![[Where's Weenie?]](weenie.jpg)
6/30/03
ARGH! This one REALLY ANNOYED ME! Surprise. I am at work and there are customers; what else do you expect them to do? Anyway.
I was messing around doing overstock in the Workbooks area when I observed a mother and her son wandering around the Intermediate Series area, puzzled at not finding the Magic Tree House series. Well, I figured that was a bit goofy, considering Magic Tree House is for pretty young kids, not "intermediate," but then again our filing system isn't always perfect, so I decided to make myself available for assistance. I walked by her and she snagged me, but her question was not what I was expecting.
"Excuse me, where did you move the Magic Tree House books to?"
Er. . . .
My response was predictable and slightly rude. "I haven't moved them in three years, actually." I led the way and told her they were in First Chapter Books. Yeah that was an exaggeration, since I've worked there for three years, wasn't Kids' Department Head for all that time, and did indeed have the series on different shelves at some point. But more about that in a minute. Just so you know, these books had been in their current home since approximately April 2002.
The lady accepted that, but apparently couldn't resist saying, "Well, you did move them; they used to be over there." Pointing to the Intermediate Series section. I begged to differ: "Um, I've never had them over there. I've been the department head here for three years." Her response? "Well, I can appreciate that, but I have bought at least ten books for that child right there," she said in a snippy voice, "and they were in Intermediate Series."
Well, gee, imagine my surprise to find that I'm actually quite ignorant, to think that I know my own store and stuff. It must be that I'm hallucinating these hilarious pipe dreams about Magic Tree House books, since everyone knows that the customer is always right. After all, I have worked in this section almost exclusively for two years (and in the store for three), while there is a good possibility she shops at more than one store and could therefore be mistaken. But of course, I must be the one who's wrong, being the one who physically touches these books for thirty-two-plus hours a week; her memory could not possibly be muddled at all.
You can appreciate that? Appreciate? "Well yes yes, I know you do this all day every day, and I'm taking that into account, but I know how your books are organized because I have a vague memory of purchasing books for that child over there, and I know for a fact it's from YOUR STORE. Therefore I'm either suggesting that we are living in parallel universes OR, more likely, that you are a sack of shit who somehow didn't notice that you'd moved those books."
I did at one point move that series, when we had a big upheaval in our store for the Kids' section. But before it kind of got its own section--"Intermediate Chapter Books"--it used to be qualified as a "first reader," which is even younger; it was never considered older children's reading material by our store. NEVER. All the books' price stickers are imbued with codes that tell us how to categorize them, and while most of them have the cute little "IT-CHP" that stands for "Intermediate--Chapter books," some of the older ones still have "BG-FST," standing for "Beginning--First Readers," which has been scratched out by me and replaced with the correct categorization. Note that there is not a single book, not even a scratched-out one, with a code resembling "IS" for Intermediate Series. None.
Not only am I correct; I have proof.
Besides, being the Kids' Department Head . . . I WOULD HAVE BEEN THE ONE TO MOVE THEM IF THEY WERE TO BE MOVED.
But nooooo. She knows better! She bought it from Intermediate Series! She knows for sure! I'm oblivious! Don't know my job! Too incompetent! Now who the hell does she think she's fooling when she argues with the person in charge of the damn section? Maybe she didn't want her kid to see her shown up by some wage slave. That'll show me! Trying to tell her she made a mistake in front of her child! Bwahahaha.
Okay, so I know I'm kind of making a lot out of this one. But in case you haven't noticed, I really get annoyed when people try to tell me I'm wrong when they are obviously talking out of their asses and only fooling themselves.
Now a short one from my coworker: She got a phone call from some lady asking, "When is your big book sale happening?" Being that we AREN'T planning any "big book sale" any time soon, she did not know what the lady was talking about, and was like, "WHAT big book sale?" The lady shot back that it's usually sometime around July 4th. Well, this will be my fourth July at the company, and I do not recall any "big book sales," but when my coworker re-asserted that she didn't know of any book sale, the lady just sighed rudely and said, "Let me speak to a manager." She just cheerfully said "Okay!" and gave her over to our manager. Well here's the beans. The lady was nice to her when she said there was no sale scheduled! Apparently unless you make manager-caliber money, you are not qualified to know what goes on in your own fucking store.
6/29/03
I rang up a lady's newspaper and told her it was a dollar. She held out a dollar and eleven cents. I started to take the dollar but she kept trying to make me take the eleven cents too. I told her it was only a dollar. She replied, "Yeah, but isn't there tax or anything?" Well of course but I was planning to ask you for that separately. No there's not tax! If there was I would have told you so with your total! Grr!
6/28/03
I was doing some overstocking projects in my Intermediate Series section when I overheard a family having many issues finding the Lemony Snicket books. Usually when people are being helpless nerds in my earshot, I do not run to help them even if I know the answer; I wait until they decide to ask me. In this case it was quite annoying. There I was on one side of the shelf while on the other side two of the family's members are acting puzzled at not finding A Series of Unfortunate Events in what happens to be the D shelf. It bugged me because they weren't even bothering to try to figure out how the shelves were organized; yeah, there's a solid philosophy, wander around talking loudly about your confusion and just expecting the books you're looking for to just be sitting somewhere; don't bother to figure out the filing system in my perfectly organized section. I overheard the dad telling the kid that they had them last time he was in here, blah blah, and finally they turn the corner and see the books, and the dad says, "Ah-HAH! They moved them!" I had to walk away at that point so I could imagine killing them outside their immediate presence. I have not moved the Lemony Snicket books in like two years. You could not find them because you did not bother to figure out how to look for a damn series, not because I MOVED THEM. It just steams me how it's always the store's fault if you can't find something.
A girl had just bought the first Harry Potter book in paperback, and then came back and decided she wanted to purchase the second one too. She wanted me to tell her how much it was first, though, because she was down to the last bills in her wallet and wanted to make sure she had enough. Well, I asked her if she had the receipt from her last purchase, because that would have made it easy; the second book is the exact same price as the first, so figuring for discount and tax, it would be exactly the same. She did not comprehend this after I explained, though, so I just rang the book up and told her what it had come to, careful to explain that the book, with discount and tax, was this price. She just said, "Okay," and looked at me, then added, "so how much would it be?" I was like, "What do you mean?" since, ya know, I'd just told her exactly that. She said, "How much is it with tax??" I told her I had SAID the price including tax--and I might add I actually do say "with tax," because it reminds people that tax is involved so they don't think their discount card only entitles them to a few cents off. It's a common misconception that the card isn't worth it because it discounts the book ten percent and then tax goes ahead and raises it six percent. She paid for the book and left. ::sigh::
Here's something nice. A guy in maybe his late forties or early fifties wished me a "Happy Saturday," and in the middle of our pleasant transaction he noticed my necklace. "Are you a Pagan?" he asked, pointing at it, and I said I was. He goes, "Well, good." He told me that he had one like it at home but bigger, and we talked about necklaces serving as conversation pieces. It was cool. And then, I was helping some lady and passed some guy standing in the Art section, and as I passed he asked, "Is that a pentacle?" about my necklace. I said it was, and he was like, "Cool!" and when he turned his head I saw he was wearing a pentacle earring. When I passed him again, he said, "Witches, witches, everywhere!" Hehehe. Weird that both of those things happened in the same day.
6/25/03
A lady came to Customer Service, got the books she had ordered, and asked me if I had three copies of some other book. Turned out we only had one copy, so I gave her that and she said she wanted to order two more, but then changed her mind. So after fulfilling all her needs I asked if she had anything else she wanted to ask. She said no, but then at that point she began kind of drumming her fingers and looking at me like she expected something else. I just told her to let me know if she needed anything else and went about my business, not leaving the desk just yet because I really was curious about why she was standing there. (Strongly suspecting, of course, that she expected to be checked out but wasn't realizing that I couldn't do it at that counter.) I pretended I needed to look something up real quick, then finally since she didn't try to get my attention I just walked away. I started straightening the books in the Family section halfway across the store. I glanced back and yes, she was STILL standing there. I figured hey, maybe she thinks I was supposed to check her out. So why didn't she say anything when I was up there, and why didn't she get a clue when I started going about my business and then WALKING AWAY? I had been gone at least three minutes and she was still there, and I thought, no, no one's that oblivious. Maybe she was just using the counter to look through her books, because now she was turning pages. But still just standing there. I figured there was no way she would not fuss at me if I walked by and she really was waiting to check out, so I decided to walk by her. I did. She saw me and was like, "Do I have to go up front to pay for these?" Oh, what gave you that idea?
I was on the phone with someone, with my other freaking line ringing too. I was walking to the desk and there was ALSO some lady standing there. So, I finish with the person on the phone and notice that my other line has stopped ringing, which is nice because now I can help the lady. She opened her mouth and immediately, I swear, at the sound of her voice I shuddered. She was the "Okay??" lady from 5/13/02. I will never, ever forget her voice, and you'll see why if you look at that entry for her. Anyway, she had ordered a book and I got it for her, and then she said, "Before, when the phone was ringing, that was me." I was like, "Huh?" and she revealed that she came to the desk and there was no one there, so she figured she'd be smart and use her cell phone to make the desk's phone ring, which should make me come. Oh my fricking God. I told her that that wasn't exactly a solid way to guarantee customer service, considering I had a portable phone. Her response? "Well, you came." Uh-huh.
I overheard two college-age girls walking by on their way to the Literature section. One of them was saying, "Well, that's why you get the Cliff notes. That way you don't have to read the book." The other girl responded, "Smart thinking!" There is nothing SMART about using a cheat sheet to avoid reading the book altogether. You're just cheating yourself. Very, very "smart." Cliff's Notes aren't altogether such a bad idea, but they should be used in conjunction, not instead. Whatever.
I hate getting asked the exact same question I just answered. Some guy said, "Do you have any more of the new Harry Potter?"
I said, "No."
His response: "You don't?" And then he kept looking at me, as if I was actually expected to answer.
So you think there's a chance that THIS time I might say "yes"?
He asked me how many we ordered, and I said it was around 500 copies. He responded, "Well y'all shoulda ordered a thousand. This is Gainesville!" Yes, as everyone knows, Gainesville is particularly more fond of Harry Potter than everywhere else. Yeah, of course, if only we had KNOWN that everyone would want it. Then we could have made more copies get made. ::eyeroll::
6/24/03
I had a lady tell me that a book should be on sale. "You should put a discount on that," she told me, explaining that it was selling for cheaper at another store. Yeah, that's how it works. You walk up to someone who works in a store and inform them that it should cost less. I would never dream of doing something like that.
I'm confronted at Customer Service with a younger teenager coming up and asking if her title "came in." Since all she said was "Did such and such come in?" I thought I'd need a little clarification, and asked her if it had been ordered. She said her mother ordered it and she wanted to see if it was in. Well, nothing came up under her name, and she didn't know how long ago it had been or whether she'd ever gotten a call, so she went away.
Soon Mom comes up and she's like, "I ordered that book three weeks ago! They said it'd be in on the sixth!" "It's the twenty-fourth now," her daughter chimed in. Yeah, obviously I need to be reminded of the date to realize what ridiculously bad service we've been giving. So, I asked for her phone number to look up the order. Nothing came up. I asked for her name. Again nothing came up. She said that she had ordered it from our manager, and said, "He's that older guy, right?" I wouldn't call our manager an "older guy," so I doubted someone at least fifteen years my senior would, and so I denied that. She said, "Speaks with kind of an accent?" I don't hear any accent. You're not in my computer, we never called you, and you're describing a manager who doesn't seem to work at our store. I'd hazard to say it wasn't HERE it was ordered. So she made me put it on order "again," which I did.
Then she wanted to know about books by a certain author, so I looked it up and told her the titles of the only two we were supposed to carry. I guess she'd about lost her patience by then because I just got an irritable, "Well do you HAVE them??" ::sigh:: Actually, once I checked, I saw that we didn't.
A girl called me on the phone and sounded like she was teetering on the borderline of throwing a shit fit. She said that she'd been here an hour ago, bought a discount card, and then we gave her the card but we did not discount her purchase.
Assuming you don't work cashier at my store, I'll explain this to you. The machine is incapable of selling a discount card without applying the discount to that purchase. It is one of two modes: Discounted or non-discounted. ALL transactions with discount cards sold automatically switch to discounted mode. There is no way we could stop the discount from happening or forget to put it on if you received the card itself, which I confirmed with her that she had.
"Well I'm looking at my receipt and there is NO ten percent off," she vented, and so I asked her to explain to me why she thought there had been no discount taken off. She just told me that none of the prices had discounts on them. So. I explained to her that what she was probably looking at was the discounted price of each item followed by the total price depending on what the quantity is. If you buy two of that item, the second number is different; if not, it's exactly the same as the price you paid, as in a book is $10.99 and then in the "quantity" column it says "1" and then in the "total" column it says "$10.99."
Here's the clincher. Underneath each item, there is a bit that says "regular price:" and then the original price. And then on the bottom of the receipt it says "Club Savings:" and how much you saved.
I pointed all this stuff out to her, and she saw the light and apologized and hung up. I found it kind of weird. I mean, first of all she didn't even compare the books to their price tags to see if they were costing her less; she was just glancing at one line and reading it incorrectly, assuming that since the "price" and "total" columns were the same, she must not be getting a discount. If I was going to call some store and dispute what had happened, I would make sure I read every word on the receipt first, and since "Regular price" appeared on there for every item, I think it would lead her to see the light on her own. But nope. Gotta call and insist that we wronged you before thinking about it a sec. Don't worry, it's always our fault.
A lady attacked me to ask me why we didn't carry a certain newspaper anymore. It was a paper I'd never heard of, though its title sounded vaguely reminiscent of Investor's Business Daily. When I mentioned this to her, she zoned out a little and was like, "Oh, that's right . . . well they changed their name." Seeing as how our newspaper stocking forms were years old when I first STARTED this job and they've always been printed with Investor's Business Daily on them, I wondered exactly how the hell long ago that must have been. So I asked her. She was all, "Ohh, I don't know," vaguely, and thanked me for my help and went away. (Out of curiosity, I looked on IBD's site, and I don't see any indication that they ever went by another name, but I could be wrong.)
Today our manager told us a story about an asshole lady: something that happened to her yesterday. Apparently the lady wandered up to Customer Service and had her looking up an out-of-print book that we couldn't even order, and she was one of those people who had to continue giving out information even after we'd figured out already what she wanted and couldn't help her. (Kinda like they know the title, you find the book in the computer, it says we can't get it, and then they say, "Well, it's a little red book, about 300 pages. . . .") Anyway, she started rubbing her arm and said accusingly, "I think I cut myself on your magazine." Our manager gave the lady the weirdest look in the world--she described it as "I'm on the rag and you think I care about you getting a papercut??" The lady didn't like that look. She said, "I just left Borders because I didn't like the way I was treated there." I guess this was supposed to be a warning and an insinuation that she was having a bad shopping experience here too.
Tough monkeys.
Here's a disturbing book.
"Rise and shine, Weenie. Time to get up!"
"Come on out, Weenie."
"Is that Weenie hiding under your blanket?"
HAHAH. And yes, this is shelved in children's, not porn. Weenie's a dog, in case you're curious.
6/23/03
We didn't order any bags this week, so we've run out. While I was covering the register break I had to explain this situation to anyone who I thought might have wanted a bag. For some reason when I said we were out of bags, two people told me it was fine as long as no one would stop them (well, one said "stop," and one said "accuse") on the way out. Yes, lady. I'm going to tell you we are out bags, and somewhere between the end of this register and the exit door (distance: approximately three feet) someone is going to say, "HEY, you didn't buy those!" just because you have no bag. First off we all know we're out of bags, and secondly it's not like we pop out of the woodwork making sure everyone has receipts. It is actually okay not to have a bag.
And here's a genius: I told a guy we had no bags, and he was all nodding and said, "That's okay." Then I put his stuff on the counter, and he said, "Well can I have a bag?" Dude, don't say "yes" and agree with me if you're not even listening to what the fuck I'm saying.
I got one of the two questions I've been expecting regarding Harry Potter! Someone asked me where the paperback was for the book that came out two days ago. Again, I thought the fact that hardbacks come out first was common knowledge, but I have to remember I'm dealing with people who don't freaking read. This lady was holding a copy of number 4 in paperback, saying, "Where's the new one, but in paperback?" When I told her there was no paperback, she was like, "Okay, well then the hardback's up on that table then?" No, the hardback's not up on that table. If you knew there was a table (which you must, if you're holding the fourth book's paperback), then you'd already been by it and you probably noticed there's no Harry Potter 5. They're behind the register because we're holding them for people who reserved them, actually.
In case you're wondering, the other question that I'm expecting people will ask soon is "When is book 6 coming out?" I expect this to be asked before next Saturday. I will kill them.
Another lady was buying book 4 in hardcover, and the other cashier happened to mention something about it that clued her in that it wasn't the newest one. The lady was all flabbergasted that that wasn't the new one, and it certainly isn't that funny that she didn't know the new one was number 5, not 4 (though it was a bit amusing). The funny part came when she revealed that she'd actually already bought one copy of the fifth book and had it at home, but her kids were complaining that they couldn't both read it at the same time, so she was buying another. First off I think that's quite silly. You waited three years, you can wait or take turns. Jeez. Secondly, you've already seen the damn book in your house and you still bought the wrong one. Heh, she started going on about how the new one looked awfully familiar compared to book 4.
6/22/03
Before I'd even gotten to eat my start-of-the-day banana, I got called to Customer Service, where I got to wait on three weirdos in a ROW.
First one was Old Rugged Guy. He had seen a movie on TV and wanted to know if there was a book for it; it was about some slave ship. I didn't find a book for it, but I guess maybe the fact that there was no book for it inspired him to explain to me what the movie was all about. He told me about the slave trade and all this crap about that particular ship and its historical significance, and that wouldn't have been so bad if another customer hadn't shown up behind him and started waiting for service. When he noticed her there, he turned so he was addressing both of us, and started to give her the run-down too.
When he finally ran out of steam the girl came up, and she wanted a book for her school reading. Luckily, it was from some out-of-town school, which meant not many people were looking for it here, and we had plenty of copies. I asked her if she'd already looked anywhere for it (not wanting to take her somewhere she'd already been), and she said that she was just really bad in bookstores. That I could accept. It was her next statement that earned her a spot on here: "I just get so confused in bookstores, with all these last names and first names. . . ." She trailed off meaningfully as if I would totally understand being confused by something like a last name. Sorry, I thought last names actually helped you find a book. Maybe one day we'll get smart and just dump the books in pig troughs, sorted by color, and people can find what they want.
Someone who was with the above customer wanted to know if we had any more of Harry Potter, which of course is the question of the day. When I asked her if she reserved a copy (those were the only people we could sell them to because of our shortage), she said she didn't but she ordered it from somewhere to come through the post office, and hers didn't come. "Can you find out why?" she asked me. At least she realized that was kind of a goofy question as soon as it came out of her mouth, because then she was like, "No, of course not" when I told her I had nothing to do with stuff ordered through the mail or whatever. Hehe.
Some lady asked me for Get Clark Smart today, a book we're often out of because of its popularity. (Clark Howard was recently on a celebrity visit around here, so we're getting hit up for the book more often than our other stores in the chain.) First off, she seemed to think she was asking for something I would have never heard of. Even if it had been, she didn't have to be so freakishly exact with her information; I have a pet peeve about people who overemphasize things when I understand plain speech just fine, thank you. I do not need "Clark Howard" spelled.
So then it just went downhill from there. She said this puzzling sentence: "Now I don't know if it's a book or if it's a paperback. I think it's a book, but it might be just a paperback." Um . . . paperbacks are books!
Turned out we were out, and she wanted to know "when are you going to get more in?" I told her it would replace automatically depending on when the books were bought, since we always carry it. But then she just still wanted more information about when I was going to "order some" and when they'd come in, just pretty much ignoring my explanation of how our replenishing system works. So I said it would be fastest to order a copy, which is not only true but guarantees her a copy while just waiting for it to come in does not. After I took her name, she immediately said, "And should I just check next week?" No. Do not "check." Wait for us to call you. And wait for me to ask you for your phone number, because that was next. Believe me, I do not need prompts in order to satisfy your needs.
Up at the cash register, our cashier was asked by a kid from Alabama if he likes Yu-Gi-Oh!. He replied that he didn't, but the kid persisted, "Well if you ever DO, don't buy THAT deck," pointing to Pegasus Deck or something. "It's Satanic," he continued. "One of the cards has the H-word on it." Yes, as everyone knows, the mention of H-E-double-hockey-sticks makes it Satanic. Why not ban all of Yu-Gi-Oh! on principle? After all, that Eye of Ra on all the cards is from an ancient non-Christian Egyptian religion, isn't it? While you're at it, ban the Bible too, because that mentions Hell a lot. Oh wait, did I say that cuss word? 'Scuse me.
One of my coworkers got harassed on the telephone the other day, though she only related the story to me today. The guy called and asked her for some stuff, and after she completed his order he asked her if she was single. She replied that she wasn't, and he said, "Well, neither am I, but do you want to go out with me?" She told him that she did not, and when he asked why not she said, "I'm married." He asked how old she was, and when she said she would be twenty-one soon, he treated her to a lecture about how that was too young to be married, how 55% of marriages in America don't last, and how she's probably going to be headed down that path. He also told her she should not have kids until she is at least thirty. Oh, fantastic! Too bad she has his phone number from his order and can track his filthy ass if she wants to.
A girl on the phone told me she had waited 'til the last minute to do her report and she needed a book on a particular kind of marine life. I searched for her, but there was no particular book on the subject, and as I was peeking at likely prospects to see if any had maybe a chapter, she asked if we had a copy machine. I told her we didn't, at which point she asked if she would be allowed to just buy the book, make her copies, and then return it. Hmm . . . I wonder why I decided to stop helping her at that point?
Had a guy come up and ask me, "Do you have any actual flash cards?" Unsure of whether "actual" meant something other than the usual kind or whether he was comparing them to something that wasn't quite flash cards, I asked him to clarify. "Well, they're called flash cards," he answered, talking to me like I must have lived the last twenty years beneath a rock. Then he began to describe what flash cards were--how they are little cards with a question on the front and the answer on the back. A bit bewildered, I just kind of pointed behind him as he was speaking, directing his attention to my "actual" giant flash card wall.
6/21/03
Well, it's the release of Harry Potter.
I'm sure you can probably dream up a few Assholes yourself, so just imagine throngs of pissed-off people getting to the register after checking five bookstores and finding out the only copies we have are the ones on reserve. (We opened at the stroke of midnight to sell the book, which took up a lot of them. Thank goodness I wasn't there.)
Scholastic did this deal where you can pay for the book ahead of time and then you get this coupon that's redeemable for a book. Unfortunately there is a quota each bookstore was supposed to fill and then stop accepting the vouchers for the weekend, picking up on Monday or whatever. Well, when we stopped accepting the voucher, we got a pissed-off lady who started ranting at another employee; apparently she'd been to the register and been told it wouldn't be honored, so she came back to us and started trying to badger him. I stepped in to explain the situation since all he'd been told was that all the Harry Potter shit was happening at the register, not Customer Service, and I told her what was up. She was like, "But it SAYS on there that I can pick it up June 21st! I paid for it two months ago!" I told her I'd just get the manager if she wanted to hear it from someone higher. Diana got to hear the same crap, and the lady repeated the thing about how it SAYS on there. Yes we SEE that, but see THIS IS NOT OUR BAD. Scholastic's doing, honey; our name is not anywhere on that voucher, and it was by their ruling that we stopped accepting the voucher at a certain time. Well, apparently she didn't care. She preferred thinking whatever she wanted and telling my manager she would never shop at our store again. Well . . . in that case you'll have to stop shopping at every bookstore, because Borders stopped accepting them today too, and Barnes and Noble stopped last night.
Oh, and then there are the people who didn't reserve a copy but think they should be able to get one anyway, and confront us with statements like, "Well maybe you'd like to explain to my nine-year-old why he can't get the book until Monday." Yeah dude . . . we've all been waiting three years, and I'm sorry your poor deprived nine-year-old is not going to get to read Harry Potter NOW. I am not afraid of explaining to your nine-year-old how we are out of books. Because there is nothing his pouting lip can do to make a book come out of my ass.
Ahh, in related news, one of my coworkers was asked by a woman if we were out of the book, and he said we had some but they were for people who reserved it. (She'd seen the boxes, so she knew we had some in the store.) She replied, "So you have them but you're not selling them." He re-explained to her how the books we have have been spoken for, and she just repeated, "YEAH, so you have the books but you're not selling them," and marched off in a snit. Yet another example to fit the phenomenon I described down there in the entry for 6/1/03: People try to rephrase what you just said to make it seem like you're being unreasonable.
Yes, lady, you have figured us out. We are letting books sit in boxes for no reason other than that we just don't want to sell them. We want to keep them in the store so that each box does not earn us two hundred dollars. Moreover, we wish to keep them from you, because it infuses us all with dirty pleasure. That is why we won't sell the book. Not because the books actually do belong to people who spoke for them before you did. Not because people who already gave us their money have a right to expect books to be here for them.
6/18/03
Heh, some kid asked whether reserving a copy of Harry Potter 5 meant he could therefore get it now. ::grin:: I really, really don't think so, and I also don't think that Billy was telling the truth when he told you he already got one. Face it, kid, your best friend is a lying brat.
Some lady asked me for bartending books, saying she'd already been through Cooking but couldn't find them. I found them for her, and she picked up the first one she saw and said, "Now is this the one that tells you how to make all the drinks?" Unable to hold in my amusement, I informed her that any bartending book that didn't explain how to make the drinks would be a rather bad one. She accepted that.
A lady asked me for a book that was supposed to be in my section, but I hadn't heard of it (actually she had the wrong title, but the right author), so I looked it up and it turned out we did carry it. As I was taking her back over there to find it, I asked her if she'd already checked the back wall for it, and she said, "Well yeah," with a disdainful face, "but those books aren't in any order."
If you had been present at that moment, you would have noticed steam rising from my head, and I'm not sure but my eyes probably would have turned red. I replied, in undisguised anger, "Oh yes they are!" She was like, "They are?" and as we were walking back that way I told her I hoped they were still in order since I only spend most of my hours at this job making sure they stay that way. Ooh, busted! I have spent three years at this job making sure this and other sections are put in an order that makes shopping easy and enjoyable. So basically, I really don't think so.
So after I found her book, I asked her if by chance she had come across some books that were out of order, thus causing her to make the statement that my section was out of order. "Well, no," she said, "I just . . . I didn't know it was in alphabetical order."
So. In other words. In a perfectly organized section, you were looking for a book whose author you knew. Yet you were somehow unable to find it, probably because you didn't bother to try to discern whether it was in any order, and then when you asked for help finding it, you decided you'd make it look like you tried but just couldn't because of some unknown employee's incompetence. Unfortunately you asked the person who puts it in order, lady, and I for one am quite definitely OVER the notion that it is my fault you cannot find a book in a perfectly organized section when you knew the author to begin with. I was just extraordinarily pissed off over being told my section isn't any order. THE HELL IT'S NOT. Thank you.
6/17/03
Hey, did you notice there were NO Assholes yesterday?? Wow.
Just as I was getting off my shift today, a lady asked me whether the Harry Potter book she reserved is going to be there for her if she doesn't get there right on Saturday. I told her that if she reserved one we should have one for her, but I didn't know how many we actually had and how many would get sold on Saturday. So she said, "So basically there IS no actual book reserved. It's just a big hoax, huh." I told her it wasn't a hoax; we had a list of people who'd reserved the book but I wasn't the one who was taking care of it so we'd just have to see. She left after that. Yeah lady, we have a lot to gain for hoaxing the public over Harry Potter. Our big scheme is to make sure you don't get one; what we really want to do is encourage you to spend your money someplace else. You've got our number now. Actually, the number of pre-ordered books determines how many boxes we get, and I doubt it's A HOAX just because we're not allowed to open the boxes until the release date on pain of death, so there isn't actually a physical book with your name stapled to it at this very moment.
I had a guy who wanted to find Auel's Shelters of Stone in paperback. Well, I checked to see what the story is on that, since it has been out for more than a year, but there was no paperback listed in the computer and not even one on the horizon. When I told him this, the guy decided maybe it would somehow help if he began insisting that there SHOULD be a paperback by NOW, since the hardcover came out a while ago--there's not anything listed about a paperback? He went on this way for a while, despite my saying that I understand that normally books come out in paperback about a year after their hardcovers. Dude, I can't help you. I can't make the publishing company step it up on publishing their book in paperback. But if you waited ten freaking years for the book to come out in hardcover in the first place (like I did, dammit), I think you can chill for a little while longer . . . OR . . . here's the magical answer . . . check it out of the library.
I had a lady call in and ask if I had a book, which I did. I went and checked, pulled one, and asked her if she wanted to hold it. After I'd written her name down and was in the process of rubber-banding the piece of paper to the book, she said, "Are you sure you've got it?"
Okay. I could understand if maybe all I'd done is type it into the computer and told her we had it based on my computer's readout, but first off (maybe unknown to her) we don't have perpetual inventory so it's ALWAYS possible that the book is out of stock; we ALWAYS check before we say those doom-filled words "we have it." And secondly, I had asked her if she wanted to HOLD one, which kind of insinuates that I'd be physically putting one aside for her. I just didn't quite understand why she would ask me that question. I told her it was indeed in my hand.
A lady asked me, "Do you have baby books?" This question is one of my pet peeves. As I may have mentioned before (actually, yes, I have mentioned it before, in my entry for 12/15/02), "baby books" could mean one of about three things I can think of. So I said, "What's a 'baby book'?" The lady looked blank, so I elaborated, "I can think of several things that fit the description 'baby book.'" She replied, "Well, like books for a newborn." That's just as freaking bad!!! Although it seems unlikely that "books for a newborn" would describe books about how to deal with and raise your newborn, we still have the option of it being a memento book or a little book to be read to a baby. Finally she said she wanted books for like pediatric growth charts and information like that, to record your baby's stats. I took her to my Family Gifts section which had stuff like that, but she clarified that she wanted more of a gift type thing. (Cue steam rising from my head, because we WERE in the Family Gifts section.) She didn't even really look at anything, told me she would just get it next door, and asked if I had any photo books for newborns. I pointed her to Hallmark, and I guess she found what she wanted there. ::sigh::
6/15/03
Some guy wanted me to look for books on plants in Africa, and after telling him I didn't think I'd have a book in stock on just that, I asked him what he thought I should type in, in case he had keywords in mind. He said, "Well, just try 'fauna of Africa' or something." I gave him a screwed-up look and said, "Well are you looking for wildlife--pictures of animals?" He described more in-depth what he wanted, and no mention of animals: Plants, flowers. So I told him . . . I probably ought to use flora, not fauna. Heh.
A guy with a confused disposition asked me where Dr. Atkins's book on the diet for athletes is. I had never heard of anything like it and told him so, but I humored him and looked it up. Nothing on Atkins for athletes. Well, he was sure he wasn't making it up, so he decided that it was probably the book Dr. Atkins will never finish because, well, he died and stuff. He went away and then came back, saying he wanted to check on another book. He didn't know what it'd be called but he knew who it was by and said he was an advisor to Clinton. I couldn't find him in the computer either. I'm sure he went away thinking I just don't know how to search for books, since that was not once but twice he got nothing in the computer. But he wasn't rude or anything; I was just amused by his expression, because it totally told me he'd soon be asking at the next bookstore despite not being entirely sure he had the right information himself. I wish people understood that you'd have to basically be a monkey to fuck up something like typing an author into a computer. It is not difficult people.
I got called to the register to do a return, but the guy had written a check and the transaction had only been two days ago, so I couldn't do it because I can't give cash back for something when the check hasn't cleared yet. The guy argued with me about it. I guess maybe "This is the store policy" doesn't matter to him; I mean after all he's HIM, right? He's the exception. Store policies aren't for HIM. They're just for everybody else. Because guess what guys, he's from Lake City. He doesn't want to have to come out here again when the check is cleared to do his return. I told him there was nothing I could do; that is what the company does and we can't give cash back on a check that hasn't had time to clear. I offered to get him a manager but said they'd say the same exact thing, and so he reminded me that he was from Lake City again, and when I told him the company would eat me alive if I did something like give a refund on an uncleared check, he just gave me a dirty look and picked up his book and walked out. Have a GREAT day, sir! Remember, I'm the one that made policy specifically to try to fuck up your day!
This next thing happened TWICE today!
Some guy sitting at a table with like four books asked me if he could just leave his books there when he was finished or if he should put them back. Well, I'm not going to tell him he can just leave shit around, because I hate it when people do that! So basically, I derisively told him about how people leave stuff around our store all the time, kind of walking around his question, gesturing disgustedly at a chair stacked high with books someone had used and abandoned. Well, his response was to try to get me to give him my blessing to leave the books again! He was like, "Well, should I try to put them back where they go, or can I just leave them here?" I told him if he knew where they went he was welcome to put them back, and left it at that. Of course, after he left, he didn't put them back. He just left them in a stack on the table. I knew it. But I hope he went out feeling guilty. I know that he was just asking me because he wanted me to cheerfully tell him leaving shit around is no problem because that's what we're here for, or he wanted to hear that the only reason I have a job is that people are slobs, or maybe he expected me to happily take his armful of books for him and offer to put them back for him. No, no, no! Take some responsibility for your fucking actions.
Then some woman pretty much asked the same question of my coworker near the end of the day. She walked up to her (within my hearing distance) and asked her if there was a place to put books she wasn't going to take, or if she was supposed to put them back herself. I don't know what her reply was, because it wasn't as loud as this woman's voice, but then I heard her repeat, "Well, I didn't know if maybe there was a place I could put these since I'm not going to take them." Dude. Face up to it. You are being a JACKASS, and trying to get us to say, "Oh no problem!" so you can go about your day. Later my coworker came back up to the desk and said to me, "Hah, did you hear that woman? 'I'm sorry, but I'm far too lazy to put these books up myself!'" ::snicker::
I had a guy ask me something about a book with the word "ragamuffin" in the title. I typed it in and found it pretty quickly, but I guess the guy thought his request must be an SAT question, because he hinted to me, "Ragamuffin may be one word."
Um.
Who the fuck are you talking to anyway?
Yes. Ragamuffin is one word. What else would it be? Raga Muffin? Rag A Muffin? I know what a goddamn ragamuffin is and furthermore . . . get this . . . I can spell it on the first try. Impressed yet?
This one pretty much pissed me off. A guy came up holding a book that he'd gotten out of our New and Notable section, and he wanted to know if it was discounted. I told him if there was no sticker, there was generally no discount. (I was pretty sure he didn't read about a legitimate special on a sign, because people don't read what signs actually say, and end up assuming anything remotely near a big "20% off" must apply to their book. Those signs say "up to 20% off," dammit.) This one was a little different, though. The guy claimed that it was from a "May We Recommend" section that said something about 20% off on it, but he was asking because it didn't have a sticker and "every other book under that sign has a sticker." I asked him where it was from so I could see, and he just kind of avoided saying anything about it but repeated that every other book was discounted and wasn't it kind of misleading to just have one non-discounted book on the display if every other book was discounted. I asked again to see where he'd gotten it, and this time I got to see.
Here are the stats, for your amusement. (After he was gone I decided to count.)
There were 35 books on the display.
8 of them had discount stickers.
Umm . . . I know my math is kinda rusty, but I don't think 8 out of 35 is the same as 34 out of 35 with discount stickers. Am I wrong? Or was that, like, a gross exaggeration from Hell, meant to maybe shame me into applying a nonexistent discount?
While the guy was still there I pointed out that "every book on there" was NOT discounted and started pointing to a bunch of them without stickers, until he got my point.
A lady picked up a box set of the Harry Potter paperbacks and asked me, incredulously, "Are these the actual books?"
Yes, lady, they're the actual books. What did you think? They were cardboard copies of their husks? Maybe the books' immortal souls trapped in cellophane? A big bookstore trick to see if we can get you to buy something that isn't the actual books?
When I answered that in fact those were the Harry Potter actual books, she turned the set over, looked at the price tag, and said, "And it costs $30.97?" or whatever was written on there. I said that yes, the price tag actually indicated what the actual books actually cost.
I wonder what would happen if we rationed how many questions you could ask a day?
Oh, Lord, I hate dealing with people who have no idea what they want. A lady asked me to look up a book called Blue Trust. The only thing I came up with was an unavailable book by that title, written by an author named Stevie Cameron. I asked if that was the author and she said no, and seemed to think that there was anything I could do about it, like there should be another book that I could somehow find even though that was the only one in the list. Well, she strugged to remember who'd written it, and said, "Well I know it's not Gisham." She kept talking about how it was a lawyer-type story but not by Gisham. I don't know any Gisham. John Grisham, yes. Not Gisham. (It always boggles my mind how people can love the hell out of an author but not know what their fucking name is.) So I guess maybe in a subconscious gesture to get her the hell out of my hair, I told her again that the only thing by that name was a book by Stevie Cameron. She replied, "That sounds like a children's book!" That was so absurd I had to call her on it. "Um, the AUTHOR 'sounds like a children's book'?" She replied, waving a hand, "Yeah. Stevie??" Yes, there's no such thing as an author who could write an adult book whose name is Stevie. (That happens to be the first name of the mother of my best friend from grade school, but we won't go into that.) She said this like it was so ridiculous to imagine that STEVIE could be an ADULT book author, and I guess she got tired of talking to me because then she went away. I didn't mind, I tell you.
6/14/03
Had a lady ask for a book. It was Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People, and when I found one for her she expressed surprise because "everywhere else is sold out." I asked her if something was going on with it--if there was some book club or high-profile event drawing attention to it--but she just told me, "Well it's a very popular book, you know!" Ahh yes. It's a popular book. That's why this is the second time I've been asked for it in the three years I've worked at the store. See, that book is something that many people have heard of, just like, say, The Wizard of Oz is a movie almost everyone has seen. But if you told the video store clerk that you can't believe they actually don't have The Wizard of Oz rented out, they'd probably look at you really funny. See, I can think of loads of books people ask for once in a while, well-known books, but that doesn't make them "popular." And it certainly doesn't make them candidates for being perpetually out of stock at bookstores. Hehe . . . I'll just assume that the stuff on the top 30 is what's actually "popular."
6/11/03
This guy asked me the same question like fifty billion times. He'd received a book as a gift and didn't want it and wanted to know our return policy. When I told him that without a receipt we could give him store credit, he was disappointed and said, "Well I can't get cash for that?" I told him that without a receipt it's store credit, period. I checked in the computer and found that we actually don't even carry that version of the book, and so it probably wasn't even bought at one of our stores, and then when I was telling him that he said again, "Well it's only $7.99, I can't just come in and get that little bit of money for a trade-in?" I told him, beginning with the phrase "Like I said," that if you don't have a receipt, that situation is NEVER allowed to end in a cash refund, whether you bought a hundred-dollar coffee machine or a ninety-nine-cent bookmark. Finally he told me he didn't want another book. He just wanted the money so he could go get some groceries or something. I decided that would be a good time to bring the conversation to a close, so I did so. Argh. Why must people ask the same question over and over when they've gotten an answer they don't like? Do they think I'll just get sick of dealing with them and give them what they want? Well, one of those two things will happen: I'll get sick of it. But annoying me is not a good way to get what you want. Not gonna happen, buddy.
One from a coworker: She got a high school kid saying he wanted Lords of Discipline, and he got kind of whiny that we didn't have it, so my coworker ordered it. Then his mom came up with the reading list and it said something about him needing the school reading book by William Golding.
Chances are you are not going to understand why this is extremely funny unless you are a literature buff or a bookstore person, so let me enlighten you.
Lords of Discipline is by Pat Conroy. There is a book by William Golding called Lord of the Flies. I think someone got their wires crossed somewhere. So my coworker had to call the lady back and try to get her to figure out which Lord book they freakin' needed, so they could decide if they needed to cancel the order or not. Grr!
Some girl came up to me and asked if I would look a book up for her, and when I agreed, she said, "I already asked that other lady but she couldn't find it." I asked her what "other lady," and she indicated that it was my manager Pat. Oohh. Well that tells me something. That tells me that you are mistaken. Because Pat isn't exactly the type of person to be unable to find a book if it exists. So in other words, this girl just didn't like the fact that she was told her book wasn't in the computer and decided she'd just ask another employee, maybe get a different answer. Well, I humored her (because what else was there to do), but I told her that if Pat hadn't found it, I doubted I would either. So I of course got no results in the computer for this apparently imaginary title of hers (she was adamant that it was popular and had been made into a movie, though later Pat said she thought maybe that girl didn't realize it wasn't a book at all, JUST a movie). Anyway, after I told her that she said it was soooo weird because she just knew it existed and went by that title, and so I kinda got sick of it and told her that it just isn't very complicated to search for a title. I type in the words and if the book is in popular circulation it's not going to try to hide from me. She didn't seem offended even though being told "It's not exactly complex" is kind of like being told you're incompetent. So then she wanted scary books but complained that some of those would give her nightmares (I told her to make up her mind about what she wanted, and she just laughed), but after that was the most fun part: She asked for a book and it's only in hardcover right now, so I showed it to her. I knew she was going to ask the inevitable question, so before she said anything I said, "It's too new to be in paperback yet." Her response? "Well, do you think it might come in, ya know, paperback?" I told her I just said it was too new for that, and she said, "Oh, I didn't know they do that." "Do what?" "Well, I didn't know they come out in the hard book first." Far be it for me to criticize someone for not having "common knowledge," but yeah, I thought everyone knew that. Anyway, I guess maybe you'd have that misconception if all you read are drugstore paperbacks whose publishers don't bother releasing a hardcover.
6/10/03
A lady came to pick up her book and seemed to think that doing so would be an unusual occurrence. Like she'd be "the" lady who ordered a book and we'd just know which one it was. So after I got her book and asked her if that was all she needed, I went to go away and she motioned me back to her, so I went to see what she wanted and she said, "Well, may I purchase it?" I told her purchasing it would be an easy process at the register. Heh . . . honestly, now I have to reiterate that I DO NOT MIND being asked if they can pay for things at Customer Service; some places let you! I DO NOT, however, enjoy being treated like I'm incompetent because I am not checking you out when you are in the wrong place. I mean, honestly, if there was the slightest possibility that the customer service person could check you out, do you really think she would ask you if that was all you needed and then walk away? Don't you think we'd know our job well enough to figure out that maybe you might like to purchase it there, if it was possible to do so? Nah. Remember, apron + name tag = incompetent.
A guy came up and asked my coworker to reserve the new Harry Potter book, and then after all was said and done, asked if they would honor that "at the other store" since that was where he preferred to go. She had a hard time getting him to understand that the computer has no way of knowing where you're going to go and cannot simply beam you a copy at whatever store you show up at; just like putting in a customer order, a book being reserved is assumed to be delivered to that store. Weirdly enough, she called the other store to have them reserve him one, and the girl on the phone didn't understand either! She didn't get why we couldn't just do it, so my coworker had to explain to HER too, how they needed to use THEIR computer to put it in if they wanted it to come to THEIR store. Is this rocket science? Am I expecting too much??
A guy came up to us and asked if a "20% off table" had all items on it discounted. My coworker explained that the table's sign said "Up to 20% off" and that the items with that discount would have the sticker on them. Well, he sure told us off! "Don't you think that's a bit misleading, having a whole 20% off table and then only like two books on it are discounted? You should take that sign down!" he said. It was then that I jumped in and said in a rather rude manner (I'm just sick of hearing this, so I'm not nice sometimes), "That sign advertises the best deal on the table. It can't be misleading if it says right on it what the sale is on." He just reiterated that it's silly to have a 20% off sign on a table that isn't all 20% off, and I kinda blamed it on corporate crappiness, mentioning that that's how businesses work: they catch your eye with a number and then, well, you have to read the sign. It can't be "misleading" if it tells you the deal right on it.
A guy came up and wanted to apply for a job at our store. Since our manager really wants to hire non-students because we have enough people whose schedules change every semester, I asked him what his deal was. He said he had a summer class but it was just one class and he wanted part-time hours. I asked him if he was going to want to continue working after the summer and he said yes. So I asked about whether his schedule was going to change after summer, and he kinda looked confused and said, "Well, it's going to change in the fall, yeah." As if this is "of course." Dude, get it together. This is not school, this is a job. It is not automatically obvious that everyone coordinates their work hours around classes; that's precisely what we're trying to avoid because we have enough of that to deal with. He decided not to fill out an application when I told him that. :)
6/9/03
Some dude called on the phone and told me he was just calling to confirm that his book club could meet there. Well, first I've heard of it, but I told him generally it's okay with us if anyone wants to use our store to meet in. We don't care. But then he told me that he was promised a table and he wanted to just make sure we knew they were coming. I said if it was such a big deal maybe he'd want to talk with whoever he'd arranged with. Well, he seemed confused that any given person working at the store wouldn't have heard about this meeting of his: "Obviously they didn't put the word out." Question is, why would everyone care if we weren't going to have to do anything? It's not like it's an event we coordinated; they want to use our table or whatever. But this guy also seemed to have NO clue who he'd arranged with and said he didn't bother to get the man's name. Considering when he arranged it it could have been the new manager or the manager we just lost, so who knows, but he kept saying "I was just wanting to make sure you knew we were coming. I always affirm any appointments I make." We were just kind of going around in circles. I think what he wanted was for me to just say, "Yeah man, come on by, we'll be ready," but considering I'd never heard anything about it and he didn't seem too concerned about getting to talk to someone with, ya know, a CLUE about events, it wasn't really something I could just say.
Anyway, I suggested he just call back to get our manager, but he was like, "No that's okay," and told me I was a charming little "receptionist" or whatever I was. Gee thanks. But do you realize you just called me and talked in circles for five minutes and absolutely NOTHING got settled? He was calling to make sure his group wasn't going to walk in and we'd greet them like "who the hell are you?" but most likely that's exactly what'll happen. ::sigh::
You don't often hear *good* events in my Page of Asshole, but here comes one. Yesterday I found a book out of place and I was carrying it around with me, and by some really weird coincidence I had it in my hand while I was helping a couple who had been talking about the book that morning. The guy was like, "Wow, I think that's the book I was talking about, oh my gosh it IS," and wanted to see it. I figured he'd probably buy it due to the weird coincidence of it ending up in my hand just when they'd been talking about it that day, but alas, I guess they decided against it because I found it in my Kids' section this morning and that was the only copy. But what's this? WHAT?? The book was put back . . . in the right place! The exact right place! Not just in the Beginning Storybooks section. Not just in the B's in the Storybooks section. In the EXACT right place. Bishop is right after BE and before BL! I couldn't believe it. Someone knows their ABCs and realizes that I do too!
Some lady wanted a book called Your Body's Many Cries for Water or something. But on the paper she brought me, it was written as "Your Bodie's." Well, I guess whoever wrote it figured out that it was a possessive, but didn't understand where to put the apostrophe. Probably didn't realize she was essentially writing about someone's "bodie" needing water. I have never heard of a "bodie," have you?
Urgh. Someone annoying was asking me for school reading books. Actually one was something we usually have but the other I actually hadn't heard of and we didn't carry it. Unfortunately throughout the entire transaction she was REALLY, just REALLY annoying. Not for any real specific reason. Just kept saying pointless things. Like I typed the first title in to see which section it's normally in (since I wasn't sure if it was in Literature or plain old Paperback Fiction and we didn't have it in the School Reading section), and just after I finished typing she goes, "Do you have it?" When I find the book and put it in your hands, lady, that's when I'll know if we "have it." Before then, it is just annoying and pointless to ask, especially since when you came up to the desk asking for the book I imagined you would probably want it, and thus prompting me with "do you have it?" is just . . . I can't even think of a reason why someone would do it. I wouldn't have thought it was so shitty, either, if she didn't KEEP DOING IT, and furthermore doing it at inappropriate times. For instance, after I'd told her that we don't even normally carry her second title, she asked me a couple other questions and decided to order the first title but not the second (since there were several books that had the same title and she wasn't sure which one it was), and then when I mentioned that she could call back and order the second one when she found out its author, SHE SAID, "DO YOU HAVE IT?" We've already established that you don't even know what you're looking for, lady, and then you ask me if we have it AGAIN!!! Ugh . . . I just don't even know what to do with people like this.
Oh, another thing she did that was annoying was after she asked a question I looked up the answer, then tried to answer her but she had walked away and started looking at Hallmark cards nearby, and didn't respond when I tried to get her attention so I had to go get her. Oh yeah, and on the one where she wasn't sure which book it was because she didn't have an author, she said, "The one for xxx Middle School," and I had to explain to her that our computer doesn't KNOW what books go to what school; it's the same as looking it up on the Internet, and she replied to that, "Well, it's the one for like a seventh grader, can you tell which one is for the seventh graders?" GRRR. I told her it was PROBABLY the cheapest one but oh well, she still wasn't sure. So unfortunately we'll have to deal with her again when/if she decides to order the second one.
I got a bit slammed at Customer Service and every time someone would call I'd have to put them on hold, finish helping someone in the store, go back to the call, and before I was done I'd get another in-store customer. It kind of went back and forth this way until finally I got a VERY impatient man at the desk, who started knocking on the desk while I was away helping someone. When I came back and finished helping the lady and then I helped the woman who'd been waiting on the phone, the guy got really offended that he wasn't next (I guess he thought I was helping the lady on the phone out of order or something), and he just hit the desk really hard and marched away in a little tantrum. Yeah guy, you sure showed me. I should really be courteous and help the people who drum their fingers the most since they obviously need the most help, rather than helping them in, say, the order they arrived. Sorry to hear you're above waiting your turn, you old brat.
Some lady was helping her kid pick which school reading book she should choose. When she picked up Flowers for Algernon, her mom said, "Oh, I think that's a book about some retarded person," and the girl put it down roughly with a look of disgust. Yeah, books about retarded people must never be good. Sorry, but that book fucking rocks.
I was on the phone with someone from another store trying to find out how many of Hillary's book we were selling, and some lady started following me yelling, "Miss!" I kind of turned just enough so she could see I was busy on the phone, but that didn't stop her! "Miss," she called again, and when I didn't interrupt the person on the phone to help her, she said, "MISS!!" really loud and impatient. I turned all the way and pointed at the phone and said, "EXCUSE me" to her, about to explain I was on the phone, but I think she thought I was saying "Excuse me" to the person on the phone and just barrelled along saying she wanted me to help her find more of the Gainesville Magazine. I just told her to go to Customer Service and did not say anything more to her. What a jerk!
6/8/03
I was doing void-scanning with this uninteresting gizmo that reads bar codes, and I put it down on a cart while I was helping a woman. When I went back to get it, her maybe nine- or ten-year-old kid was examining it. When the mother saw she told her kid to put it down because it belonged to the store. To that, the kid responded by looking at me and saying, "Can I have it?" Yeah, sure, kid, you can randomly have this piece of electronic equipment that scans bar codes. The mom answered that she should just leave it alone, and the kid replied, "Can I just hold it?" Hahah! What the hell? Mom told the kid she was not making good choices right now. I went away to go have my lunch break.
I also had a lady ask me if I had a children's book called The Generous Oak. I was a little amused because I assumed she meant The Giving Tree--I mean how many books about selfless trees can there be, right? So I looked up the title, and as expected, there was no such thing as The Generous Oak. I suggested that it might be The Giving Tree and left a copy in the lady's hands so she could decide if it was really the same story. When I mentioned it offhand to my manager, she thought it was the funniest thing she'd ever heard, and for some reason thought the lady was really ridiculous for mistaking the title, saying she wouldn't have even suggested the correct title 'cause that's just so silly. I didn't think it was silly--just kind of amusing--but then my manager's reaction amused me too.
Here are some themes of today:
Something like nine people called to either ask our hours today or ask if we were open. Nine people. This is not normal even for a Sunday. Must be something in the water.
Here's another one: People asking me to find books based on the most general information in the world. Specifically, not understanding why what they were giving me would bring up too many results to hope to find their book. The first one was someone who wanted some book whose title contained the word "water." The title she thought it was didn't seem to exist, so I tried a narrowed search with what seemed the most memorable words but it didn't work. The lady suggested I just look up "water." I told her immediately that that wouldn't help and got off the phone with her, but then I got curious. Went to the computer. Typed in keyword: Water. Ahh, no problem: only 5,043 titles came up. I narrowed to search just books with the word "water" in the title. Even better: Down to 2,931 titles! I'm sure I have time to go through a little list like that and dig up a book that might or might not be listed in there. Uh-huh.
Oh and here's the other one: A lady's title search came up with nothing, so she tried to get me to find it by author and did not know how to spell the author's name. But she was "sure" that his last name started with the letters "Le." And suggested that as a realistic possibility for me to try to find him. Dude! No! Come in with the information you need. I am not finding all authors whose names start with "Le" and checking out what each one wrote! (Weirdly enough, she was "sure" of the author on another book too, until it came up with no results, so I shudder to think about her being "sure" about the "Le" either.)
Oh, and our power went out today so we had to kick everyone out. Nice.
6/7/03
A lady looking for a textbook today only had the title--no author or anything else--so when I found only one book that would have to be ordered matching the title, she wasn't sure if it was right. And get this. She asked me to confirm whether it was the right book by reading me her course number. Yeah, that's it lady, our multi-state chain of bookstores is somehow compatible with your random college course guide. Nope. Sorry, we don't carry textbooks as a general rule. Try the college bookstore.
This is amusing. I said "excuse me" as I passed a couple of shoppers with my cart. I had passed them quite a few steps ago when I heard behind me, "Oh, WAIT!" Some woman had belatedly realized that I was an employee and she wanted to ask me something. I turned to see what she wanted and was surprised to see her RUNNING, as if in a panic, toward me, with her arms stretched out in this weird cartoon way like she was hoping to catch me. I just fucking flat out started laughing.
She caught up to me and said she needed to ask me a question, and I just couldn't stop laughing. She became confused and said, "What is it?" So I told her. "I turned around and you were RUNNING after me and it was FUNNY." She said, "Okay," and then continued and asked me the question.
Goddamn, that was amusing.
Okay. One of our managers talks loud. And today she had the hiccups in another aisle and was complaining about them to me. A woman walked up to me and said to me, "She's talking awfully LOUDLY. Does she realize she's doing that?" I told her that she talks that way all the time, and the lady just walked away looking miffed, back to the paperbacks. Then a few minutes later my manager hiccupped again, loudly, and remarked, "Owww!" 'cause they were kind of violent hiccups. On the other side of the aisle, I clearly heard the lady go, "SHHH!!!" Oh, what the hell? Sorry to burst your bubble lady, but the bookstore isn't a library. Try coming a couple hours later and you'll see how noisy it is with all the Yu-Gi-Oh! brats.
Toward the end of my shift I had a phone call with a woman and I put her on hold to go look her book up. I scrolled through some stuff at the computer and while I was doing so some Yu-Gi-Oh! kids came by and I guess they needed to call Mom to pick their brat butts up so they just picked up the phone without asking. A moment later the kid says to me, "Hey, how do you make a phone call?" Suppressing my annoyance, I replied, "You pick up the phone and you dial the number." He claimed there was no dial tone when he did that, so I looked at the phone and he was on the same line as my customer. As I watched, he said into the receiver, "Hello?? Um, can I call my mom? Okay," and hung up. I glanced at my phone again to make sure, and yup, the line I'd been on had gone dead. He'd specifically pushed a button to recall my line because he didn't know what the hell he was doing. So I told him, "You just hung up on my customer." "I did?" the kid asked, wide-eyed. I said, "Yeah, don't do that again, okay?" He didn't say anything as I walked away, assuming she'd call back soon all confused. She never called back. I'd like to hear her end of it.
Here's one from a coworker: Some lady set down her newspaper and browsing materials, got up to get a coffee, and when she came back some other lady had seated her four children at the table even though her stuff was there. There were also plenty of other tables; she just wanted the one near the door. So the first lady had to wiggle in and collect her stuff because the kids wouldn't move.
A lady on the phone informed me that HER quoted price from online for this book was much less than the price I was giving her, and I explained to her how that's normal, describing what she could expect to pay in shipping and then having to wait, if it was worth it to her to do that instead of getting it now for more. So she told me, "So you don't discount hardback books? I thought there was some kind of store discount on those," something like that, and so I had to explain how there was no automatic discount on anything in the store (what is WITH people thinking we just take retail prices and mark them down for no reason??), just promotions, bestseller discounts, and the overarching Club Membership discount that takes ten percent off a transaction total (provided there are no gift cards in there). Grr.
Had a lady who probably needs to take high school English again herself. She was looking for her kid's required reading, Oedipus Rex, and she was nice and everything, but of course I recognized it immediately and went to work looking for it in the store, while she stumbled to give me more information I didn't need, including that the author's name was Sophocles (she couldn't say it, so I had to tell her how) and that Oedipus is spelled O-E-D. . . . Yeah. Actually I knew that. Would you start spelling a title long after the person you're talking to has expressed definite recognition of the title and explains her process along the way of searching on the shelves? I didn't think so.
6/4/03
We have a crappy announcement on our store radio now that advertises the discount card deal. Now that we've gone up to $10 instead of $5 for the card I guess they thought we needed a little more help selling it. So today my manager was on the register and this guy came up and didn't have the card but he thought he should get the ten percent off, explaining that the announcement said you get that deal on "everything, every day." My manager replied, "Well, yes--with the DISCOUNT CARD," and the customer claimed that it didn't say anything about a discount card. Well actually, it mentions it about three times during the announcement and also says, "Sign up now and you'll also receive our benefits package," blah blah, it's about coupons. Now how could he be listening to this thing and not notice that it's got a catch? My manager said, "Well, the announcement says 'with the discount card.' If you want we can just stand here and wait until it comes on again." He accepted that she must be right and stopped trying to get free shit.
I just think that's funny. Yeah, we're advertising an extra ten percent off everything in the store for everyone, for no apparent reason! Everything, every day! Well why not just mark all the prices ten percent cheaper then? Yeah.
A lady had me look up a couple of books. On the second one, I typed it into the computer and was waiting for it to show up, and while I was waiting the lady impatiently repeated the title, forming her words very clearly as if I hadn't understood her! I was like, what the fuck gave you the impression that I hadn't typed it in or that I hadn't understood you? I told her that I knew what the title was, had already typed it in, and was waiting on the computer to give me the results. Yeah, I normally just stand there without doing anything if I need the title repeated. ::sigh::
I had a high school kid ordering books and when I asked for his name he said it was Michael and proceeded to spell it for me, "M-I-C. . . ." I was like, "WHOA whoa whoa, I know how to spell 'Michael.'" He informed me that people sometimes try to spell it "-E-A-L." Well, I'm sorry for you, that people are that ignorant. But you only have one of the most popular names in the United States of America and actually about eight of my close personal friends have that name. Boo.
Here's one that was just odd. I hadn't gotten very far in my cleaning of the Kids' section that morning; only up to the workbooks. When I came back to start cleaning I saw that a woman was standing there in front of the workbook shelf where several workbooks had fallen onto the floor from the bottom shelf. Well, I'd seen them there that morning--just hadn't picked them up because if I go in there to pick THOSE up I'll see MORE I want to straighten, and I might as well just do it all in the normal order so that I get everything. So this woman turned to me and said, "Do you work here?" What gave you that idea, the apron and the name tag? So I said, "Yeeeess . . . ?" and she said, "Then you might want to check out what's going on in this Kids' section!" I asked her what she meant and she gestured bewilderedly at the books on the floor. I think she was just worried that I might think SHE did it and was hoping to side with me in her disdain for anyone who might do that sort of thing. Well, we had a nice little chat about being a perfectionist (we apparently both are) and how sometimes after only a couple hours my section will look like someone's gone around kicking the shelves, but I was disturbed by the beginning of the conversation. It was like she thought she needed to inform me that my section was messy. I don't like that. Not to mention that none of Kids' is anywhere near unreasonably messy; it's all in pretty good order even when I haven't cleaned it yet on any given day. I'm talking the books are in order by their authors and then if the author has several titles those titles are in alphabetical order. I'm talking serious anal-retentiveness here, folks. So I don't particularly like being informed that I might just want to check out what's "going on" in this Kids' section--an insinuation that it's so out of control it needs to be brought to someone's attention. But overall I think that lady didn't mean it that way; she just wanted to make sure I didn't think she did it. Whatever. (She tried to "help" me by putting the books where she thought they went, but she put them in all the wrong places anyway. But it was nice to see that when her kids were around her, she told them to put everything back where they got it, and they listened.)
6/3/03
A guy asked me for Photoshop books and he'd actually been standing right next to them, so I went over and pointed them out, and he said, "You know, I can never find anything in this store because there's so many to choose from. There must be three thousand books here!"
Ahem.
Three thousand? Maybe three thousand books in that section.
Maybe he's like the rabbits in Watership Down and anything that's bigger than four is hrair. Just a big number, "Three thousand."
Welcome to Books-A-Thousand. . . .
I had a lady come to the desk today and ask me how we could go about appraising a rare book that was printed in the 1860s or something. When I told her we didn't have any way to assign value to some book that was probably printed before ISBNs were invented, she seemed to think I should have information on where she could GET it appraised. Dude. Just because we sell books doesn't mean we deal in antiques; you'd have been just as off-base asking in a shoestore. She asked me if anyone ELSE would know. I love that. It's like, "Well yeah, George over here knows everything about old books and their values, but I never thought to ask him"--and I told her there was no more chance of anyone in the store knowing than anyone you ask on the street.
I had to cover the register briefly while we were getting an employee code assigned to a new transfer, so I ended up with this lady. When I asked if she had the discount card she told me she thought she had one but didn't know if she could find it, and commenced digging. I asked if she had gotten the card at our store, which would make it possible to look her up, but she hadn't gotten it here; she'd gotten it at the other store across town. She couldn't find it, and then sighed and said, "Guess you'll just have to look me up." I told her I didn't have access to their records, just this store's. She burst out with, "Are you SERIOUS? I was told it would never be a problem!" Er--well it wouldn't be a problem if you'd bring your card, sure. I mean, our computer lookup system is a nice little thing we do for people in case they were absent-minded and forgot the card or didn't realize they'd be coming in. It's a thing we do to try to help you. It's not a right or an expectation you should have; if you want your right to a discount, bring your card. Not to mention I don't know who the hell would have told her it would "never be a problem" when no store can look up each other's card records yet. How would that even come up anyway? But then she suddenly FOUND her card and I was able to apply the discount. Did she look "harder" the second time? I'll never know what causes these things.
Right at the end of the day this one ended up being my doozy. See, it started when I was in the back room and the phone started ringing, so I had to use the borrowed manager's key to get in the office to answer it. Finally I ended up talking to some lady.
The weirdest thing about her was that she talked in circles. First of all she wanted to order a bunch of copies of the book Holes, which most people know is a pretty damn popular book. (For some reason, however, this lady seemed to think she needed to spell the title for me.) Anyway, turns out she's a teacher and wants thirty of them for her class, and since we don't normally just have thirty sitting around for teachers to cart off, I told her that we could put in an order just for her but if she wanted to use a purchase order through her school she'd need to talk to the Customer Service manager.
This was where it started to go around in circles. She wanted to know how much a book was, and I told her I didn't know off the top of my head, but probably around $4.99 since kids' paperbacks are usually about that price, but I told her unless I was ordering them for her I wouldn't know exactly. I told her the deal: If you do it through a purchase order, you may be eligible for more of a discount but you'll have to wait and talk to my Customer Service manager when she comes in. If you plan to just pick it up and use your personal teacher discount and not use school funds, I can order you thirty copies now. Well, she said she'd have to check with her principal and wanted me to have our manager call her back, but she kept asking over and over what the discounts were each way and I kept telling her the same thing. So anyway, it actually wasn't too annoying; I didn't think anything of it except that I thought it was kind of weird how she just kept asking the same things over and over. She also asked me when they would be in, and I said my stock answer: We get shipments every Sunday, and depending on when the order goes in, it'll come to us in the soonest Sunday shipment it can and then you'll get a call Sunday evening or Monday sometime.
So after I hung up with her, with nothing settled since she'd just get called later by my manager (via a message I stuck on her time card), I figured that was the end of it for me. NOT SO! When the manager called her back, the lady claimed that I had quoted her the price of $4.99 and that we should honor that price. And the book was listed at $6.50. The manager asked me what I'd said, and I said, truthfully, that I had never once "quoted" her a price; I had never even looked it up. Turns out the lady began to change her story: First she wanted to know the price so she could apply for her purchase order, but all of a sudden now her purchase order has already been made out for the correct amount and therefore we had to stand by the price we'd quoted. The manager put the lady on hold AGAIN and told me that the lady was saying over and over that I had TOLD her it was $4.99. Heh. Luckily the manager understood from the way this lady was acting (especially how first she just needs an amount and then all of a sudden she's got this mysterious purchase order already made) that I was not the one at fault, and so she sided with me on the situation, causing the teacher to demand to speak to the GENERAL manager. Ooh, big guy.
Well, she got her way, and she talked to our "big cheese," who held her to the actual price of the book since I HADN'T QUOTED HER A PRICE AT ALL. But then he did something just slightly annoying: He came up to me and said in that parent-teaching-the-child way, "WHAT day do we say customers' books will come in?" and gave me this speech about how I should say it's Monday, not Sunday. Well, I told him what I thought of that: "I am SO SICK of customers coming in screaming 'YOU SAID IT WOULD BE HERE ON SUNDAY' that I am just ridiculous about being specific about the ordering system," and went on to tell him what I always tell customers and that I make it clear that's not a guarantee, that's an estimate, and I always mention that we'd receive a truck on Sunday but usually it's not unpacked and accessible until Sunday evening or Monday morning. Well, the manager said that that lady said I told her Sunday, so I said, "Wow, I told her a LOT of things I never said!" Heh. The end. (For today.)
6/2/03
A guy walked up to me at Customer Service and said, "Do you have any dictionaries?"
Seeing as how our Reference aisle has no less than twenty feet of shelves loaded with dictionaries, I thought it was a funny question, and replied, "Nope, we don't have a single one." He backed up a little and just said, "Okay, thanks," and made as if to walk away. I said, "No, I'm just kidding, it's aisle thirteen," and came around to show him. My coworker started laughing her ass off and saying I was mean. Hehehe.
So. A woman asks my manager Pat, "Could you help me find The Stranger's Gift by Andy Anderson?"
Well. This probably isn't common knowledge to anyone reading this, but that book doesn't exist. This woman was in fact talking about The Traveler's Gift by Andy Andrews. It's one of our bestsellers. Pat attempted to correct the woman, but when the book was put in her hand she replied, "No, I said the Stranger's Gift! This isn't it." Well, that'd be an awful big coincidence, two books and two authors so similar. So Pat insisted that she had the title wrong and that was the book she was looking for, which pissed her off and made her call her friend to confirm the title. Afraid this time, the bookstore was right. Again. Two points for us.
Funniest part about this is that afterwards I said to Pat, "Hey Pat, remember, it's THE Holes!" We laughed. (That's a reference to what happened yesterday if you haven't read that already.)
I often see wrecked endcaps in my store, and wonder how they got that way. I mean, REALLY wrecked displays, where it looked like someone kicked off a space on the step because they wanted to sit down, or like someone had run up to the books and played target practice with a wiffle bat. So when I see these messes, I think there's no way they could have been done by an adult, and wonder where these children's parents are. Today I observed the entire process of endcap wrecking from start to finish, and now it's no longer a mystery.
Part one: Two little boys, unattended, running around Kids'. Bad idea, in the first place.
Part two: Two little boys, one chasing the other, sideswipe the endcap, and a toy holder falls on the floor and scatters its merchandise.
Part three: The two little boys say "uh-oh."
Part four: The little boys somewhat attempt to clean it up. They are unable to figure out how the toy goes back on the display.
Part five: Mom calls the little boys from the register. "Come on! Hurry up!"
Part six: One little boy listens; the other stays behind, saying, "Uh-oh. Messy!" It's kind of cute actually.
Part seven: Mom comes back to see what the hell is keeping her son.
Part eight: Little boy tries to explain to Mom what happened. Unfortunately the kid is around four and has no verbal skills. He is limited to gesturing at the mess and saying, "Look, look."
Part nine: Mom says, "Just tell Daddy, you can get it later." She has misinterpreted the son's pointing as meaningless nagging about wanting the toy.
Part ten: The little boy scurries off, obeying his mother, feeling as though something has been settled.
Of course, part eleven (and part twelve, and thirteen, and onward) involves me picking up the destroyed displays. Hmph.
I had a man with a vague disposition approach me at the C/S desk today. He said, "I'm looking for a cookbook . . ." and then trailed off as if he was trying to think of a certain cookbook's name. I waited for him to find the rest of his brain (here's a hint, guy: It's in your skull!), and he managed to add, "Culinary. . . ." Yeah, usually cookbooks involve culinary subjects. Then finally he gestured with his hands and said, "A cookbook!" Turns out he was NOT trying to think of a certain cookbook; he just wanted me to show him where cookbooks were, and perhaps he is on a Word Diet where the things he says each day must be rationed. "A cookbook" insinuates that there's a particular one in mind, if he just wanted cookbooks in general he could have asked where the Cooking section was, and maybe bothered with a complete sentence. Here's another hint, guy: The Cooking section is under the sign way up on the wall that reads "Cooking & Health" in letters about twice as big as your head.
School reading list hell. Some lady came up and told me she wanted Anthem. Easy, except then she was bound and determined to make getting the book really difficult. She continued by saying, "I don't know the author," and my answer ("it's Ayn Rand") was ignored in favor of her calling her daughter several times very loudly, not looking at me, attempting to find her so she could ask her who wrote it. I told her it was Ayn Rand again, but she didn't hear me because I guess her brain was preoccupied with annoyance over her daughter not responding. Dude. This is not hard. I haven't expressed to you that finding this book is in any way difficult or that I need the author. So I just gave up and walked away from the desk while she stood there, got the book, and brought it back to her. See? That was simple.
Here's a fun one from my coworker: She got stopped by a man wanting to know where some science fiction series books were. He was on a cell phone when he stopped her, but when she attempted to take him to the section, he just held up one finger: that international "hang on a second" gesture, and leaned on the desk just talking to whoever was on the other end. She just kind of stood there waiting to see if he was going to get off, but she ended up waiting for two minutes and then walking off disgustedly. I wouldn't have waited anywhere near that long. Maybe twenty seconds. If he wasn't ready to hear the answer, he shouldn't have asked the question, and there is NO goddamn way anyone is going to have me "hold on" just because they couldn't handle waiting a second to talk on their cell phone. As if our time is available to waste however he wants just because we're wearing name tags. Don't think so.
6/1/03
Today at Customer Service a lady wanted the price on an unmarked photo frame. I took a look at it and noticed it had a barcode but no price, so I told her she could take it to the register and maybe the price would pop up if they scanned it. She replied, "You can't scan it for me here?"
Well, why the FUCK didn't I think of that! Wow, I'm so incompetent, I'm so glad customers have the sense to tell me my job. Oh, wait. I remember a little thing about how our Customer Service computer isn't a register and doesn't HAVE the ability to scan things. Oh good, now I don't feel quite so silly.
Another woman at the desk had two books to look for. I typed in the first one and it turned out it was a book we carried, so I told her so and said we'd look for it after I looked up the second one. She got her daughter to come over and give me the title, which she did by handing me a piece of paper instead of speaking. So, I typed it in and waited. Since the computer was kind of slow (sometimes it rebels when it hasn't had its coffee), I amused myself by looking at the rest of her reading list. I enjoy looking at people's reading lists because nine times out of ten the ENGLISH TEACHER has made a typo or misspelled word on it. So I was looking it over and Mom reached over and pointed to the title again, and said, "That one, right there," tapping impatiently. Oh, she thought I had to study the list that long and hard to figure out what the fuck she wanted. No, I explained to her, I'd already actually typed that in, and was waiting for the computer to catch up to me. Finally it popped up and it would have to be ordered, so I told her so, and then she replied, "So you don't have that other one either, I guess." Um, well before I may have been hallucinating but I believe I said we'd look for it after I looked up both books, and usually you don't say you'll look for a book if it's not something that's supposed to be in the store. So I was a bit shocked by how determined she was not to get the book. I corrected her, saying that in fact I'd said we DO carry it, and beyond that I actually found it. Good for me. ::sigh::
Here's an example of a common phenomenon that is nevertheless very difficult to describe. I'll attempt a bit first. See, when people don't understand what you mean or misunderstand what you've said, sometimes their first reaction is to try to rephrase what you just said so it sounds like you've said something totally ridiculous. Have you ever had this happen to you? Here's my example.
A lady asked me where our newspapers were. She was already holding a newspaper, so I figured she'd already been back to the back of the store, where we keep some of them. Now I actually agree that it's a bit silly for us to have newspapers in two different locations, but in practice it seems to work. We put the four most popular papers right at the front door on a rack, and then the ones that are less often looked for (like investing papers and out-of-town papers) end up under the television set under the sign that says "newspapers." Unfortunately this lady had missed the popular papers and thought she was stuck with the Orlando Sentinel as the only full-news newspaper we sold.
So, she asked me, "Where are the newspapers?" Since I'd already mentioned I could tell she'd visited the back of the store, I asked her which one she was looking for. She was vague, but eventually I got out of her that she was looking for those popular papers, and I told her those were usually kept on a rack at the front of the store by the café, while the rest were under the TV. Now here's the part where she decided to rephrase what I said to make me look like I said something bizarre.
"So in other words, they're just wherever, all over the store."
Actually no. They are in two places. A prominently displayed rack, and under a sign that says newspapers. Not wherever we feel like. Perhaps you think that we have a Newspaper Clown, who runs in in the morning wearing squeaky shoes, mischievously hiding papers in the water fountain or tossing them onto random shelves with glee?
That'd be kinda fun. But we prefer to be able to find things. Yeah.
A kid came up to my manager Pat and told her she needed a book called "The Holes." Of course, the book Holes is very popular, being a Newbery Award winner, a school reading list book, and a children's book that's got a movie still showing in theaters. Pat corrected her and said the book was called just Holes, but as she followed her to get it, the kid replied that no, it was THE Holes. Pat got the book and put it in her hand. She shook her head. "No, THE . . . HOLES," she said, as if Pat was incompetent. Pat just threw up her hands (mentally) and told the kid there was no "THE Holes," and so the kid decided to call her friend and find out for sure what the title of the book was. Well, score one for the bookstore. It was just Holes. No, really, I'm surprised.
Pat said later she hates when kids argue with her, saying she wished she had just told the kid not to argue with grown-ups. I think that's not the point: Don't argue with the bookseller when you're talking about books. I promise they know better than you do what you want. Hehe.
So, more of the usual. Had a guy ask me, "Well, can't you order it?" a couple sentences after I told him we could order that book. A lady on the phone had me check on a book that turned out to be out of stock, and when I told her the news she said, "So you don't have it in stock?" (She further annoyed me by asking me to order the book for her and then acting like I didn't know what I was doing, trying to give me information before the computer was ready to take it--like I'd typed in her name and it was processing it when she said, "Annnnd . . . what else do you need?" Gimme a second and I promise I'll get all the information I need, lady, it's not like you say that and I go, "OH YEAH, I need your phone number, silly me!")
Oh, this one's funny. I took a lady to a section to try to find her book, but the section was kind of hopelessly out of order. I tried to discern its order for a moment, but once I found an M name next to an A, I gave up and told her it seemed a bit jumbled up. She was agreeable and said she'd just browse through, but then she said that thing that annoys me: "Since your computer said you had one, it'd definitely be in here, right?" Well, my computer DIDN'T say we "had one"; it said we carry the book, and there's a difference. I explained to her that there was no such thing as perpetual inventory in this store--that someone could have bought it and the Customer Service computer would know no different. She replied in such a way that told me she was obviously still confused: "But the computer knows when someone buys it?" Ugh. I explained again, getting a bit agitated because I knew what she was thinking and I didn't like it. Even if we had perpetual inventory there's always the chance someone walked off with it and reshelved it for us somewhere else without buying it, and the computer wouldn't know that. So anyway, she resigned herself to looking, and then asked me, "So where do the A's start?" I told her that was the PROBLEM; that was the whole reason we were having this conversation. The section was out of order. I explained this to her a couple more times, expressing my disdain as well so that she didn't think I thought it was perfectly normal to have sections just thrown together (the store's actually gotten a LOT better). I said we couldn't help it if people decided to just put things wherever they felt like. But then she said something that made me want to just throw a fit while laughing. "You know what?" she said, with a look of wonderment on her face, "it's probably THE PUBLIC."
Oh no really! The PUBLIC? Messing up the books' order? Never occurred to me! I thought it was just our normal shelving business to throw things willy-nilly! And up until she had this revelation, surely she thought I was saying that was the case!
I'm really getting tired of typing "What the FUCK" on this website.
But WHAT THE FUCK.
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