What is a bookstore? For the uninitiated, this guy has the answer - and a few tips on how to behave there.
...and how not to behave there.
Retail work must really test the patience of store employees - maybe I'm lucky to have been rejected by three major bookstore chains in one three-week period of 2007.
LOVE IT!!! It's all so horribly true! And I could do Rants 3, 4, and 5 for him.
ReplyDeleteI had a feeling you would enjoy these, Annie...thought about you when I found them.
ReplyDeleteLibrary patrons are just as bad. The only difference with libraries is that they try to throw the tired old "My taxes pay for this place" line to which I once respond "Well, my tax dollars don't just cover the roads I drive on." Good thing they keep me in cataloging.
ReplyDeleteOMG That's a riot!! Thanks for sharing them!
ReplyDeleteOh! A bookstore is like a pool -- a place where parents dump their kids and expect the lifeguards to babysit!
ReplyDeleteAmen to the credit card comment, too. People get ticked off if you ask for ID or point out that their card is not signed and they might want to take care of that because hello, if someone steals your card, she can sign it and then the signatures on the card and the fake ID will match.
Sam, I can imagine that libraries have very similar problems - I suppose, actually, that any job that has to deal with the public wandering inside their building faces this kind of thing.
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed them, Lisa. That guy is funny. I'm sure that kind of rant is not nearly as easy as he makes it look.
ReplyDeleteYou got it in one, Factotum. I know for a fact that I would not last long working a retail job - too many idiots wander in out of the cold.
ReplyDeleteOnce, I asked a clerk in a bookstore where the new biography on William Blake was. He asked me, "Doesn't he write plays?" I explained that William Blake was an English poet. The clerked checked on his computer and told me that they did not have the new biography in stock. I then asked if I could buy the copy they had in the widow at the front of the store. He replied that he would have to ask since he did not know the story policy was on books in the window.
ReplyDeleteI was tempted to say that I bet the store policy is to sell books, but I held my tongue. I ended up going to another book store.
Oh the memories of working retail!!
ReplyDeleteYou're right, C.B. Sometimes it is a two-way street. I've had a few clerks in my life like the one you describe...total idiot and definitely working in the wrong place.
ReplyDeleteI'll bet, Amy. :-)
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