It's not just home improvement stores, either. This corporate attitude of cutting staff, cutting knowledge, and putting the burden on the customer seems to be running rampant everywhere.
Just last week I was in Krogers (A grocery store chain for those who don't have them) doing my monthly grocery shopping. It was 9am on a Monday. I had over $100 worth of groceries in my cart, probably over 300 pounds worth of stuff, and I get to the checkouts to pay for my items. There is ONE register open, staffed with two people (a cashier and a bagger), and it's the '20 items or less' express lane. I stodd there and pointedly looked around to see if there were any other registers open, not wanting to plug up the express lane with my larger order, but there was no one.
So I wheel up to the express lane with my cart (at the time I was the only customer at the checkouts). The cashier says to me, "You can't come through this lane, you have to use the U-Scan." Excuse me? I'm supposed to do the cashier's job and scan and bag 300 pounds worth of groceries (for no pay of course) myself so that he can stand there and do nothing because he's running the express register?
I put my items on the register and said, "I will be happy to go to another register if someone is going to open one, but if not, you're it." In my view, it's easier for someone with a few items to use the U-Scan than someone with a whole cart load. If they were only going to have ONE friggin register open, why not make it a REGULAR one, so people with more than 20 items can get checked out?? ARGH, I hate Kroger!