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Ikea's Stuff is Tough To Assemble, So It Bought a Startup To Do It For You (arstechnica.com)
One of the most popular jobs on TaskRabbit, a service that lets you hire workers for quick gigs, is assembling Ikea furniture. So perhaps it's no surprise that the Swedish retail giant has acquired the startup for an undisclosed price. From a report: For now, TaskRabbit services -- where each worker sets their own rates but the company takes 20 percent -- are available in 40 American cities and in London. The majority of its American workers (or "taskers" as the company dubs them) do not receive any health or retirement benefits, as is typical in so-called "gig economy" jobs. While TaskRabbit itself has not been sued in federal court by any of its workers so far, other companies in the industry have been -- numerous labor cases filed against Uber were recently heard at the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeal in San Francisco. It seems unlikely that Swedish business culture will have any impact on TaskRabbit's workers, the overwhelming majority of whom are ad hoc contractors. Sweden, which generally lacks a similar "gig economy" environment, boasts universal public health care and housing and child care subsidies. Employees in Sweden are required to be provided a minimum of five weeks paid annual leave, and wages are typically set by annual collective bargaining. According to Ikea's statement, TaskRabbit will remain an independent company and will remain in San Francisco -- as such, its taskers aren't considered to be employees.
IKEA furniture isn't that difficult to put together. You just need to take your time, follow the directions and try not to misplace any of the small parts.
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It can be difficult for people who has no idea how much is 5% from 50.
I've assembled a few pieces of Ikea furniture in my lifetime and I've never found the task to be particularly difficult. Time consuming, yes... but not hard.
Ikea offers this service already, by the way.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It's not tough to assemble at all. It's cheap, low end crap that is very easy to damage from installation, moving, looking at sideways. They rarely use solid wood in any product and almost never make that solid wood a structural element. It's all sawdust, glue, and very cheap, overly thin metal.
If you're spending money at Ikea thinking you'll save money, just go buy a lottery ticket. Ikea is taxing you for being stupid by charging for their shit products, you might as well be stupid and pay the government for a slim possibility to afford real, solid and quality furniture.
I thought that being easy to assemble was one of the primary selling points of Ikea stuff.
They will do it themselves, or get their kids to do it.
No need to hire someone else if you're in Sweden.
If you are suffering from extreme cases of cat parasites, simple everyday tasks like assembling IKEA furniture can be a challenging. Considering how widespread this disease is, this service is much needed for all the disabled individuals.
By the time you get done paying MORE for crappy Ikea furniture, then paying someone to come assemble it for you, you may as well have bought REAL furniture and just had it delivered.
Given that Ikea instructions don't typically have any words (other than the name of the product, and maybe some boilerplate text at the beginning), but the instructions themselves are usually just numbered diagrams, I'm wondering if what you got was not actually Ikea furniture at all.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
But I actually enjoy putting this stuff together. I am color blind, but I imagine it is like what other people get out of doing jigsaw puzzles. Except when I am done I have a piece of furniture instead of a picture with a bunch of wavy lines through it. Crappy furniture I admit, but still better than a crappy picture.
First law of people: People are generally stupid.
What will prevent them from making their instructions more unclear in order to drive customers towards their new "service"?
When I hear someone complain about Ikea furniture being too hard to put together, it tells me immediately that they are an idiot (just like back in the 80s if their VCR flashed "12:00AM" continuously).
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Do you have an Amazon affiliate link for what you ordered? I'm just assuming you got it from one.
Wow, that summary sure editorialized. Task Rabbit, from what I can tell, sounds much more like a contractor than a "gig."
My mom would like their service; not that hard to assemble, but still easier than doing yourself.
I don't have a lot of flat pack stuff, but putting it together always makes me consider if I shouldn't just grab the kreg jig and screw everything together instead of using the dowels and bolts.
...how do you not have an accident while putting on your clothes every morning?
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I am sorry but, what ? I have built table, beds, shelves, a swivel chair all from Ikea. Heck 5 months ago I unmounted them for a move a rebuilt them. They are not hard to mount and usually the visual instruction shows you all pieces with letter and steps of instructions by number... The few people I know which had a hard time was because they were not following simple steps : 1) have the proper tool 2) identify before even mounting the pieces and screws you have got by their picture/letter 3) read the damn instruction picture first 4) the real killer : be patient and methodical. I have known at least one person pulling an "homer simpson" (the one on the grill where people think he is an artist due to a ruined grill) and going like an idiot on a simple shelf because they thought of doing it the quick way.
If you are slow and methodical usually you can mount it in the time you tell you you would on the instruction.
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This is the same reason fast food restaurants exist; people are too lazy or don't have time to do it themselves.
- Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
Maybe their bicycles and accessories are harder to assemble than their furniture?
#DeleteFacebook
In what way it is tough? It sure requires some effort from you, but, from an intellectual point of view, you just have to have a modicum of common sense, and a capacity to follow instructions. It is not tough, but you have to work.
It isn't really all that difficult to design good instructions. Hard to follow instructions are the #1 thing that people complain about with regards to IKEA furniture. Improving the quality of the instructions seems like a far better value proposition than buying a handyman company.
Read the book: "The IKEA Edge: Building Global Growth and Social Good at the World's Most Iconic Home Store".
Ikea's Stuff is Tough To Assemble
Do people genuinely have that much trouble assembling Ikea? My seven-year-old boy just built a bunch of cupboards for his room. All I had to do was some of the final hammering and screw tightening.
Is this really something grownups struggle with?
If Ikea's products are tough to assemble, they should not buy a startup to build it for you. They should buy a startup to make it *EASY* to assemble.
99% of the comments on here are about how easy Ikea is to assemble, and how dumb their customers are. Nobody noticed that TaskRabbit is charging 20% for this service?!?! That seems a little steep, doesn't it?
Ikea assembly should be an official Olympic Sport like the curling or synchronized swimming. It requires patience, manual dexterity and determination. Talar svenska är frivilligt.
IKEA Humor:
Ikea Humor
You should be sterilized and banned from voting.
Yep.. Ikea products are definitely hard to assemble. Not only that, the assembly instructions are poorly written/illustrated.
But do I want to pay $120 for someone to assemble my $100 desk? HELL NO!!! Are you stupid? The simple answer is that I buy my stuffs from somewhere else.
... then I doubt you're intelligent enough to hold down a job and pay someone else to assemble it for you.
... unless you're fucking retarded.
But then given that Russia just brainwashed an entire country's worth of rednecks into electing a serial-bankrupt paedophile over Twitter, anything is possible really :-(
not being able to follow simple instructions for furniture assembly.
Take into account the time you need to screw Ikea stuff together. Or the money you need to pay for the startup.
Then consider that you wind up with extremely heavy chip wood furniture that won't survive a move. Also, the heaviness makes disposal in the country I live an avoidable expense.
Ask yourself whether you want to be surrounded by exactly the same furniture your neighbor has. Crooked doors included.
Suddenly paying twice the amount for good looking light furniture that you can take with you to your new home doesn't seem such a bad idea.
I ditched Ikea for these very reasons.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
IKEA furniture isn't that difficult to put together. You just need to take your time, follow the directions and try not to misplace any of the small parts.
For us millennials its appears that assembling IKEA furniture has become some kind of rite of passage, and a true sign of 'adulting'.
And would you believe it, most of us completely suck at it. I've helped so many friends construct some basic things because the whole idea of screwing a few bits of chip board together completely terrifies them. Millennials by and large are just not practical people.
So the fact that there exists a service where you can summon someone from the internet to assemble your IKEA furniture for you doesn't really surprise me at all.
if you can get through your basic lego, you should be able to put together ikea stuff. jeez...
probably these people are just lazy and rather pay then do it themselves.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Put down that Allen wrench and walk away. You're in way over your head.
Who ties your shoes for you?
If you can't assemble IKEA crappy furniture, you are total idiot, deal with it.
If you're too stupid to put together IKEA furniture; you don't deserve to be allowed to propagate your inferior genes.
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.
Should probably be locked up in a mental institute for feeble minded people. C'mon. I have been assembling my Mom's IKEA furniture since I was probably 12 year old kid.