My Record of Work: The Annoying, the Interesting, and the Just Plain Weird--The Year 2003.

4/30/03

A guy came up to me holding a fantasy sale book that was third in the series. He asked me if I could find out the titles of the first two in the series for him, and find out if we had them. I told him it might be a little difficult unless this writer only wrote this series, because the computer doesn't tell me whether a book belongs to a certain series or what order they go in. I cracked the cover of the book, explaining that usually there's a list if it's part of a series, and he said he tried that already but that it didn't make sense because there were THREE listed, not just two. I pointed out that the last title on the list was indeed the book he was holding, so the two above it were probably the first two in the series--just a guess. Heh. Well I dug the titles up on the computer and found that we did indeed carry them, and at that point the guy was like, "Well I already checked," and so I said that I could give it a second look if he wanted, so he let me, and lo and behold, they were in the Fantasy section, not Fiction where he'd looked. (Generally if a book depicts a guy on the front holding a sword and facing a dragon, you'll look in the Fantasy section for that author's books, but again that's just a guess.) He took the books and left, satisfied but perplexed that the paperbacks cost more than the sale-priced hardback. Yes, yes, I know it is difficult, poor baby.

Gotta love this one! A lady presented me with a puzzle: Could you find this book for me? Problem is, the title wasn't coming up with any results, and the author's name brought up a list of books whose titles did not even slightly resemble the one she wanted. I was very clear about explaining why I was not having any luck; I even said that as far as the computer knew, this book didn't exist. Her response? "Well, would your other store have it?" WHAT?? Lady, listen-to-me. I can't even find a record of the EXISTENCE of this book, which is not to say that it doesn't exist but that either you have the wrong information or it's seriously old and out of print or being sold to a very limited market. And you think there's a possibility that yeah, I can't find a trace of this book but I'm sure my other store would have it. Jeezus. I wonder what would happen if I just said, "Yes, the other store would definitely have it."

This one happened to our cashier while he was stocking CDs. A woman came up, carrying a sour expression. He was very good-natured about helping her, but she dumped an attitude on him, claiming that she was pissed off because she'd been at Customer Service and there was no one there. He asked if she needed him to call someone for her, but she assured him that wasn't necessary because she already tried calling for help herself while standing at the desk. And here's the clincher: "And I know y'all heard me." Oh yes! That's right, we heard you randomly yelling "help meeeee!" at the desk, but we decided it's not our policy to help people (or perhaps just you personally, depending on how severe your persecution complex is today). What do you mean you KNOW we heard you? If there was anyone in sight that you could see certifiably ignoring your pleas for help, it probably would have been a better idea to go up to them and request help in a civil manner. And if you couldn't see anyone, you don't have the right to accuse us of ignoring you, now do you? She'd ended up going behind the desk herself and getting the books that were on hold for her, and our cashier assured her that he would inform the manager of the situation. Too bad it wasn't in the way she would have liked. It began something like this: "Oh man, Stephen, I've got to tell you about this bitch. . . ." He informed the manager all right.

4/29/03

I asked a lady if she had a discount card, and she replied, "No, but you can use yours if you want." Whoa, why didn't I think of that? I could get my own discount card and then just give a discount to every customer who comes through my line, thereby denying myself the possibility of selling one to them and making myself a 50˘ bonus. Dude, why would I have a discount card? I get a discount twice as good as the discount card because I WORK THERE.

This next guy was totally nice and not a jerk. But he did something that amused me. He asked me if we had a book and I said we usually have it in Diet and Nutrition. He said, "Oh, well I already checked back in Health." And he waved his arm in the direction he meant. Which, strangely enough, was the EXACT opposite direction as the Health section. I asked him, pointing, if there was where he was talking about, and he confirmed. I replied, "That's not the Health section." I took him to the proper place (though he protested that I didn't have to do that; he was really nice, but I doubted he would find the book on his own), and on the way I asked him why he thought New and Notable was the Health section. He said he saw other health books there, and I agreed with him that he probably just saw a display or something. It made me giggle.

This next lady wasn't mean, but I loved how the blame was automatically shifted to us in the situation. She said she'd ordered a book but it had been longer than she'd thought it should be. I asked her if she'd gotten a call and she said no, so I checked her name and there it was, sitting there on the shelf with a note saying she'd been called almost two weeks ago. Hmm, guess that's our fault for assuming you'd receive any message left on your answering machine.

Oh yeah, another weirdo living in an alternate universe. Why do they always shop at my store? This one wanted a book we'd have to order, and she seemed disappointed, then perked up and said, "Well, if I order it it only takes like a day, right?" Uh, no ma'am. By instant teleporter it only takes about 3.5 seconds, and most of that is due to checking the calculations for human error. In what bloody universe do you order a book and it gets there the next day? That doesn't even happen with the fastest delivery you can buy from Amazon! What, are we supposed to print off a copy in our back room? Oh yeah, I forgot, the back room is magical and holds every book and toy and CD in the world, is perfectly organized, and hides that Bible engraver and the copy machine everyone thinks we have. No reason it couldn't have a print-on-demand bookmaker too. Sorry, lady. In this universe, it's seven to ten days.

Some guy came and asked if reserving the new Harry Potter book at our store would mean it would only be available for him at this location. I was confused by the question and asked him to clarify. He explained that he wished to put in a reservation for the new Harry Potter, but just wanted to check to make sure putting in a slip here would guarantee him a copy to pick up at the OTHER store since that was more convenient for him. I explained to him that wherever you fill out a reserve slip, that's where they hold your book. Yeah, see, I want you to hold the HP book for me but I'll be in Canada--that's okay, right? They'll just randomly know to do it for me, right? I can just pick it up at any bookstore I want, right? I got an idea, let's call in an order for a birthday cake with "Happy Birthday, Ass-Face" on it and then drive to a different store and wonder why our cake isn't there, it's so disappointing, poor Ass-Face has no cake because they fulfilled our order at the same store at which we placed it. What a concept.

Can you tell I'm getting really fed up with people??

4/28/03

So maybe this guy didn't have his coffee this morning. Maybe he has a language processing disability of some kind. Maybe he's just not listening. But in any case, dealing with him was exceedingly annoying.

First off, he asked me about a book that happened to be in my History section. He said he'd already looked in the History section, but when we got there he said that he hadn't looked here (which I guess means he was looking somewhere else in the store, and believe it or not everywhere else in the store is NOT the History section). I told him it was alphabetical by the author, and then, trying to be careful not to overtax this guy's brain, provided the author's name for him as I looked for it. But I guess his brain doesn't have a multitasking option. As soon as I presented him with the concept of "we need the author," he figured he'd better dig in his pocket and find the author's name again. I assured him that wasn't necessary because I remembered who the author WAS and was currently scanning the bookshelf to find it, but he ignored me, got his paper, and read me the author's name, followed by a quizzical look at the books on a completely different shelf. I'm glad I found it right then because I didn't want to have to explain to him the concept of a book being out of stock.

Too bad this wasn't even close to being the end. Then Genius wanted to be shown the Language section. I took him to aisle 13 and thought that would be the end of it, but then he was like, "I want to learn Spanish," so I told him the books were arranged in alphabetical order by which language. Which of course I guess meant to HIM that he should stand in front of the French books with a puzzled look on his face. So I repeated it and started pointing to where the Spanish books were, ya know since S is pretty far from F he was nowhere near them, and he still didn't comprehend because he was too busy telling me he wanted "the one where you get to have a tape to listen to." I told him those with tapes and those without are all mixed together and he'd just have to look, and more insistently led him to the Spanish section. This resulted in him looking at the wrong PART of the shelf and staring at Japanese and Korean tapes, picking them up and then saying, "Oh, no, I don't want to learn Japanese." So I'm like, "Right THERE, right THERE," and I pointed to one with my finger touching it so he couldn't miss. He picked that one up and said, "Is this the only one?"

We have two four-foot sections of bookshelves carrying Spanish books, by the way.

I told him he could look through and that there were probably at least thirty titles in here that came with tapes. He just kept examining his box and complaining about the price, and saying things like, "So this is it, huh?"

I swear I must've been on Candid Camera.

I began pointing to all the Spanish books that came with tapes, one by one, physically putting my finger on them. I was like, "There's this one, and this one, and this one. They're all Spanish tapes. You can find one in your price range if you want." Finally he started looking at them, and pulling them out saying, "How much is this one? How much is this?" I told him all of them had prices on the back, and I left, satisfied to be rid of him. Later I was chatting with the register guy and this customer came up to check out. He was holding the very first box I'd put in his hand, still probably thinking it was like one of three Spanish tapes or something. I was surprised he didn't cause any problems at the register, given the fact that paying for things is a rather complex procedure.

I don't think he'll be able to learn Spanish. He hasn't mastered his native language yet, and for that matter, hasn't learned basic urban survival techniques required for those who want to make purchases.

4/27/03

I answered the phone this morning at about 11:30 and said my usual spiel, and was greeted with a woman's vague voice, "Okay. Ummm. . . ." Yeah, this is starting off GREAT, I thought. So she asked me what our hours were. I said, "For today?" since it was Sunday and we have different hours on Sunday. She said yes and I said, "We're open until 9." Weird pause, then some shuffling, after which came a hesitant, "Uh, well you mean 9 in the evening?" I just paused for a second because, well, apparently now we are living in a universe where there's ANOTHER FUCKING OPTION. You made it clear you were asking for TODAY'S hours. You called at ELEVEN-THIRTY. And then when I said we were open 'til 9, you said, "IN THE EVENING?" So after I paused, I just said, "Yyyy . . . yes." She said something about how she got off work at 3 and wanted to come by to get a cup of coffee. I told her that she would indeed have plenty of time to do that. She thanked me and hung up. I wish I could have given her some advice. YOU NEED MORE THAN A CUP OF COFFEE MISSY.

A couple men came to Customer Service together to ask me for a book, and when I looked it up, lo and behold we were supposed to have it. I told them so, said it should be in the Art section, and on my way to the section one of the men following closely behind asked, "Do you have it?" Uh? I couldn't resist. I said, "Well, the computer said we were supposed to. If it said we didn't, it'd be pretty pointless to take you over here to look for it." So we started looking, and of course Art happens to be . . . possibly the worst section in the store as far as organization goes. Oh, such joy. So I told them that. They seemed bewildered and a little bit miffed by the fact that it was so scrambled, and as I started looking for the book one of them said, "I don't think I understand your stocking procedures." Oh yes! Yes, we just put them like this! This is how we want them, this is how our merchandising guidelines say to do up the shelves, in this giant mish-mash with no order. I told him, "It's not US, it's PEOPLE. They find it FUN to creatively rearrange our store." I told him no one had had time to clean up this section for a while, and thankfully then we found the book and I got them out of my hair. But yeah! We just don't care, we don't put the books away in any order at all! Lord have mercy.

I had to run a register break today, and I had a woman give me a twenty-dollar bill and some change so her change would be an even ten dollars. When she did that for some reason I started thinking about the time I read on CustomersSuck.com about some lady who gave a cashier a ten and then claimed it was a twenty and when the cashier argued with her she started ranting about how he was calling her a liar and he must think all black people steal. So just as I'm thinking about this and getting the lady's change, this lady says, "Um, I gave you a twenty." I didn't show any response, but I felt like throwing myself on the floor and laughing because it was so closely related to what I was thinking about. I just pretended I hadn't heard her and said, "What?" pausing and holding my hand so she could see I'd already gotten out her change from the still-open drawer. At that point she became embarrassed and said, "Oh nothing, never mind, sorry," and sort of covered her mouth because she thought I had forgotten to give the change and it turned out she just hadn't waited long enough. This was mostly just amusing because it was so close to what I was thinking about.

Back at C/S, a lady came up with an author's name, and I typed it in and got nada. I told her so, and she said, "Is this Book-A-Million?" I have to say I hate it when people call us "Book-A-Million." You can't have a million books and have it not be plural goddamn it! So I said yes, we were BookSSSSS-A-Million, and she said that on the TV program they SAID that Book-A-Million would have it. Maybe she'd better find this alternate-universe store where a million books can be expressed with a non-plural noun, because in THIS store, there is nobody at all with the name on your paper.

Ahh yes, and I had the vaguest customer in the world. He came up and said, "So, can you recommend to me a book that's, ya know, a good read? A paperback?" Taken a little aback, I asked if he had a genre in mind. He said, "Oh, you know, suspense? Thriller? Fiction?" Hmm, awful specific there huh. I took him to this display we had of paperback fiction that's recommended by various people or on book clubs, all 10% off, and I pointed out the ones I'd read and liked. When I pointed out Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister I told him that that one was good but it wasn't really suspense or anything. He said, "Oh, or like fantasy, whatever. . . ." You know, I think I changed my mind. I think I like it when they're picky. My problem in this situation is that I almost exclusively read kids' books and science fiction, with some nonfiction exceptions and the occasional mainstream fiction or classic book. I don't think I've ever read anything that can be described as a "suspense" or "thriller" novel.

Weirdly enough, a similar thing happened to our cashier today. Some woman was looking for "just something" for her boss. The boss, apparently, lived in Pennsylvania, which was supposed to give him a clue as to what to recommend. Also, she stressed that he was, in fact, a boss. Ya know, boss, Pennsylvania . . . isn't that enough for a good solid recommendation? Apparently not, because when he suggested a pen, she said she didn't want something that nice. Hmm, duly noted, Pennsylvania bosses don't like nice pens or nice things in general. Then all of a sudden she was like, "Well do you have playing cards with a design of the paintings of Monet?" What? She goes from ultra-vague "something for my Pennsylvania boss" to a specific type of painting on playing cards? He ended up recommending she go look in the Humor section for a funny book.

A woman with a very peculiar way of talking confronted me at Customer Service. I swear this is what she said. "Do you have Chinese Cinderella, Cinderella Chinese, Chinese Cinderella?" I was like, "Whoa, you said that backwards and forwards three times." She didn't reply. Well, I looked up "Chinese Cinderella," confirming with her that that was the title. The only book by that title was something we had to order, so I asked her if she knew who wrote it. Her answer? "Somebody." Yup! She said "Somebody." I said, "Yeah, well, I imagine so." She said her son would know, and something to the effect of "I know it's here because someone I know bought it here." Yeah, well, if that's so, maybe it's Cinderella Chinese by Sum Buddi. 'Cause we DO have THAT one. Not.

Some guy came to me with an ISBN and my first reaction was "AHA, an ISBN . . . BLESS YOU!" It's so easy when you have that number. Except for when it's eleven digits long.

I told him that ISBNs are ten digits and that since this was eleven I didn't know which number to take out and I would try the title, but that came up with nothing too. The guy called his son over and the son had it written on a piece of paper too. When he handed it to me, the dad said, "Now that was copied right out of the book, hon." He wasn't trying to be mean or anything, but here's what I was thinking: You have to be FUCKING UNREASONABLE to think that somehow this is my fault. ISBNs are ten digits long, period. I don't care how smart you think you are, you've made a transcription error if there're eleven here; this was NOT copied out of the book that way. Thankfully the son's paper only had ten digits, and it brought up the title (which had one letter different in the title also, though I may have just misinterpreted the handwriting on the first paper). Anyway. . . .

So this goes on. We'd have to order that book, so the guy wants to know if there are more books on that subject. Keep in mind that he's totally not a mean or jerky customer or anything, I was just amused by his expectations. They were these complex theoretical math/physics type books, and he's asking questions like, "Have you got anything covering Einstein's work in, oh, 1946, 1947?" I explained that unless that's in the title somewhere, the computer's just not equipped to look for books that have certain information IN them. You've got to do some research before you get to this stage of the game. After a couple more weird questions I just took him to the section and he found some books he liked, and since he seemed content to just browse I tried to excuse myself, but he kept not really responding. I'd say, "Well, if there's anything else you need, let me know," and he'd say, "Oh, well here's Stephen Hawking's books, I've been meaning to get these." And for some reason he taught me to say "I'm fine" in Polish, which sounded a lot like the word "dogshit." It was just kinda funny, because I ended up just telling him I was going to run away now and he could let me know if he needed anything else. Heheh.

4/26/03

I had a guy ask for books on tattoos. I told him anything we had would be in the Beauty and Fashion section. He asked if the books were in any order over there, and I said they'd be in order by author. He said, "Oh, by ARTHUR," looking surprised. First off, I hate when people say "Arthur" instead of "author"; a LOT of people do it. "Yes the ARTHUR is so-and-so. . . ." And secondly, why was he so surprised that they'd be in order by author (or Arthur)? Did he think he should look under T for tattoo? Hmm.

At the register, filling in a break, I got lots of kids buying game cards because it was Yu-Gi-Oh! day. So two kids came up to buy their packs and there're almost fifty of them at this point who regularly attend, so I can't keep track of which ones of them have discount cards. I asked this pair if they had one and the smart-ass one said, "No, but can't you just give us a discount since we're in here all the time?" I told him I wasn't going to do that, and he let out this seriously exasperated sigh and eyeroll combination that he must have learned from a brat of an older sibling. Yeah, sure is mean of me not to give you free shit just for coming and making my store loud and messy once a week, to the point that customers complain. I'll reward you just for coming, yeah right, in your dreams ya little fart-knocker.

Hmm, then another goofy kid came up and kept switching what he wanted, and when he figured out what he wanted he put them on the counter, let go, and said, "Okay, so how much?" I told him I would ring them UP and then he would KNOW. He changed his mind once more while I was ringing them up and then did it again, "So NOW how much is it?" You don't do that at the grocery store, do you? Just come up with a grocery cart, park it, and then look at the cashier and say, "How much?" Oh, dear lord.

4/23/03

There was a dude who was buying some CDs. We haven't sold CDs really for a long time so whatever we have is REALLY old, and this guy happened to find some. I scanned them but they didn't ring up, so I had to try to look them up in the computer's list of products in order to key it right. It turned out these CDs weren't even in there at all, so I then I had to scan through to try and find something that was at least similar so I could choose it and then change the price. Well, this customer kinda went nuts. He was like, "Why can't you just scan it?" I told him the computer just didn't know what it was and I was trying to get it to register it somehow, but all the guy could say was this patronizing, "Well you could just scan it through couldn't you?" I spared him the long explanation of why and just told him that wasn't how it worked. Eventually I just picked something that said "CD--classics" and changed its price from 4-something to the price on the price tag, and that made him go nuts some more, complaining about how they were supposed to be three for ten bucks or whatever. Well, I did what I could and then he gave me his check card. I put it through the machine and after it had gone through he said, "That's a check card." I told him I knew that, and he was like, "I don't want to do it as a credit card." I explained that we don't have a way to enter a PIN and it doesn't matter because it comes out of his account, but he just pointed to where it says "credit card" on the slip and said, "NO, that says CREDIT CARD, I don't ever use this one as a credit card," blah blah. Apparently he's never been to a place that you don't enter your PIN. And he refused to sign the paper and told me he'd use a different card. So I had to void out his sale and then do this whole painful CD thing AGAIN, as a line built up behind him because of having to do a complicated sale twice. ::sigh::

A woman at Customer Service told me she wanted to find out if there was a new book by some author named Gilham. She pronounced it "gillum," so I asked how that was spelled since I was unfamiliar with the author, and she spelled it G-I-L-H-A-M. So I tried it, got nothing, tried it with different spellings, even trying "Gilliam," but just nothing. Usually this means that either the customer has the author's name wrong or their books are REALLY old, so I asked the lady to name a book that the author had written, which is an easy way to nail down a slippery author. This is where she became exceedingly difficult to deal with. When I prompted her for a title, she said, "Well, they're mysteries . . . they're a series. . . ." When I asked again for a title, the lady said something and I started to type it in, but then she clarified that that was the main character's name. I just said, "Ma'am, if you can just give me one of the titles in the series, I can look for it in the computer and find out how the author's name is spelled, and then I can see if any of the others are in here." Reply? "Oh, well maybe she hasn't written anything new." I said, "Do you know ONE TITLE in the series?" I must have said the right combination of words in the right order in the right volume and tone of voice, because immediately she answered me with a book title, without a shred of recognition that this was the third time I'd asked her for that information. So, immediately, I got that the author's name was Gilman, explaining the previous difficulty. I told her what the author's name really was and said there hadn't been anything since January last year, and she said, "Oh, did I spell it right?" Huh? I repeated that it came up under Gilman, not Gilham. She just said she wished Miss Gilham would hurry up and write the next one. Hmmmm.

A lady came up to my checkout and began arranging her purchases into two neat piles. As she did so, she said she wanted to ring them up separately. No problem, of course, but then she said, "So is that possible?" with her face all scrunched up like she was worried she was asking for something ludicrous. What? Is it possible to finish one transaction and then start another? What could she have meant? Sorry, once you do one, we kick you out and you're not allowed to come back that day to give us any more money. Forget it if you come back in and you want something else; forget it if you decide after you paid that you want that cute bookmark. Not allowed! One transaction per person ONLY! I told her I would do a little bit of make-believe and pretend she was a whole different person for the second transaction, and she accepted that. Ooh, I probably broke some rules for that one.

This has to do with one of my managers. She's kind of had a short fuse lately (lately?? says everyone who knows her), and today and yesterday she's just been going off for no reason. See usually I like her but lately I've been sick of the way she's been throwing temper tantrums, being rude to people, and acting like no one but her knows their job, so I'm going to do a short rant about her. She yelled at me to put a bunch of stationery, magnets, and journals into my Kids' section even though they don't go there (and then acted like it was totally obvious that it should go there because the kids' book character Olivia is on the merchandise), so even though historically I have NEVER had non-book stuff in my Beginning Readers section unless it is part of the Favorite Characters section, I got treated like I just don't know what I'm doing. Then she claimed that some toys I needed for a display were not delayed, when I got an update saying they were delayed, and she said she already looked at the same update and all it did was change where they were displayed. (I found that particular update on the computer, magnified it so the "delayed" part was really big, and left it open on the Customer Service computer, but I don't think she noticed as she's not one for subtlety.) And then finally, today a lady brought a blind customer into the store and told me (in a weirdly haughty way) that we needed to get someone to help him make his selections, so I called my manager on the phone. When I told her the situation, she said, "Okay, a BLIND customer is coming into a bookstore that doesn't sell Braille books. This strikes me as very NOT intelligent. Call someone else," and hung up. She does not like dealing with assholes. I called our other manager and had her deal with the blind customer, but I couldn't help thinking, umm, why is it unintelligent for a blind man to shop for books? How does he know we don't sell Braille? Who says he isn't looking for audio books? Who says he must be shopping for himself even? Oh wait, blind people must not do that, he's just STUPID, don't bother to think about it. I almost died when later in the day she was really rude to someone on the phone telling them we didn't have some kids' book, and we DID have it; she'd just not even bothered to scroll down on the computer (there were like seven versions of that book, and since we didn't carry the first one listed she just told them NO to get rid of them I guess, when one version we carried was right there fifth on the list--she knows better than that!). I went and got the book and put it at the desk so I could annoy her. I bet she didn't see that either.

4/22/03

Had one of those everyday average people who have no idea what the hell is going on. The guy came up and said, "I need Dr. Atkins's book." I asked him which one, since Atkins has at least like six different books, and a couple are on the bestseller list so which one he wants is what determines where I take him. But in response to my question about which one, he said, "On Dr. Atkins's diet?" I probably should have decided at this point, "Oh, hey, someone just told him 'go get Dr. Atkins's book,' it's not his fault" but I decided to try one more time. "Yes, but which one?" I said. "He has several." "It's the . . . low carb diet?" he replied. Grrrrrrr. Well, I took him to the section where we have diet and nutrition books and pointed out the like shelf and a half dedicated to the different titles. I think at that point he saw my plight when confronted with the question "Where's Dr. Atkins's book?"

Another mediocre one: I took a lady to the Investment section and she said, "So, are these in any kind of order?" That just bugs me right off the wall when one glance tells you they're in alphabetical order by the authors' last names. What do you say to that? "Yyyyeah, they're in order by the authors' last names," I said. This seemed to be a new concept to her.

Last thing: I'm mad at my company. Don't you think the people who MAKE THE SIGNS for the company should be able to SPELL? But no. They think adding an apostrophe and an s to something makes it plural. I have two mistyped signs in my Kids' department ("Tomie dePalo" for Tomie DePaola and "Blues Clues" for Blue's Clues), and most of the signs aren't punctuated right (most of them say "childrens," which ISN'T A WORD; there's no such thing as more than one children), and some say "kid's," like the section belongs to one lucky kid out of the many, and some just say "kids," as if this section is labeled to hold actual children. Guys, if you want to say "science for kids," it should be "kids' science." On the merchandising updates, they wrote "stationary" for our stationery section and they write "favortie characters" on the stickers of our favorite characters section. One sign advertises a "kid's movie" and "activities for kid's." I hate it that the people who are paid good money to be in the business of communication don't even know how to use words.

4/21/03

A lady who buys a lot of kids' audio books kept asking me what I thought of this tape and this tape and this tape. She was pretty specific that she wanted to know if I'd listened to it, not just read the book. I finally said, "I have never listened to a book on tape," because I haven't. It was here that she looked at me in shock and said, "Never? Well what do you do in the car?" Apparently she thinks people who don't listen to audio books while they drive are just completely dotty. "Well," I explained to her, "I never learned to drive." Yeah, that would probably take my time in the car to a minimum, huh. She wasn't rude or anything; I just thought it was funny that she was so floored by that idea of people who don't listen to audio books while they ride in cars.

A lady called my coworker today before the store opened and asked for our hours, so she dutifully replied, "Nine to eleven." "Eleven?" said the customer. "Eleven at night?" Yup. We're the bookstore that's open from 9 AM to 11 AM, two whole hours, or else we open at 9 PM and stay open until 11 in the freaking morning. What kind of question is that? YES eleven at night!

And this one wins the prize for today, though of course she didn't have much competition. This lady came up to my coworkers and wanted books on stun guns and secret police weapons and stuff. After browsing in the section for a few, she said, "I'll tell you why I want this," and launched into a story full of paranoia, basically telling the story of a woman hounded by the government. "Every time I go outside my house, I feel sick and my voice gets scratchy," she attested. See, what happens is, they're using the biological weapons to make her sick, because when she goes home she feels fine. She can also feel on a spot on her back that they are monitoring her, or something. My coworkers didn't quite know how to respond to her. When one of them excused herself and said she hoped she got to feeling better, the woman replied, "I would if they'd just leave me alone!" That's right lady. The government has picked you, a person of no particular fame, rank, or interest, and decided to randomly make you mildly ill when you leave your house.

Or, maybe you have ALLERGIES.

See a doctor. (And I really hope she has a therapist, because that sounds like some very harsh paranoia.)

And now it's time for Disturbing Book Covers™ with your host, SwankiVY! Here is a truly bizarre book cover I found today.

Look at that! Those fruits and veggies not only have limbs and faces, but are using those limbs to help propel themselves into the juicer, and they're using their faces to show their joy over the process! This is really sick; they're just happily jumping into the thing! I've always hated animated food, even when it's trying to get away from you (like Chik-fil-A or M&Ms commercials), but it is even more disturbing when it is trying to get you to eat it. I mean look at this shit!

That is seriously fucked up right there.

How about this one?

Damn, she looks like she's gonna put that cartoon egg right into her mouth.

4/19/03

I was asking a guy for his information since he wanted to get a discount card. I asked for his name and he gave me his first name, and after I wrote that down I looked up for the rest and he was just looking at me, so I prompted him, and he didn't seem to understand why since he'd already said "Matt" or whatever. I said, "Well, I imagine you have a last name?" Oh, oh, oh, he says, and gives it to me to write on the card. How often do you just have your first name on anything, from a school paper to a driver's license? Based on this interaction, I assumed he was going to land in one of my other pet peeve categories: When I ask for address, people seem to think their address stops after the street address. Even if they don't live in town, they just stop there, maybe half the time, like street address is the whole thing. I always have to prompt people to tell me if it's in town and what the zip code is. I had him pegged right; this guy was no exception. I had to prompt him for the city AND the zip. ::sigh:: Some of these people, I swear they'd write "TO GRANDMA" on an envelope and not understand why their grandmother didn't get it, since they put a stamp and everything.

A lady bought a book whose discount didn't ring up automatically (maybe half the time they don't and you have to key it in there, no biggie), but as I was moving to apply the discount the lady screeched at me about AGGGHHHH IT'S DISCOUNTED SEEE SEE AGGHHHHH! I was like, jeez, calm down, I KNOW. That's nothing new, I deal with that all the time, and normally this wouldn't have made my list. But it was her next comment that made it for me; she asked if I'd already applied her discount card, and then insisted that I should apply the ten percent off AFTER the discounted price so that she'd get more off. I had to explain that it doesn't work that way; there's no way to choose that in the computer, because it's just one price if you're a club member and another if you're not, so there's no way to apply the club member discount any other way. Would be nice if every buttnugget who came through my line didn't try to tell me how to do my job.

Here's a fun fun customer! I asked for her discount card, because I could see her hot little hand clutching it, but she was also holding her credit card, and oh how do I explain this . . . she wouldn't let me take either card. She was holding both cards in this sort of almost magician's-palming grip, like she was attempting to show me the face of her credit card (for God knows what reason) while tucking her discount card in the back of her palm. What the hell? I ended up pointing at her card and saying, "I need you to give me that card there so I can scan it." I have no idea what was going through her head--probably a jumble of pictures about fuzzy bunnies and dancing peanuts or something. Then as she was about to leave I noticed that one of the 50% off clearance stickers from the stuffed animals she'd bought was stuck securely to her left tit. Heh. Can't say I felt the urge to mention it to her.

Grr. Some guy was insulting our shitty technology today. I mean, yeah, our computers suck, but it isn't our fault and I really don't want to hear it from your patronizing mouth. So anyway I was looking up his discount card and he was like, "Oh, nice to see you finally got it computerized, that makes it a lot faster." That tells me that either he's been remembering his card when he came in every time or else he hasn't been in since July last year, when we got our new computer system. So I went on with the damn sale, and he left and then came right back in the store, saying he hadn't gotten his 10% with his discount card. Well, when I have made a special effort to look your forgetful ass up just so I can apply the discount, I don't particularly like being told I didn't do anything. So, I asked him to explain to me what on the receipt made him think there hadn't been a discount. I guess that forced him to turn his brain on and process that discounted receipts might not blink "Congratulations, you got a discount!" in neon letters, and actually read the thing to see that it has a spot for original price, a spot for what you paid, and then at the bottom a total of how much you saved. He changed his mind and said he now understood, and tried to excuse himself by saying that he just didn't get it at first because "it USED to show it differently." Yeah, back in July, when we had our old computers that you apparently hated but now miss so dearly. Anyway.

So soon enough, this guy is BACK. And he has bought the same magazine twice and didn't realize it. I don't mean he already had one and got another one; I mean he bought two of the same at the same time and didn't notice. Not entirely silly, I would say--anyone can make that mistake--and he said he wanted to exchange one of the duplicates for a different magazine on the same subject. I said the easiest way to do this, since it was the same day, was to just undo the transaction, give him back his signed credit card slip, and start from scratch as if the transaction had never taken place.

This was the point at which I decided to make note of this transaction. This guy started telling me that what I wanted to do would not work, because just giving him back the signed slip wasn't enough; I had to take it out of the computer too. I know! I already said I was gonna do that, and somehow I don't think they're going to put anyone in charge of a register if they're incompetent enough to think that would work. I told him I was aware that I would have to take it out and that I had said I was going to do that already. He reminded me that he did not, in fact, wish to be charged twice (oh, really??), and then made his way to the back to get a replacement magazine. The rest played out fine and I gave him his whatsits, and then hoped he wasn't going to come back. To my knowledge, he didn't.

A lady said she had had books held yesterday and wondered if they were still there. I told her if she was just in yesterday, we generally hold books for 48 hours and she could get them from Customer Service. Soon she was back empty-handed, and said they hadn't had them back there. I was curious as to whether she had been thinking of the other store or something, and asked what name she'd had them put it under so maybe I could find out later. She said she hadn't given a name; she had just put them on the counter and asked if she could come back and get them later that night, but she hadn't had time. Well of course they put them back! Just putting them on the counter and not giving a name doesn't constitute holding a book! But she found the books again, bought them, and then came back to complain she hadn't gotten a discount that she thought applied to a book but didn't. (It was yet another instance of customers reading the big 20% on the sign, but not reading what it applies to.)

Have you ever noticed I have the most Assholes when I work a register shift? I have. Anyway. Moving on.

This one lady kept changing her mind about whether she was done shopping in the middle of the transaction. It happened THREE TIMES. I am not kidding. I had to suspend her transaction three freaking times. The last time, she saw the pen I was writing with (a cool Bop-It pen) and asked where they were because she wanted one. I told her, but as I was offering to go with her real quick to find them since she wouldn't find them just by wandering around, she just walked away vaguely in the right direction, not listening to me saying, "You probably won't find them if you just wander around . . ." I finished my sentence talking to myself, "but you're going to do it anyway, that's fine." She came back, of course, empty-handed, saying she hadn't found them. I told her they were near the train set and that I could take her over there real quick, but she said, "I think they're just not there, because I looked." I said, rather rudely by this point, that I thought they WERE there because I had put them there myself and was in charge of that section. I took her there and found them, but it turned out she actually had seen that display and we didn't have the right KIND of Bop-It pen that she wanted. Ohhhh wellll. Enough already.

4/16/03

My manager wasn't able to help some lady after she'd already exhausted the computer's resources, so she pawned the customer off on me, saying, "Oh well it's probably just me." Truth is, I think she just didn't want to deal with this lady anymore, which is understandable. (Grumble grumble, but now *I* have to deal with her . . . shiiiiit.) So she had wanted me to look up some book and she swore up and down she had the right title (yeah, right!) and it was not showing up in the computer. I tried all the alternates I could think of, and then I just told her, "Well, the computer's never heard of it." She replied, "Well, that's funny, they've heard of it on TELEVISION," and walked away. Ooh, scathing. Better go somewhere else, and tell them the same story, so that you can be righteously pissed that it must be everyone else's fault, since they said it on TV.

Someone on the phone said they needed "U.S. History one and two." I was like, um, that's a little vague, so I asked if that was the whole title--"U.S. History" in a couple volumes or something--but finally she said it was Cliff's Notes. Ohhh, okay. So I went to the section and we only had volume 2, so I told her that and she said, "Well if I get volume 2, I can probably just get whatever's in volume 1 on the Internet, right?" Umm, how am I supposed to know what's in it and whether it would be on the Internet? Come to think of it, why would anyone need any books at all if it's all on the Internet? Really.

I was on the phone with Jeaux, who has my position at the Ocala store. We were discussing customers and it turned out that the daughter of the woman who was looking for "McCorkle" yesterday was in Jeaux's store. Apparently the daughter took it into her own hands and she had better information, which helped Jeaux find it, and she said it was probably the fault of her mother and she was worried about whether her parents were going senile. Interesting.

So then while I was still on the phone with Jeaux, some guy started following me around, and it seemed as if he wanted to ask me a question. I got annoyed immediately. What kind of fuckwad would locate an associate in a store who's obviously busy, with someone, or on the phone, and then follow them around like an ass? That's ridiculously rude. I couldn't imagine going into Wal-Mart or something and seeing someone on the phone and then acting impatient that they are not helping me. Finally the guy got so impatient that he started making whistling and clicking noises (does anyone speak dolphin??) and finally, "Hey you!" I put Jeaux on hold for a second and I looked at the guy as if I was just noticing him, and he was like, "I've been having to chase you all over this store!" I said in a bewildered kind of tone, "Um, I'm sorry I couldn't help you, see I was on the PHONE." He didn't seem to care and just plowed ahead with his question, which was something totally ridiculous, and then he left and I got back on the phone. It was really annoying. If you see someone is TALKING ON THE PHONE, you find someone else, dillhole!

The Woods guy from 4/2 was back wanting to know if his favorite author had a new book yet. In fact it had come out and I went to get it for him, but then he said, "Actually I think you're the one I talked to about this before. I still think you're wrong about being on the list, because they DID call me." I just said, "If you order a book, we call you. Other than that, we don't have a list where you tell us your favorite authors and then call you whenever they write something new." I think he just didn't hear me, because he didn't argue.

I had a weird mix-up with a customer today. There's a kids' series called Bob Books, and we were out of Level A Box 2 or something. But when she asked me for what she wanted, she pointed to Level B Box 1 on the box, and when I was saying we were supposed to carry the one she was looking for, all of a sudden she wanted Level A Box 2, and I said, "Oh, now it's Level A?" and she said, "It's ALWAYS been Level A." I think that when I asked if Level B Box 1 was what she wanted, she said yes because she thought I said the reverse. Go fig!

4/15/03

There is a type of customer who stands vaguely near an employee as they are walking by, displaying a confused face or looking around bewilderedly. This is a signal the local wildlife specimens use in order to convey to the associates that they are supposed to stop and ask "What do you need?" or "Can I help you?" I make an effort to ignore those people because I am a bad employee, and because if they want my help I am more than happy to offer it if they will just ask me with a simple "Excuse me" or whatever. So this lady was one of those; she stood in the aisle and made the "I need help" face, and I went by her because I was busy and she had a mouth to use. Well, she used it. They usually ask for help once you go by. "Excuse me," she said, and I turned to help her as I should. She wanted to know where our young adult books were, so I showed her the last aisle of Fiction and told her the Young Adult section was right down there--the last four sections of this aisle. But for some reason the words didn't register. She just stopped walking when I stopped walking, and then looked around in confusion because she thought the Young Adult section would be right where I stopped. "No, you have to keep going," I told her, and ended up having to walk her to the section and park her in front of it before I got the "OHHHH, here we go" response, "Oh I never would have found this, thank you." ::sigh::

Also my manager got a phone call complaining that he didn't like the price sticker on the book he'd bought. The books' stickers say a little category code on them, to tell us where to put the book, and this customer was totally angry because he didn't think this book should be categorized in "Africana." Well, first off we don't have an "Africana" section; it's just the sticker wasn't long enough to put "African American." And also, he was pissed because "This book should be in True Crime. It's about Martin Luther King's assassination, but it shouldn't be in the AFRICANA section because all the people in it are white." My manager was like, how about you don't worry about how we categorize our books and leave that to us, huh?

A lady walked up to my Customer Service desk, reached around and pulled our business phone to her side of the desk, and picked it up. I was like, hmm, she didn't even ask if she could use our phone; she must have used it before and knew we generally let people use it. But then she said, "Do I have to dial 9?" Well, that let me know she HADN'T ever used it before, because our phones don't need a code to dial out. I can't imagine doing that--just walking up to a desk and grabbing a phone that's hardly even in my reach without even asking, especially in the presence of a salesperson standing right there to ask. Grr.

4/14/03

Oh, crap. THIS couple wins my asshole award. So they need two books. I've been called from the back room from my break because no one knows how to deal with these people and I'm the Kids' specialist, so I'm moody to begin with at the start of this transaction, and then the lady wants "books by Judy B. Jones." This gets an eyeroll because, well, somehow I doubt there's an author Judy B. Jones--a kids' author I've never heard of, of course--writing popular chapter books for the same age level that this lady is looking for. No, I think she means the Junie B. Jones series by Barbara Park, not that she bothered to bring the author because she thought she already had it. So, okay, this is forgivable; screwing up a title by one sound and then mistaking it for the author, anyone could do it, especially since she was taking the information over the phone from her grandchild's mother. But the other request stumped me. She had it written down on the paper in her hand, so I could see that I wasn't just hearing her wrong. She wanted some book by a John Leskow, someone I've never heard of (ooh, and neither has my computer!), and apparently it is called McCorkle. Err? So when I said I'd never heard of such a thing, she replied, "Well, the kids are reading it!"

Oh my gawd. This is like insulting beyond belief. I've been the Kids' department head for three years and I damn well have never been asked for any McCorkle. Don't tell me what the kids are reading. I know what the kids are reading! I spend five out of seven days a week having to shelve it and be all experty about it! Jesus in a freakin' push-up bra! So I told her exactly that, that in being in that department for three years and never being asked for it kind of indicates that there's some miscommunication on your end, lady. Especially considering the garbled mess you made out of Junie B.

The lady seemed annoyed and disappointed (her husband was just this very silent presence the whole time), and told me that now she was "stuck," and looked at me like I should do something about it. I told her that without any more info I certainly couldn't get her "unstuck." She accepted that, said she was going to call the kid's mom again to get info on what ELSE she could get (well, probably would be a good idea to check your bogus info first). It was only after they'd left that a bell rang in my head, and I thought, hey, the name John Leskow is very similar to John Lithgow, and his books have funny names. I checked. He had a book called Micawber. I venture to say that's probably what they meant, though it's a far cry from McCorkle. Oh yes, that book that all the kids are reading. (Must say I have yet to be asked for Micawber either, come to think of it.)

Arrgh! So a lady came in to get a tax book today. That should tell you something, first of all--taxes are kind of due tomorrow. She had the author's name wrong but I knew enough to find it easily. The display had moved recently, so I checked the wrong place first before finding it again. As I was explaining that (ya know, so I wouldn't confuse her by walking one way and then randomly going the other way, looking like a jerk who doesn't know the way around the store), she just started interrupting me rambling about taxes for some reason. So I found the book and she kept doing it, talking about taxes. I asked her if there was anything else she needed, and all she did was keep asking me if I knew if the book had such and such a law in it, and more about her taxes, and what she can write off, and how it's changed so much this year but maybe it won't next year, and I'm like . . . oKAY, is there anything else I can help you find?? I don't know what's in the book, look in the index, the table of contents, or just read it when you get the hell home; how do I know if it has that tax law in it?

Neil called our boss Stephen to the register, and Pat (the other manager on duty) was in the back room with me. She laughed when Stephen got summoned instead of her, and said that Neil would rather deal with Stephen than with her any day. I asked if she was in his face today, and she said, "When am I not?" I asked what he did this time, and she said, "The usual." I asked if there was a particular offense he'd repeated to deserve her random annoyed-ness, and she said, "Nope, just he keeps breathing oxygen. Stop it!" Hahahaha. I got annoyed with him myself today. He came up and asked if I was his backup so I could watch while he went potty, and he notoriously takes forever in the john (twelve minutes--the guy has timed it, and I am not making this up). Not wanting to be stuck for twelve minutes if I didn't have to be, I asked him to first find out if I was supposed to be his backup in the first place, especially since we have annoying rules about how many people can sign onto a register, so I didn't want to have my name in there if someone else was supposed to do his backup and his break. So I figured it was all taken care of when he didn't call me again. I went on my own break for lunch, and then like two and a half hours later he came up and said, "You ARE my backup, and I'd like to go potty please." Turned out he just hadn't gone. I was like why the hell didn't you just get someone to watch if I was busy? He goes, "I'm a big boy, I can hold it." For two and a half hours. What a nutsack.

Speaking of nutsacks, some ass walked up to the register when Neil was there and just stepped past the customer he had, plunked down some money, and walked out with his newspaper. That's so uncool. Sorry, I'm too damn important to wait behind a line of ONE person to ring up my newspaper; I have to have it NOW. And the guy left too much money, which is why it's funny that the guy's attitude was obviously something like "I know how much it costs, so why should I have to wait?" Well, we are supposed to ring everything through the register. There was no stopping this jerk, though--just plunk and walk. Yeah, dude, it's fine if you just throw money on any counter and do as you please. Asshole!

4/13/03

Some dude was quizzing our register guy about other bookstores in the area. Then he asked "Do they have a store in _______?" (Fill in wherever the hell he wanted to know; I have no clue.) So the guy was sent to me at Customer Service, but then his question was about the Borders chain. I told him we weren't Borders, thinking maybe he just mixed it up and really wanted to know where OUR other stores are. But he totally knew that, and he was hoping I could look up on my computer where the other Borders stores were. I told him I could look up OUR stores but I don't have any info on Borders. He was like, "Oh, well the man up there said you did!" He probably thought the same thing I did, if you even said "Borders" in the first place, dude. Aaaaanyway. . . .

A student called and asked me to please find him three books on an ultra-specific topic--something about Japanese warlords from ancient times, particularly one Japanese dude. I told him (well, not these exact words, but close to it) that he was wrong if he thought we were going to have one, let alone three, books that focused only on some obscure Japanese military guy. This was confirmed when his name yielded nothing in the computer. I asked if he had something a little more general I could look for, and he told me to try Japanese warlords, which got me ONE book about World War II. After that it got kind of ridiculous. He did a fair bit of whining about how he needed three sources and his teacher wasn't lenient, and kept offering me these ghastly silences (during which he was undoubtedly sulking and expecting me to fill in a magical answer), until finally I got off the phone after my second time of asking him if he had any other suggestions for what I could look up. I run into a lot of people who expect me to do the research for their school reports.

Here's another bout of phone fun: this lady called me for books on Hypotia. We couldn't order the one she wanted and there was no way for me to find out what books had lots of illustrations (she was pretty specific about that), not to mention that pretty much none were available. But I was reading her the titles and for some reason she kept on correcting me. There was one called Hypotia's Daughters, and when I told her there was one that said it was about the daughters, she was like "NO, she HAD no daughters," and launched into this discussion of how there were no kids and she was a philosopher and mathematician and whatnot, and I said, "Um, I was reading you a title, that's what it says, Hypotia's Daughters," and then she had to say that that's just what they call her disciples but she HAD no kids you know, I mean like I care or like I even was under that impression, I was reading a freaking title. Then it happened again, she tried to correct my spelling on something I had right to begin with (ooh, that's one way to make me mad, try to correct my SPELLING), and then I read her one with a subtitle and she was like, "NO, that's two separate books," and I told her it was listed there as one book and she's like, "It MUST be two volumes then, they aren't all one book" and you know what? I just don't give a rat's ass and I don't think she could tell. I guess she got tired of being disgusted with my gross lack of knowledge about ancient female mathematicians because soon after that she gave up.

Our back room guy has something really amusing up on the wall above his desk. A big foam letter "a" had fallen down from somewhere a while ago, and he put it up over his desk for no reason. Now our display for the movie Holes has come down, and he cut out the movie logo and put it next to the "a." Now it says "a holes." Strangely enough, as foul-mouthed as he is, he always says "a-hole" instead of "asshole," even right next to the word "fuck." So it is particularly funny because that is right from his vocabulary.

When I had about a half hour left of my shift, a manager gave me a list of stuff to count, and it wasn't going to take very long, so I went and sat down on the floor near the display and just stared into space, basking in the true spirit of pure sloth. Then I got called to the register, jerked out of my reverie, and had to go help at the front. HAHA! I ended up getting to have a funny conversation with a lady about how the music is so terrible in the store. She said it was better today, but that one time she went in our other store and the music was so jarring and awful that she had to leave! I was like, "Tell me about it! I can't leave!" At least someone hates the music as much as we do.

4/12/03

Oh, such fun providing a break for the cashier. In this short half hour, I received enough Asshole to fill my pocket for a week. Observe.

One lady was curious about why her card didn't renew "automatically." "Oh, it doesn't renew automatically?" she asked. Excuse me? Now, why would we bother to make something renew automatically if we were going to bother to have it expire in the first place? Sorry, lady, actually it costs five dollars to renew the card, and for us to do it automatically we'd probably have to figure out some way to have you automatically pay us. Can I have your credit card number? Oh wait, our company doesn't do automatic renewals. Hey, but can I have your credit card number anyway?

More discount card madness: I asked a lady if she wanted to renew her expired discount card (sensing a theme here, anyone?), and when I told her what it would cost she confirmed that she did want to do it. All was good until I asked her what name she wanted it under. "OH," she said, "I didn't think it would be so complicated."

Imagine me blinking hard enough that my eyelids made a sound.

"I just need to know what name to write on the card," I said, pen poised above the new card to write it. "Oh, well I didn't know there would be all this other stuff involved," she went on, "names and changing the serial number and asking for my blood type or whatever. . . ." Huh? I couldn't figure out if this was a joke or what. So I did the safe thing. I just started laughing my ass off. I managed to ask her how asking for her NAME constituted the third degree, but finally she figured out that this wasn't in fact a complex operation and managed to give me her name. Talk about complicated. I wonder if this lady protested learning her lowercase d's from the b's since that's just so complex, flipping it over to make a totally different sound and stuff.

And then I had this charming young man of about nine or ten, at the front of a slowly building line, trying to decide exactly what type of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards he wanted. After it became obvious that he was not in the frame of mind that one should be in at the front of a cash register line, I told him he was going to have to pick something or step aside because I had lots of people lining up behind him. Guess what he did?

You guessed it. He totally ignored me. No, he heard me; he was just oblivious to the fact that he actually was taking a long time to decide. It's that proverbial "in a minute" or "just a second" that kids always give in answer to their parents' or teachers' "right now, young man." This fiasco ended when he finally chose something and luckily the guy I was lunch-breaking came back then and helped me sort out my line.

Back at the Batcave--I mean the Customer Service counter--A lady approached with probably 75% of her brain lying in a refuse dump somewhere. With the remaining 25% that may or may not have been diseased, this lady carried out the following interaction, of which I was mostly an observer because my manager Pat was dealing with her.

First she came up and started looking at the fold-out maps we have. She commented, "Oh, don't you have any for good cities?" Pat played along and said it depended on her definition of "good," and pointed out that we had one for Dublin and Dublin was a pretty "good" city. The lady just ignored this and criticized every map, "Eww, Las Vegas, who'd wanna go there?" Well, me for one, as a present for my twenty-first birthday maaaany yeeears agoooo. Yeah. The lady kept asking if we had such and such a city, and Pat had to point out to her about six times that if she didn't see it on the display, we didn't have it. Finally the lady wanted to know if she could order any, and though Pat had already said that we don't order those things (we just get them replenished from the map company), she decided to look and see if they were orderable through our warehouse.

Well, all the results she got were "Not Available," and though she told the lady that she just kept turning the display, and saying stuff like, "Well do you have Paris? Do you have New Orleans?" and then these weird pauses after which she would respond to the silence with "Yes? Yes?" Pat just kept telling her what was on the screen, and eventually I guess she gave up. But it turned out she had a different reason for coming to our desk. "I was supposed to come here and fill something out?" Yeah, she said it as a question. Pat and I just looked at each other. "What were you supposed to fill out?" she asked, and the lady said, "I don't know." Mystery to all of us. She explained a little more, saying that the guy at the register told her to come back and fill something out, and that it had to do with her discount card, that she'd just renewed it up there and now she needed to fill something out. Pat said if she renewed at the checkout, she was renewed, with nothing more to do, but she insisted that "the gentleman at the counter" told her to come back and fill something out. Strangely enough, Neil, the cashier, approached at that moment and the lady asked him, "Oh, there you are, I came back here like you said, why did you send me back here?" Pat added, "Yeah, why did you send her back here?" He's like, "I didn't, ma'am. I said the Customer Service counter could check and see when your card expired, but I didn't say you had to go there." Oh, that whole "comprehending words that are said to you" must be in the lost 75% of her brain. Yeah, she had one of those old discount cards with a marking on it that hasn't been on our cards for years, so he could tell by looking at it that it was out of date; we didn't need to check, but I guess that was what confused her. Not surprising; it obviously doesn't take much.

4/9/03

A lady had ordered a bunch of books for gifts and each one had come with a large ordering sticker on it bearing her name and phone number. She didn't seem to notice these stickers until she got to the register, at which point she freaked out and said, "OH MY GOD, do these come off????" and started trying to peel one of the stickers off. Of course, the sticker peeled easily, as it is designed to do. I was feeling in a bit of a rude mood and said, "Well it wouldn't make sense to permanently emblazon your name on every book you ordered, would it?" She didn't quite seem to care that what I said wasn't very nice, and just responded that she'd been "about to have a heart attack" when she noticed the stickers. I wish my life was that smooth, that something like a sticker was so disruptive of my flow that my heart might well stop.

Then I had to do a return for some girl. She had decided to change her mind the same day and get a travel guide for a different country, so I said, "Well, I'll just undo your transaction and we'll pretend it never happened, and then you can start fresh and buy the new books." Her original purchase had been in cash, so obviously I owed her exactly the amount she paid. But for some reason she was really adamant about repeating that she'd given me the exact change. I think she thought there was some kind of problem. "Yeah, remember? I gave you exact change." Actually I did remember, but let me say this bluntly, who gives a shit how you paid? If you paid with exact change, I'm giving you back $23.27. If you paid with a fifty, I'm giving you back $23.27. If you paid with a handful of wooden beads and a bucket of snot that in some alternate dimension is WORTH $23.27, I'm giving you $23.27 worth of beads and boogers. This really isn't a difficult concept.

Helping a woman in Kids', I was confused. She asked me for a popular children's book, and it comes in two versions--one's a floppy paper storybook (which is shelved in Beginning Readers), and one is a thick cardboard book (shelved in Baby). I happened to be nearer to the board books, so I checked there first, but we were out. I told her so, and told her I was going to check the other place it might be. She just stood where she was and kind of looked dismayed. As I was walking away to get the storybook version, she said, "Well, I haven't finished looking through all of them yet--I just wanted to ask you in case you happened to know offhand." I told her I *did* know offhand and went to get it. When I came back and gave it to her, she did more random explaining, about how she just didn't know and she was glad I'd found it because she was just going to randomly look up and down the aisles.

I have a problem with this. Is this how people think? "I have no idea who the author is or what section it might be in, so I think I'll wander, bewildered, through the store until I happen to see it, even if I'm not sure they even carry it." Come on, lady! Did it ever occur to you that maybe there's an ORDER to the books? Like, in the library? And in the phone book? Yeah, going into a bookstore without knowing the author's name is a problem. Do something about it before you waste half your day.

A lady asked me for crossword puzzles. I asked if she wanted the kinds in the softcover books or if she wanted the magazines. She said either one, so I took her to the closest place (the softcovers) and she said, "Oh no, this isn't what I want," and I said, "Then you want magazines?" and she said, "I guess." (Brilliant use of the method of elimination. Too bad I was out of the medals I usually carry.) So I was taking her back to Magazines, and she said, "I can't find anything in here when y'all are always moving stuff around." I love that. We move stuff sooo rarely it's not even funny. Either they have no idea how rarely they come in or they shop at eight different stores and think they're all the same one. So I told her they moved crosswords in the Magazine section maybe six months back. We passed the place where they used to be, and I said, "That's where they used to keep them." She replied, "Honey, you used to have crosswords!" Urk? I told her I understood that, and that there was no "used to" about it because we STILL DID carry crosswords and we were walking to them RIGHT NOW. When we got there she acted all surprised. It was weird. I feel bad for that lady.

Grr. Some guy wanted books about the wrestlers the Hardy Boyz. Unfortunately for me I didn't know they spell it with a Z at the time (found that out later), so I knew it would make looking for the book hard. I told the guy it would be helpful if he could give me an author's name, because The Hardy Boys is also a children's series. "No, that's not what I want," he said. No kidding. He gave me an author, and while I was looking he started talking about how he'd already looked in Wrestling and there was nothing and it was supposed to be out and stuff, and then when I found it I read him the title and he said that was it, and we went over there to the section. I was like, "Okay, this is Sports--" but I was interrupted because he said, "It's under 'Wrestling.'" All righty then! Yeah, I never would have thought this book, which is by two wrestlers, would be under Wrestling, especially since you only mentioned that fact about six times already. Also when we went to the Wrestling section and found truckloads of the damn thing, he said that before, when he'd gone to the Wrestling section, he hadn't been in this Wrestling section. Guess we must have more than one. Hmm.

Oh, I had to babysit the register this morning because Neil was late, so I got a special present for my first transaction of the day. A lady whose English was not great came to the counter and asked if she could take only five dollars off of her gift card and then pay the difference for her seven-bucks-and-change purchase in cash. I said of course I could do that, but apparently when I took the five bucks off the card that wasn't what she wanted. She managed to communicate to me that what she'd really wanted was to have a twenty-dollar gift card instead of a twenty-five. Well, now she had a twenty-five that was worth twenty, and I guess she somehow expected the painted number on the front of the card to go down with its value. I had to explain that they don't make $20-printed gift cards for the store, for some reason--just $15, $25, and $50, and everything else is blank. So she wanted to just undo that and start over, paying with a credit card. That's a problem. Because we use a separate special machine to delete and add money to gift cards, and for that reason the main register will not "undo" any transactions that involve payment with gift cards. So that was fun; it ended up causing a mess, and to top it all off when I went to do her purchase with the credit card, the machine would not print a receipt (one of those wacky things where when I turned it off and on again, it randomly worked), so I had to do her whole transaction a THIRD TIME. Ohhh well. I hate crap like this. (Strangely enough, at like 11 something that night, one of my managers called me at home about the transaction, asking me what it was. Apparently the store manager hadn't communicated the problem to her even though he'd said he would, and I had just taken all the receipts and labeled it "Gift Card EVIL." Apparently that did not suffice in and of itself. "What's 'Gift Card EVIL'?" Heh.)

4/7/03

A guy who wanted to order a certain book asked me a bizarre question. "And to get the 30%, do I have to buy today, or do I have to come back?" I was like, huh? What 30% are you talking about? He had a rather thick accent from somewhere so I give him a little leeway for being foreign, but he knew enough English to argue with me that there was indeed some promotion of 30% off going on and he was getting a little upset trying to get me to tell him when he should buy his book in order to take advantage of this perceived discount. When I asked him where he was getting this 30% from, he said something about "a sign" of course. I told him that whatever sign it was, it was undoubtedly 30% off whatever the sign was advertising, and it just had nothing to do with him ordering a book. He still didn't like that answer and concluded to himself, "Oh, so I suppose I will come back." Come back whenever you want to, dude, but that 30% off is going to continue to apply to the top 10 hardback bestsellers, not your special-ordered paperback.

At Customer Service today, a lady wanted a book, and before giving me the title or anything, she asked, "Is there any rhyme or reason to it?" I was like, rhyme or reason to what, and she said, "The books, I wasn't sure where to start looking, I didn't know if there was any rhyme or reason." No, lady! What we do is put up bookshelves all over the store, and whenever we get books, we just put them on the shelves higgledy-piggledy! Usually, we'll just put them wherever we want depending on their size, and other times we have these whims where we want all the red books to be together. Occasionally, when we're feeling adventurous, we put the books in an order so that the first letter of their titles spells out something sick across the whole first shelf. Oh, and all those signs on the walls labeling the sections, and the signs above each bookshelf explaining the categories, well . . . those aren't to give the store any rhyme or reason. Those funny squiggly things called letters and words are actually . . . um, religious symbols, yeah! They keep our books safe from the hoodoo that is rhyme or reason of any kind. Christ on a stick! What sensible person would ask whether the store has any order to it? Turned out she wanted a fiction book, which is simple to find assuming you know the author (and she did!). What I don't understand is how she is going to be able to enjoy the book when she can't seem to extrapolate meaning from those mysterious bookstore signs. . . .

4/6/03

A dude came up to Customer Service today and said, "Highway 61." Then he stood there expecting a response. What do you say to that? That's not a sentence. That's not even a question! So I just said, "Excuse me?" Then he said, "Book." Okay, we've established that he wants a book called Highway 61. Why he felt he had to tell me so using as few words as possible is beyond me. So I looked it up and we had to order it, and when I told him so he just acted like a normal person, thanking me in normal sentences for looking it up and telling me that he'd let me know if he decided to order it. So what the hell was up with his opening? Was he warming up his mouth? Again, go fig.

A lady at the register came up and wanted to know how much a book was. I rang it and told her. She pointed out that there was something on it and she would have to get another one, kind of looking at me as she said it. When I asked if she was going to get it, she said she'd have to think about it. Then she proceeded to think about it. Standing there at the register, with her kid. Okay, so a line has started behind her and she is just leaning on the counter "thinking about it." I'm not sure, but I think I was supposed to offer her a discount at this point because the book had something on it. Otherwise I cannot imagine why she would just stand there and then just start talking about the impulse buys with her kid, not wandering away but just standing right there in front of me. Finally she realized someone was waiting and I rang him up, and then she just came and paid for the book. Hmm.

Then I had a lady at my register who was just a mess of fun. First she came up and held her discount card out to me, saying, "Well, I've expired." And the date on her card was 10/something/03. Now, I've heard people argue it the other way, thinking that their expiration date was the day they got it (lose a year much?), but I've never heard someone claiming that a date from the future indicates that their card has expired. So I told her she hadn't expired, and she said, "10, that's October, that was last year." But I pointed out the 03, and she still argued with me that October was last year. That's right, once October passes, it never comes again! At this point the other cashier came back and said, "Well we could sell you another one if you really want!" but she'd gotten the point by then and went ahead and accepted that she was in date for a good six months. So I rang her up, using her discount card, and at the end when I told her the total, she replied, "So this doesn't do anything?" I asked her what she meant, and she repeated that the card hadn't done anything. I told her it had indeed taken ten percent off of her total. Some people's math skills are pretty absymal, and this is being said by a girl who got a D in College Algebra. So I ran her credit card through the machine, gave it back, and gave her a receipt to sign. Standing there over her credit card slip, she put her hand on her credit card and asked, "Did you use this yet?" Ohhhkay. Perhaps she was on some time-distortion drug? Yeah, usually you don't get a receipt to sign if the cashier hasn't even used your card yet. So I told her I had used it and that was the receipt to sign, and she went about her business. I just thanked the powers that be that my register break cover was over, and went back to messing with my Kids' section as usual.

4/5/03

Ahh, good times! My sister dropped me off at work today, and Neil had to have a talk with her again. He asked her where her fiancé was. This is odd because she has no fiancé. He was like, "Oh, really? I thought you came to see your family before you got married." I didn't tell him that. Where the hell did he pull that from? Also the ass clown asked her about my sex life. (See, I have given him the minimum explanation of why I am not interested in dating, and it disturbed him to the core for some reason, since he is such a sex hound and can't imagine living life without constantly sniffing for booty. Oh, boy, is my life without meaning.) So he was all like, "Oh, she doesn't want sex but then she's dating Jeaux," and my sister's like, "She's NOT dating Jeaux." We already had this discussion, where Neil decided that anyone who meets week after week for hangout time is "dating," despite the fact that I told him we don't consider it a date. I asked him at that point whether if I was doing the same thing with a girl, it would also be a date. He said it would and that he'd wonder about me. Apparently two people cannot be just friends at all; there has to be some nookie somewhere. Obviously the boy has never had a friend, and it's not hard to see why.

I was running the register to do Neil's break, and while I was ringing someone up this lady came up and she was waving a five-dollar bill and yelling at me, "Can I get change please?" I was like, uhhh . . . and I just nodded at her and pointedly continued to ring up the customer in front of her, thinking, wow, I sure hope you can wait your turn. So she got to the front of the line and I asked her what change she needed, because all she was doing was giving me the five and saying, "I need change." So I asked her again what kind of change she wanted, and she said, "I said between customers, did you miss it?" I have no idea what exactly she meant--if she was asking me if I didn't understand her or if she thought I had to get her change when someone else paid, I have no clue--but she just didn't understand that I needed to know HOW the change was to be given. Finally she got the message. ::sigh::

A kid buying Yu-Gi-Oh! cards gave me the five-dollar bill and said, "Cash back, please." Um, what the hell do you mean by that? Normally you get change when you buy something for $4.27 and you give me five bucks. Did you expect me to give it to you in wooden beads? I ask you. Oh well, he's a kid. I forgive him.

Oh yeah, and two people in a row came up to the Customer Service desk and asked me for a book they'd ordered when they hadn't been called yet. (If you ordered it last week, there's no possibility it could have gotten to the store yet, because we get shipments on Sundays--no shipments in between at all.) The worst part about that was that the second person who asked overheard my entire explanation for the first customer, and then asked the same damn question even though his situation was identical. "Oh well I was just checking" was his rationale. ::sigh::

4/2/03

Urgh. Some guy came up and wanted to know about the newest book by his favorite author. I looked it up and saw nothing since January, and told him so. Well, my customer got a little confused because he had this idea that there was supposed to be a new one soon, but then he said, "Well that's okay. I'm on the list, I'm sure y'all will call me when it comes out." Ignoring the fact that if a book by an author this popular is even on the horizon, it will be orderable several months in advance, I called the guy on this business of a list. "What list are you talking about?" I asked. And the guy informed me that he signed up to be on "the list" where whenever his favorite authors write new books, we automatically order them and call him. Umm. Well call me incompetent, but I've worked this job for just under three years at this point and I have yet to EVER hear of such a program. We don't do that. We take advance orders, and we take orders for individual books. We don't keep a running inventory of people's favorite authors and ring them up periodically to tell them the good news. So, I told him so.

Well, this guy, he knew otherwise because last time he was in here, he signed up on this mysterious list, and then we DID call him when there was a new Woods book. Er, well I think that was called an advance order, and it was for a single book, not for a book hotline for the indefinite future. I told him what I thought had probably happened, but at this point he became extremely hard of hearing somehow and had issues understanding me, so he gave up, thanked me, and walked away. As has become my catch phrase, go fig.

Customers like to come up and tell you all about what you carry. This happened to my manager today; a customer came up and said, "You stopped carrying books about all the other religions, huh." She was like, "Um, NO," and when the customer insisted that "you used to carry books on all these other religions and now there's just all these Christian books," my manager demanded, "Well what are you looking for?" See, my manager has a way of really wanting to throttle you if you refuse to think, and if you're an employee she'll tell you what a "maroon" you are right to your face. But of course with a customer she isn't going to do that. So she finds herself trying to coax out of this freak what exactly she's supposed to be going for. So, the customer explains to my manager, and she points where the books on Judaism and Catholicism and stuff are. And of course the customer can't find them even though they are standing one aisle over from it and my manager is pointing right at it. Funny how people are so determined to avoid getting what they came for. I heard her say, "Follow my finger!" At that point I wandered away so I could go laugh somewhere private.

4/1/03

Some asses went to the checkout to ask where a book was, so the cashier sent them to Customer Service, making an announcement calling Mark to the desk since I was not supposed to be the Customer Service person that day. Despite the fact that this couple was told to go to the desk AND despite the fact that my name is obviously not Mark, they stopped walking on the way to the desk and asked me, "What do we do if we want to look up a book?" I asked them, "Did you just go to the cash register and ask that?" They said they did. "What did he say?" I prompted. They told me they were told to go to Customer Service. I pointed the desk out to them and told them that therefore that's where they should go, and I mentioned that I'd heard "Mark to Customer Service" so I imagined that Mark would help them. Is this so difficult? Obviously they heard the directions given to them because they were able to repeat them. I guess they just figured they were exempt from having to actually GO to the desk; they'd just stop the first employee they saw on the way and ask the exact same question they'd asked at Checkout, thereby wasting their time and mine. I guess they're the types of people who do the opposite of what posted signs say because they assume "Oh, that sign's not for ME." ::sigh::

I received a ridiculous amount of Kids' shipment this week. (Last week too.) Usually I receive a little more than one cart, which is something like twelve or thirteen boxes of books. This week I received somewhere around thirty-five boxes. This wouldn't be such a big deal if they weren't full of MORE COPIES OF BOOKS I ALREADY HAVE THAT DON'T SELL. I am not kidding. I received exactly ONE METRIC FUCK-TON of Full House books. I already had plenty of them and they do not sell. That is because the target audience of the Michelle and Stephanie books is much too young to have ever watched Full House, seeing as how it was cancelled around the time most of them were born. Yet I need seven copies of Michelle's adventure Unlucky in Lunch. No one cares! Those books are so rarely looked at that they have stayed in numerical order for three months without me having to fix them, which is quite impossible in my store unless no one's touching them! See, those kids would much rather read the books about the Olsen twins, seeing as how they are hip and cool and both of them are in the books instead of taking turns pretending to be Michelle, and they do things like try out for modeling jobs, have fashion shows, and in some, become detectives and save the world (or just date boys, with fun twin hijinks where one is crushing on a boy and oh no he likes the other twin but really it turned out he just didn't know there were two of them oh haha funny). Can't you see? That's so much more appealing! No one cares about the Tanner family because the eighties are over. They also sent me exactly two and a half assloads of Little House on the Prairie books, as well as a ridiculous amount of Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books, and since the box sets of Dear America didn't sell at all, they decided to send me two more of each box and about a bajillion repeats of titles I have. Smart, aren't they?

And here are my April Fool's gags. I pretended to my boss and then later to Neil that someone had thrown up all over the train. First I tried it on my boss and told him I didn't know what to do. He was all cooking up a plan to try to get out of helping and then I told him I was kidding. I drew it out longer when I tried it on Neil. I pretended I was feeling ill from looking at it, and he was so sympathetic and told me I should get some fresh air first and it was really funny, I acted really well because he thought I was going to cry. When he told me to just try lots and lots of paper towels, I told him that wouldn't be necessary because it was a joke. HAHAHA! I had them both going. ::grin::