BOOOOOOOy this sounds familliar.
My first adventure in the lumber yard:
I walk in the door to the office. 10-11 people are all sitting at desks either chatting with each other or barking prices over the phone. It's a buzz of activity. The door closes with me half way in, sorta bumping my backside. I swear it was eggin' me on.
I micro-stepped a little further in the door and it shuts with a inordinate amount of noise for the forces involved. Everyone stops. It's like shouting something embarrassing at a party and the whole room goes silent as you finish the sentence.
These highly experienced people are all lookin' at me, now. I'm sure a pro just walks right in and begins shouting exactly what he's after and they expect this. It didn't take 'em long to realize I was trying to crawl entirely into my left shoe and become unnoticed. One guy, big muscular fella, with a Car Dealer Smile(tm) and a very forward-leaning conversational style barked "Hey. Whatcha need?"
Now folks who know me have never seen me falter in public. They almost always find me as the spokesperson for the group - not by their choice, I usually am the first to step up. I'm normally very comfortable around strangers and have no problem requesting what I'm after. I guess what I'm trying to say is ... my friends would laugh if "shy" was used to describe me.
Trouble is ... I ain't after nothin. I just want to look around and see what they have to offer. But these guys are serious folks. They jockey lumber around by the boxcar, not some piddly little squat who wants two or three boards for his end table project. Not some kid who has no idea what a skid of lumber is or how much it costs. It was one of the few times in my life that I truly was speechless. My charismatic personality took a hike when that blasted door swatted me into this chasm of unknown.
I managed to elloquently blurt out "Um.. Hi *smile*. I've never been here before. I'd um ... well. I'm a.."
"You wanna take a look around?" He jumped in.
"Yeah. Could I?" I still felt a bit off balance, but the chance for improvement was rising.
"Bill! Give this guy the nickel tour." He shouted over his shoulder.
A loafish man comes shuffling out from a hallway and he points at me and asks "This guy? Sure. Come with me.".
He walked me through the stacks of lumber and asked me all kinds of questions. He learned what kind of stuff I liked to do and took me by the stacks of wood that would be interesting to me. He seemed a little distracted, but heck he knew I wasn't likely to buy much so I don't blame him. He told me next time to just walk on in and start diggin'. They giggle at you less if you avoid the office until yer ready to pay up.
I've since wandered into the other two yards in my area and the atmosphere is the same. Ya just walk in, take a look around. Try to stay out of the way of the fork lifts and bustling work going on. Sheet goods are usually piled in such a way that you can have a look at the first couple sheets. There's almost always a stack of loose boards laying around somewhere that you can pick through. There are always pallets of one species in a given form (8/4, 4/4, etc). There are never prices on things in my yards - ya gotta ask for that.
I've since been to some other yards in other towns and they all seem to work the same. Go in, look through what ya like. Identify the things you'd like to know the price on and then you can ask someone at the counter for the prices. There is one place, MacBeath, that puts all their prices on the racks. VERY handy. I like that place, if only it weren't a 2 hour drive away.
Learn your lumber terms - quarter, flat, and rift sawn. 4/4, 8/4, 10/4. Green, rough, dried, s1s, s2s, s3s, s4s. Straight-line ripped. Skip planed.
Learn the defects. Checks, Cracks, Splits. Case hardening or Honeycomb.
Many of the terms will be regional or even yard specific, though. Yer best bet is to see if they'll take the time to help you through those unfamilliar things. If they don't, walk. If they're too busy to help, they're probably too busy to work with our small quantities. Unfortunately, there are just some places that are like that. The small guy is more trouble to them than it's worth. Other places know that small guys could turn into the future big guys and they take their time with us. I like going to those places best.
One other bit of advice I can share is: ALWAYS ask for the discount. These places are almost always working with fantastic margins and can work with the prices a little bit. I paid $1 less per pound than my friends did for some ebony at MacBeath a couple weeks ago. They were ashamed they hadn't asked for the discount when I told 'em. Always ask! What's the worst they're gonna say? No? So you pay their asking price... done and done.