Men outside IKEA

I had to go IKEA several times to get stuff for the new house. Everytime I alight from the cab, I see these stern-looking Men in Black (MIB) standing along the drop-off point. They don't look like they were there to welcome us (the customers). Neither were they there to protect the store against people stealing their goods as they are standing so far away from the store entrance. So what are they doing, standing there the whole day???


Finally, I picked up my courage to talk to one of the lesser fierce-looking guy.


AhMin: Big Brother*, why are so many of you standing here?
MIB gave me this expression (-___-*!)
MIB's answer: We are here to tackle those people behind you.

* I learnt that this respectful yet intimate way to address the Chinese would solicit a better response from them. Cos normally people will give I DUNNO as an answer.

















In this picture, there are seven MIBs back facing the camera, and 2-3 metres across the road another three men facing the camera. The men facing the camera are the people that IKEA MIBs are trying to "TACKLE".

Reason I can guess is the men on the other side of the road operate a private delivery service and are poaching the IKEA delivery business, so, in order to protect IKEA's business interest, they hired a bunch of guards to 'tackle' the problem.

End note, in my short 20 minute observation, no customer had been successfully poached by those men and no words or actions had been exchanged between the men standing on both sides of the road. So I'm wondering if it makes any business sense for these private delivery people to stand there waiting for customers the whole day, knowing that they will be stopped by the store's guards? Cos obviously, the money that IKEA earns is sufficient to hire those extra men to stand outside their store.