A North American can't deal with a self-serve big-box store?

Like the previous letter writer said, IKEA sells nice-looking furniture and furnishings at a very reasonable price. The price/quality ratio is excellent, which is why the chain is so popular.

The times I've visited an IKEA store, I've managed (a) to find the entrance on the first try, (b) to notice the shortcuts they provide between the sections, (c) to buy only the items I needed, and afterwards (d) to assemble the furniture using the very clear instructions provided. If that is beyond the abilities of the writer, hey, I'm pretty sure the chain will somehow get by.

Oh, and about the weird name for an "employee": that's pretty much an American invention, though one I'm sorry to learn IKEA is imitating. See "Starbucks partner", etc., etc.

Seriously, look-at-me-I'm-an-idiot! articles such as this one are just depressing.

So eventually, instead of carrying a laptop around, you could just carry a flash drive, pop it into the port of any PC with a screen, a keyboard, and internet connectivity, and then do whatever you needs to do. You'd be using your own applications stored on the stick, connecting to cloud servers whose addresses are stored on the stick, usernames and passwords also, etc., etc. All without fear of viruses or spying, because you won't even be running the machine's OS, or accessing any files on the machine's hard drive. Or did I understand correctly?

So you'd be like a flutist carrying around your little flute, instead of a cellist lugging a big-ass cello.

Yes, that crash in Japan is on the top-ten list of all-time worst air accidents, but not on one featuring only major US airlines.