My Record of Work: The Annoying, the Interesting, and the Just Plain Weird--The Year 2000.

11/29/00

A couple came in to pick up five very large sale-book Bibles they'd placed on hold the day before. They were a bit scuffed-up (which was why they were sale books in the first place), and they requested that I clean them up a bit. I understood that if they were going to give them as gifts they would want them to look nice, so I polished them with this "goof-off" cleaner. It was obvious it'd take me a while so I told them they could do other things and come back, and the man of the couple complained that he wanted the price discounted even more. I got my manager to give them another 20% off the already half-off books. Then I got to work polishing them. It took half an hour. And then when they came back to get them I was on break and they wanted to talk to me anyway. They wouldn't accept "she's on break," so I came out, and they said they didn't like how I'd polished them and they just weren't good enough, and the lady started looking for other Bibles to get while the other customer service gal began to polish them to try to please the man. Well, they decided not to get them at all and bought something else. I'm so glad I did that for them. Barf. Incidentally, a guy in my register line seemed to think the change amount "$4.69" was very funny.

11/27/00

Had a jerk customer threaten to take his business "down the street" because--get this--we didn't have our newspapers out yet and he wanted one and didn't want to wait. Oh shit! My heart will break, and our company will die, if you take your 75¢ to Borders. Whatever shall I do?

11/14/00

We were about to have a visit from senior management, so we were asked to clean up the Customer Service area. I made myself useful by labeling and reorganizing the employees' hold piles. I wonder if my general manager really likes all those sex books about bondage and erotic pictures, or if someone keeps putting them in his pile as a joke?

11/13/00

Today one of my managers called me at the register specifically to ask me whether I believed another manager would object to being referred to as "J-Dog." I said I didn't think he'd mind, and later I heard "J-Dog, please come to the registers" over the intercom. I collapsed into giggles. I was given a free Snow Joe for doing a good job.

11/6/00

Today I was unpacking sale books. They usually come in just a regular box--no padding or special stuff or anything. But this box was full of styrofoam peanuts. I wondered what could be special enough to be padded with peanuts if it was marked as a sale book. I dug under the peanuts and unearthed the books. They were Charlie Brown books . . . Peanuts. Weird!