture well, and Southwest Florida has both in spades.

Typically, when snowbirds leave for the season, they turn off their AC to save on electricity—a perfectly reasonable move, unless you have hardwood flooring. The temperature and humidity swings cause the wood to expand, forcing corners up and bending the planks, which leads to cupping. It’s a fast way to ruin a floor. Thankfully, we convinced the customer to choose a more suitable product.

I have a lot of fond memories from those first few months in Flooring. Hammer and I became good friends despite a 20-plus-year age difference. He had great stories from his military service in Germany, Kosovo, and Iraq. Doc shared plenty too, especially about how he earned his nickname as a combat medic. Even Hook occasionally offered a good story.

Eventually, we settled into a solid rhythm—Hammer and I helping each other with installs, all of us maintaining inventory levels, and keeping the department looking sharp for customers and management. And of course, like everything else in Home Improvement, it all changed in a heartbeat. To borrow a military term, it was a SNAFU.

Doc was terminated for allegedly returning product at a different store for more than he paid for it. I have no idea if that accusation was true. Ivan the Terrible—our nickname for upper management—was known for pushing out people who disagreed with him, and Doc had been fairly vocal. One day we had structure; the next day we didn’t.

So, what did I do? I applied for the Department Supervisor position, of course. Never back down from a challenge or an opportunity.

We’ll cover that part of the journey in Part Five. Thanks for reading!