Yes, and pointlessly mean. I recently put together an IKEA bookshelf for a neighbor because it was too difficult for her. She didn't "fail as a human being" she's just 80 years old.
The biggest problem I think people have is that they don't pay attention to how detailed and accurate the pictures are. You need to count the holes in the panel in the picture to make sure you have the right side/orientation.
Well, no. Most 6 year olds can count, sure. But most ordinary people aren't accustomed to focussing on that level of attention to detail right out the gate. If it were pointed out to them at the start, frustrations would be less common. Also, not everyone is mechanically inclined. Assuming that everyone should understand how to put a cabinet(or whatever) together as a basic skill is like saying people should be able to easily understand and be able to play baseball or cricket at a competent level. Each person has different skills and inclinations. I agree that Ikea is easier to build than most people realize. But I also think you're painting with some extremely broad strokes here.
my family makes me assemble ikea stuff bc they can't read the instructions or just skip steps bc they don't wanna do them and end up having to take everything part and redo it even when i've told them they're doing it wrong. i don't understand how people can be so incredibly stupid and lazy and had to get children to do it for them
I put glass sliding doors on a Pax wardrobe, that was an absolute pig of a job.
I made a couple of ekenaset chairs yesterday and they went together ok but I just couldn't get the last twist screw bolt connector thing to close.
The biggest problem is wafer thin veneer and varnish, can't remember the last time I made one that wasn't already Scuffed or cracked before I was finished.
Exactly. As some who loves building ikea, there are some times when you look at the drawing, and you realize it was not made clear that some element can only go in one direction, but for some reason it was designed with lots of symmetry, and the point of difference is not clear enough until you get several steps down the line.
The worst is when you get one of those rare manufacturing defects, where the hole for the cam is off by a fraction of a millimeter. Those can really drive you up a wall.
I feel like people like OP put a comically large amount of importance in their ability to build IKEA furniture, and use that as a weird excuse to put down others.
My gripe with IKEA furniture has never been that it's difficult to put together. My gripe is that it's cheap crap furniture that never lasts more than a year or two.
When I hear people complaining about assembling flat pack furniture, it reminds me of people who are/were too stupid to program a VCR.
And for young folks, that consisted of literally setting a start time and end time and a channel number, and many, many people were too stupid to even try that.
Their drawings could use a little more detail as I've had a few times where I had to flip a piece back and forth to figure out how it was supposed to go
It ain't the building that's tough, it's the finding the right screws for the right holes.
When you realise you used the wrong screw 30 mins ago and have to un-do and re-do, it becomes a pain in the arse
I strongly disagree with that. I say I can't cook, because I can't cook well. I do well with certain things that need clear instructions. However, most things in the kitchen are not that simple. You need to get the temperature right (different types of ovens, different readings as ovens are not accurate, different types of hubs).
I really struggle with beef for example because I struggle to get the right temperature going and most recipes are not precise enough on what "done" looks like in practice for someone that doesn't know.
i feel like most people who say that they "can't cook" really mean that they can't just conjure up a recipe in their heads, knowing how different seasonings and flavors work together on the fly. sure, there are those who just say they can't just to be lazy, but yeah i think most fall into the former category. i know that's where i put myself.
Except u need to time things, sometimes perfectly. Getting timing right while doing multiple things at once is what makes cooking a real skill. Can't really compare it to assembling flat pack furniture
This is a common misunderstanding. I can read the instructions to a lot of things, but that doesn't mean I will preform the task well. Sure there are easy things to cook that don't take much effort, and a majority of people can make them no problem. But then there are certain things that take a bit of skill to cook properly. Those are the things people are talking about when they say they can't cook.
I'd say it's the other way around- someone who can cook is someone who DOESN'T need to read a recipe. If you can only cook with them then you can't cook.
I love cooking, but I also get why some people get frustrated and don't try again.
I can throw a chicken thigh in the air fryer with some prepackaged seasoning and make a side of rice and aioli while it cooks and have a delicious meal with very little effort. That glosses over the little details like: what to look for when buying the chicken, how much seasoning to use, how to tell when it's done, and how to time things so that it's all ready at the same time. None of that is difficult to learn, but it can add up to be pretty overwhelming if you don't have someone to coach you the first few times.
I think where it's easy to get frustrated, even after after you know the basics, is the prep work. Don't just start cooking things as you read through the recipe the first time - read it all the way through and gather everything you need, chop and measure all the ingredients into little bowls, and THEN turn on the heat. At least for me, that's the biggest difference between a meal that I enjoy cooking and one that I'm cursing and sweating while I burn half of it trying to juggle three tasks.
when people say they cant cook they mean when they are not following instructions. good cooks know the how to cook step by step, bad cooks need some random website to tell them how to do it
Yup, it's not "I can't cook", it's "I don't have the patience to follow the steps correctly or focus on what I'm doing so it doesn't all burn."
It's one thing to inherently know what flavors work together; that can be more difficult for people. But if you're following a recipe and can't fathom how to use a measuring cup correctly, I have little faith in a lot of your future life endeavours.
As someone who CAN cook, it's not always that simple. Certain recipes may require different levels of hydration, which would vary depending on area. The recipe may call for a measurement that the chef might not normally use and thus require some form of conversion which might allow cause a bit of inaccuracy. We've also normalized to things such as 'medium heat', 'high heat', 'medium low heat', etc. for most recipes rather than actual temperatures (outside of making sure the food's actually cooked) and most people aren't fully taught about what properly corresponds to what on their stove. And while sure one might simply say 'well medium heat's around the middle and high heat is around as far as it can go', there's is again some variation and it might take some practice with your specific stove to find the right range for the temp range the recipe is ACTUALLY asking for. And, of course, there's actually learning food prep. Food safety is one thing, but it takes practice to, say, properly peel and mince garlic, safely chop carrots and onions, proper whisking technique, etc.
I live at a very high elevation and many recipes simply don't account for that. If you didn't know you needed to adjust for elevation I can also see that causing big problems.
I'm bad at cooking. I really do think cooking is a skill and I lack that. Sure, you can follow a recipe but I'm not very good at chopping and other stuff that goes into it. I really love baking though. My husband is good at cooking and for him it's like he can just make stuff up because he know what ingredients are good together. I definitely can't do that. I can cook basic stuff and I think that's okay, I can feed myself lol. But I won't be making anything complicated
Idk about other countries but I live in germany and have seen countless german memes over the years making frun of how complicated ikea furniture it and people always agreed. I don't get it though, I find it really easy.
Honestly - it looked more like adults agreeing to it...
Ngl I am also basically glued to my phone as was since smartphones started to be a thing - and even I can assemble them without an issue. Still kinda sad I had to give away my ikea table when I moved. So easy to assemble yet so stable (no room for it anymore).
I agree, the instructions are idiot proof. There's literally no words on it just little cartoony images that are mega clear. If you can't build something then you're in fact a bit of an idiot.
Anecdote, I heard some years ago the instructions were actually hard to follow, but they did a revamp of them and now it's super easy, maybe it's just a thing told over and over from people who haven't bought ikea in the last decades?
Agreed. Until diagram 3 tells me to use 4 a bolts, but only 2 a bolts exist. But there are 4 b bolts so now I have to assume they mixed up a and b and now my dresser looks like a dining table
I still have trauma from assembling my Stockholm tv bench.... I dont know if it was supposed to be a physical exercise to put together but every fitting piece was too small and there were no screw holes. Its probably the most robust furniture I own so thats good I guess..
Idk why people single out IKEA specifically, cause I'm assuming a lot of places use the same resources to make the instructions. And like you said, it's really not hard to follow instructions.
i literally took apart and reassembled an entire Ikea bed with no instructions. it's truly astonishing that people actually struggle with this stuff. I guess not everyone got Legos for Christmas as a kid
i think that its easy, but for you to say that its a basic human skill and everyone you failed as a human if its hard for you to build one is just stupid. not everyone has the same skills or leans the same way
I agree it is not hard, but you have to keep focused.
Sometimes when you end up with the geometry flipped in a different orientation than in the instructions (assembling in small flats!), you have to keep rotating the geometry in your head and that can get tricky sometimes.
I totally agree. And the whole "you can really test a relationship by getting a couple to put ikea furniture together" doesn't make sense to be. My husband and I have never once argued or lashed out at each other while putting furniture together, it's usually quite collaborative and fun.
Most people complain about the difficulty of building ikea furniture because it became a trend to do so. In reality it's not difficult to build, but it is time consuming and rather tedious if you do not have the proper tools. Especially if you are setting up multiple pieces of furniture by yourself.
To me it looks like they are complaining about the drag of building it rather than its complexity.
Agree. Ikea furniture is low quality furniture that is so easy to assemble, the instructions don't even use words. If you can't put together a chest-of-drawers from Ikea, you really are a failure. Sure, it's a pain in the ass, but only because assembling furniture is boring and annoying.
Sorry, but I disagree. To judge someone on their ability to do that... a fair number of people with disabilities would like to discuss with you about your opinion.
'Failed as a human being' for not being able to put together a flat-packed coffee table sounds a lil harsh.
Yes, and pointlessly mean. I recently put together an IKEA bookshelf for a neighbor because it was too difficult for her. She didn't "fail as a human being" she's just 80 years old.
ADHD. That is all.
The biggest problem I think people have is that they don't pay attention to how detailed and accurate the pictures are. You need to count the holes in the panel in the picture to make sure you have the right side/orientation.
what if I can't count.
yes but again a 6 yo could do that easily
Well, no. Most 6 year olds can count, sure. But most ordinary people aren't accustomed to focussing on that level of attention to detail right out the gate. If it were pointed out to them at the start, frustrations would be less common. Also, not everyone is mechanically inclined. Assuming that everyone should understand how to put a cabinet(or whatever) together as a basic skill is like saying people should be able to easily understand and be able to play baseball or cricket at a competent level. Each person has different skills and inclinations. I agree that Ikea is easier to build than most people realize. But I also think you're painting with some extremely broad strokes here.
"They hated him because he told them the truth"
You fail as a human being for lacking basic human empathy.
See, that's actually a more reasonable criteria than the ability to assemble furniture.
my family makes me assemble ikea stuff bc they can't read the instructions or just skip steps bc they don't wanna do them and end up having to take everything part and redo it even when i've told them they're doing it wrong. i don't understand how people can be so incredibly stupid and lazy and had to get children to do it for them
I agree that not enough people know basic skills like car repair and basic construction
Half of the population isn't qualified to read even the simplest blueprint / assembly instructions.
I kinda cheat at this. I'm a machinist. My entire job revolves around the ability to read blueprints and follow detailed written instructions.
That's rather harsh.
With that said, IKEA stuff is EXTREMELY forgiving if you don't get it right the first time.
Some are harder than others.
I put glass sliding doors on a Pax wardrobe, that was an absolute pig of a job.
I made a couple of ekenaset chairs yesterday and they went together ok but I just couldn't get the last twist screw bolt connector thing to close.
The biggest problem is wafer thin veneer and varnish, can't remember the last time I made one that wasn't already Scuffed or cracked before I was finished.
thats poor qc on ikeas part not yours so excusable
its the people who cant put together a flat table who i have an issue with
Exactly. As some who loves building ikea, there are some times when you look at the drawing, and you realize it was not made clear that some element can only go in one direction, but for some reason it was designed with lots of symmetry, and the point of difference is not clear enough until you get several steps down the line.
The worst is when you get one of those rare manufacturing defects, where the hole for the cam is off by a fraction of a millimeter. Those can really drive you up a wall.
I was with you until the "failure as a human being" bit.
That's not dramatic enough, I think.
I feel like people like OP put a comically large amount of importance in their ability to build IKEA furniture, and use that as a weird excuse to put down others.
My gripe with IKEA furniture has never been that it's difficult to put together. My gripe is that it's cheap crap furniture that never lasts more than a year or two.
I have mental disabilities and I can build a IKEA furniture
When I hear people complaining about assembling flat pack furniture, it reminds me of people who are/were too stupid to program a VCR.
And for young folks, that consisted of literally setting a start time and end time and a channel number, and many, many people were too stupid to even try that.
yes i probably have a mental disability
1 in 6 Americans have an intellectual disability.
Maybe look at the failures that brought you to IKEA in the first place
Their drawings could use a little more detail as I've had a few times where I had to flip a piece back and forth to figure out how it was supposed to go
dawg what💀. Sorry not everyone is like you
Consider me a failure
When u can't read the instructions cause of learning disabilities but it's g they have pictures 😂😂
ye thinking of everyone
Ikea furniture is basically legoes for grownups.
I'm the warehouse manager for a furniture store other than IKEA.
Trust me.
IKEA instructions are the best written, clearest instructions out there. I'll go further and say IKEA probably is the best affordable furniture.
That's a very wierd criteria for being a human though...
I mean, expecting rational thinking should not be that low of a bar.
It ain't the building that's tough, it's the finding the right screws for the right holes.
When you realise you used the wrong screw 30 mins ago and have to un-do and re-do, it becomes a pain in the arse
Same goes for people who say they can't cook, yet it's just a matter of following basic ass instructions.
I strongly disagree with that. I say I can't cook, because I can't cook well. I do well with certain things that need clear instructions. However, most things in the kitchen are not that simple. You need to get the temperature right (different types of ovens, different readings as ovens are not accurate, different types of hubs).
I really struggle with beef for example because I struggle to get the right temperature going and most recipes are not precise enough on what "done" looks like in practice for someone that doesn't know.
i feel like most people who say that they "can't cook" really mean that they can't just conjure up a recipe in their heads, knowing how different seasonings and flavors work together on the fly. sure, there are those who just say they can't just to be lazy, but yeah i think most fall into the former category. i know that's where i put myself.
Except u need to time things, sometimes perfectly. Getting timing right while doing multiple things at once is what makes cooking a real skill. Can't really compare it to assembling flat pack furniture
I dunno about that. I've had too much homecooking from random people with burned ass black onions to believe the tagline "anyone can cook".
This is a common misunderstanding. I can read the instructions to a lot of things, but that doesn't mean I will preform the task well. Sure there are easy things to cook that don't take much effort, and a majority of people can make them no problem. But then there are certain things that take a bit of skill to cook properly. Those are the things people are talking about when they say they can't cook.
I'd say it's the other way around- someone who can cook is someone who DOESN'T need to read a recipe. If you can only cook with them then you can't cook.
I love cooking, but I also get why some people get frustrated and don't try again.
I can throw a chicken thigh in the air fryer with some prepackaged seasoning and make a side of rice and aioli while it cooks and have a delicious meal with very little effort. That glosses over the little details like: what to look for when buying the chicken, how much seasoning to use, how to tell when it's done, and how to time things so that it's all ready at the same time. None of that is difficult to learn, but it can add up to be pretty overwhelming if you don't have someone to coach you the first few times.
I think where it's easy to get frustrated, even after after you know the basics, is the prep work. Don't just start cooking things as you read through the recipe the first time - read it all the way through and gather everything you need, chop and measure all the ingredients into little bowls, and THEN turn on the heat. At least for me, that's the biggest difference between a meal that I enjoy cooking and one that I'm cursing and sweating while I burn half of it trying to juggle three tasks.
when people say they cant cook they mean when they are not following instructions. good cooks know the how to cook step by step, bad cooks need some random website to tell them how to do it
Yup, it's not "I can't cook", it's "I don't have the patience to follow the steps correctly or focus on what I'm doing so it doesn't all burn."
It's one thing to inherently know what flavors work together; that can be more difficult for people. But if you're following a recipe and can't fathom how to use a measuring cup correctly, I have little faith in a lot of your future life endeavours.
They need to make a color wheel for flavors.
it's not really that simple though
Brilliant idea!
This one I never understood. Literal step by step measured directions.
The biggest problem is wafer thin veneer and varnish, can't remember the last time
Love is never in the directions but it's a very needed ingredient
Not when you follow the recipe exactly and the results are not as they were described to be
As someone who CAN cook, it's not always that simple. Certain recipes may require different levels of hydration, which would vary depending on area. The recipe may call for a measurement that the chef might not normally use and thus require some form of conversion which might allow cause a bit of inaccuracy. We've also normalized to things such as 'medium heat', 'high heat', 'medium low heat', etc. for most recipes rather than actual temperatures (outside of making sure the food's actually cooked) and most people aren't fully taught about what properly corresponds to what on their stove. And while sure one might simply say 'well medium heat's around the middle and high heat is around as far as it can go', there's is again some variation and it might take some practice with your specific stove to find the right range for the temp range the recipe is ACTUALLY asking for. And, of course, there's actually learning food prep. Food safety is one thing, but it takes practice to, say, properly peel and mince garlic, safely chop carrots and onions, proper whisking technique, etc.
I live at a very high elevation and many recipes simply don't account for that. If you didn't know you needed to adjust for elevation I can also see that causing big problems.
I'm bad at cooking. I really do think cooking is a skill and I lack that. Sure, you can follow a recipe but I'm not very good at chopping and other stuff that goes into it. I really love baking though. My husband is good at cooking and for him it's like he can just make stuff up because he know what ingredients are good together. I definitely can't do that. I can cook basic stuff and I think that's okay, I can feed myself lol. But I won't be making anything complicated
In what weird IQ nullus universe is this an unpopular opinion?
IKEA flatpacks are foolproof! Even toddlers could assemble them.
Idk about other countries but I live in germany and have seen countless german memes over the years making frun of how complicated ikea furniture it and people always agreed. I don't get it though, I find it really easy.
memes... it's probably just kids with phones glued to their hands who have trouble with basic skills like building ikea stuff.
Grüßen aus Belgiën.
Honestly - it looked more like adults agreeing to it...
Ngl I am also basically glued to my phone as was since smartphones started to be a thing - and even I can assemble them without an issue. Still kinda sad I had to give away my ikea table when I moved. So easy to assemble yet so stable (no room for it anymore).
It's like Lego instructions. Maybe the pieces are larger and heavier and require a tool or two, but yeah, a child could figure it out most of the time
I agree, the instructions are idiot proof. There's literally no words on it just little cartoony images that are mega clear. If you can't build something then you're in fact a bit of an idiot.
Anecdote, I heard some years ago the instructions were actually hard to follow, but they did a revamp of them and now it's super easy, maybe it's just a thing told over and over from people who haven't bought ikea in the last decades?
I think people just don't have patience.
Agreed. Until diagram 3 tells me to use 4 a bolts, but only 2 a bolts exist. But there are 4 b bolts so now I have to assume they mixed up a and b and now my dresser looks like a dining table
Basic competence is in free fall. Thanks to the ever decreasing funding for schools and the Me Religions.
Unpopular opinion: Telling people something is "not that hard" after being told that they are struggling is an ultra-dick move.
You remind me of that one kid in high school that told the class that a Calculus exam is "not that hard" after 75% of the class failed.
You're seriously comparing calculus to assembling simple furniture?
Why whats wrong? Its Not That Hard
calculus and screwing furniture together are pretty similar /s
You completely missed the point. Replace "calculus" with any other class if it makes you feel better.
My point: What's easy for one doesn't have to be easy for others. The end.
I still have trauma from assembling my Stockholm tv bench.... I dont know if it was supposed to be a physical exercise to put together but every fitting piece was too small and there were no screw holes. Its probably the most robust furniture I own so thats good I guess..
Usually I can just look at the pictures and put it together without the directions.
This is true, furthermore I own a drill, bits, and screws it's going to be assembled whether it wants to or not.
Idk why people single out IKEA specifically, cause I'm assuming a lot of places use the same resources to make the instructions. And like you said, it's really not hard to follow instructions.
Or do it like my dad. He never reads the manual.
i literally took apart and reassembled an entire Ikea bed with no instructions. it's truly astonishing that people actually struggle with this stuff. I guess not everyone got Legos for Christmas as a kid
this is a popular opinion I think
IKEA furniture is famously easy to assemble
What a loser
your a loser
Failing to use the correct "you're" shows you've failed as a human being tbh.
Great comeback. I always come here for intelligent discussion, and am not let down!
i think that its easy, but for you to say that its a basic human skill and everyone you failed as a human if its hard for you to build one is just stupid. not everyone has the same skills or leans the same way
I agree it is not hard, but you have to keep focused.
Sometimes when you end up with the geometry flipped in a different orientation than in the instructions (assembling in small flats!), you have to keep rotating the geometry in your head and that can get tricky sometimes.
I totally agree. And the whole "you can really test a relationship by getting a couple to put ikea furniture together" doesn't make sense to be. My husband and I have never once argued or lashed out at each other while putting furniture together, it's usually quite collaborative and fun.
Learned helplessness
Celebrated, prideful helplessness.
Very odd behavior IMO.
And weaponized incompetence in some cases
My sister couldn't do that, but that doesn't mean she has failed as a human being. She's a wonderful, giving person.
That escalated quickly
Someone had a rough moving weekend
Most people complain about the difficulty of building ikea furniture because it became a trend to do so. In reality it's not difficult to build, but it is time consuming and rather tedious if you do not have the proper tools. Especially if you are setting up multiple pieces of furniture by yourself.
To me it looks like they are complaining about the drag of building it rather than its complexity.
How is this an unpopular opinion and not a rant?
Agree. Ikea furniture is low quality furniture that is so easy to assemble, the instructions don't even use words. If you can't put together a chest-of-drawers from Ikea, you really are a failure. Sure, it's a pain in the ass, but only because assembling furniture is boring and annoying.
Sorry, but I disagree. To judge someone on their ability to do that... a fair number of people with disabilities would like to discuss with you about your opinion.
Shhhhhhhh let people pay me good money cause they think it's hard
Also just be ready to make at least one mistake and have to redo it. Happens to everyone.
It isn't the building that's difficult it's that some of the instructions are difficult to follow.
They're not though 😂
Your grammar sucks tho.
I feel like I could manage if I had a third hand; I struggle to hold two pieces together and turn a screwdriver at the same time.
IKEA knock down furniture is not even good