My Record of Work: The Annoying, the Interesting, and the Just Plain Weird--The Year 2005.

4/30/05

Some woman decided to tell me the story of her life while looking for a book, and informed me it was in the children's section. "It's about karen terriers," was what it sounded like she said, and I knew for a fact the few books we had in the kids' section on dogs were not that specific. "There's a whole SERIES of dog breed books over there in the kids' section!" she protested when I told her I didn't have any kids' books like that. I told her again that that wasn't the case but we did have books like she talked about--just not in the kids' section, they were in the pet section. "Well, maybe I went to Kids' first and then walked over to Pets, are they next to each other?" she asked, confused. I told her they weren't really next to each other. Whatever, she's confused. I asked her to just frickin' TELL me what she wanted me to FIND and stop solving deep mysteries about where in the store she thinks she might have been standing when she last saw them. Again she said it was called "karen terriers," but when I got her to spell it she spelled it "cairn." "Cairn" is one syllable, pronounced like "care" with an n on the end, not two syllables like "karen." I find it annoying that she owns a frickin' dog of this breed and can't even pronounce it.

4/27/05

"Do you have magazines in French?" asked a woman.

"No, sorry," I said, "the only language besides English that we have magazines for is Spanish, and we only have like four or five of those."

"Oh," she replied. "Do you have magazines in Arabic?"

I guess I'll just have to assume that after I said the word "No," everything I said became a "wah-wah-wah" sound like in Charlie Brown. Guess she was just waiting for me to shut up so she could ask the next pointless question. I could go on a rant about how I wish people would listen to the words that come out of my mouth, but if that happened then 90% of this page would not exist.

Next I had a woman who seemed to expect to be interrupted. She rambled for a while about a kids' series of educational books and she wasn't being very specific about what she wanted, and then finally she ended with, "So would you have. . . . " I just stood there on the phone waiting for her to finish the sentence. She sort of continued with, " . . . anything of . . . " and when I still didn't interrupt and take over, she actually completed an interrogative sentence: " . . . that description?" At that point I got to tell her she'd given me no frigging information about what exactly she wanted, and we took it from there. But if she wanted me to start asking the right questions, she needed to at least offer me a snippet of English that ends with a punctuation mark.

Here's a complicated one. I hope I can explain adequately.

A woman was looking for two books. One I knew right off the bat and said I could go get, but the other one I had to look up because she didn't know the title, only the author. Actually, it turned out she *didn't* know the author. She just knew he was "Colonel" and his last name, and when I asked if he just went by that pseudonym or if he actually published under a regular first and last name she haltingly gave me a first name, which ended up bringing up no books written on the subject she expected. Luckily, then her husband walked up and she called out to him to remind her what that book was called.

He called back a title, and then followed it with another possible title and added, "Something like that." The two titles were nothing alike, didn't even share words. Regardless, I tried the first one, and got a sort of related title popping up by an author with the same last name as the lady had been looking for. The first name was totally different, of course--and when I was like, "OH, it's not [original first name], it's [real first name]," they acted like they'd given me the right name from the start and didn't understand why I'd had trouble.

As I took them to the section, I explained how the computer was awfully picky and how since I'd been trying the wrong name that she gave me, that was why we hadn't come up with anything. She seemed to understand finally that the trouble was caused by her lack of information, and then we got to the section and there were no copies of the book there. Of course, this bothered them and they decided to deal with it by standing in front of other parts of the section and staring blankly and forlornly at the shelves, expecting it to jump out at them. I supposed it was fine if they wanted to keep looking even though if a book is not in its usual place or right around it it's very unlikely you're gonna find it (if we even have it!), and I told them I'd go look for their other book in the Teen section and bring it back. The woman informed me that she'd already LOOKED in Teen and it wasn't THERE. I told her I'd just give it a second look, went up there, found two copies, and brought one back.

I handed it to the woman, who for her part was still staring at the shelves with her husband. "How much is it?" she asked, looking at me and not the book, since that makes so much sense. I told her to turn it over and let me see. We saw together that it was $21.99. She started complaining about how expensive it was and saying it was cheaper at Wal-Mart. Then as they discussed it it became clear to me that they had not even truly seen it at Wal-Mart, they just thought it would be there and that it would be cheaper. I told them to let me know if they needed anything and excused myself, but later the woman came up to me and handed me the book copy back, and said she wanted me to reshelve it because she wanted it to go in the right place. "So you decided to just check around instead, huh?" I commented, and she replied, "Well, YOU know." Yup. I know. Probably she'll go to Wal-Mart, find out they don't have it, come back to us, find out we're out or something, and cause us all kinds of other fun problems . . . well, or maybe Wal-Mart will have a twenty-two-dollar book for about five bucks and she'll be happy.

A dude on the phone wanted a book called Extreme DV and then he spelled "Extreme." Okay buddy. Sure, we're all jackasses. Never mind. I don't even wanna go into that.

A woman asked me to find her a decorating book "for dummies," so I guessed she wanted Decorating for Dummies and we didn't have it. Nothing in the section floated her boat. Then she went back to her husband, and the husband then approached me, asked for another book, and then asked the question about Decorating for Dummies again. I have to wonder whether they thought they'd get a different result if the MAN asked the question.

As I was putting away some books, with my hands full, I came close enough to the desk for some waiting customers to see me. I didn't go to them because there were two other people who were supposed to be doing Customer Service at the time and I had my damn hands full. As soon as the ladies saw me they did something really rude: One of them grabbed our stapler and started pushing its head down over and over really fast like she was repeatedly ringing a bell, only we don't have one. RAPRAPRAPRAPRAP! Oh yeah, wonderful, try to get our attention by wasting staples! When I did not respond to staple-bombing one of the ladies yelled, "EXCUSE ME!" (and those are WORDS, so I respond to those), and demanded to know if anyone was working at this desk. I told her I'd call someone, because at that point I was like, I'll be damned if someone expects me to wait on them after they signaled for my help with a stapler before they even thought to try polite words.

4/26/05

A woman looking for some school reading list books didn't like my answer of "we don't carry it" for one of the books. "Well, actually I believe you DO," she replied, and explained that because we were doing the book fair for her kid's school she knew we would have the books. I in turn had to explain to her that our doing the book fair had nothing to do with what the store stocks; the teachers at that school, or event planners or whatever, give us lists of titles and quantities and we order them and they take them over there and sell them. So yes, it is true that we can order these books but there is no guarantee that we automatically do sell them in the store just because we ordered them for someone else. I love it when people try to tell me how things work.

I got called to Customer Service and when I got there there were FOUR PEOPLE waiting. (Turned out that three of them were together, but at the time I walked up I did not know that.) I saw a lot of people so I just said, "Um, who's next?" Guess what? They all ignored me. Know why? Because the one dude who wasn't with the group of three was busy asking all of the other three if they worked there, and that group was trying to figure out the same thing of him. Because they'd kind of all arrived at the desk when the page for assistance came through.

Don't mind me, the girl in the apron BEHIND THE COUNTER who is now asking for the second time who is next and yelling, "CAN I HELP SOMEONE?"

Well, my manager took care of the single guy and I got the group. The boy of the group--maybe an older teenage or young twenties boy--opened with a request for "employment opportunities."

So I asked him if he was asking me for OUR STORE's employment opportunities or if he was looking for, like, books on jobs. "I want to know about employment opportunities" is not very specific.

Unfortunately this guy did not seem to get that I was asking him an either/or question and shrugged it off, and gave me a response that amounted to "Oh, I don't care--whichever." No, see, giving you an application is a lot different than taking you to the career section where you can research OTHER JOBS. I repeated my question and it turned out he did want an application. And then he requested one for his sister. I gave them what they needed but then the dude wanted a pen. A PEN. You're job hunting and you didn't bring a pen, yet you want to fill it out here and now? You putz. Come prepared, would ya? I thought he deserved some tough love and told him I only had my one pen, but then he said to never mind because he'd found one. He proceeded to pull out a merchandise pen--something with a tag on it for sale!--and began to fill out his application with it. Okay, yeah we want you to work here. Turned out his application had the references section left blank, and the sister's application had the "previous employment" section empty. C'mon, everyone's at least done yard work or babysitting. Don't leave it BLANK. Yeah, this will go over well. And then they wanted me to give them directions to the Social Security office, wherever the hell that is.

A woman came to the desk asking for the book on hold under her last name. I don't remember what her name was but for argument's sake let's call her Ms. Garbage. "Hi, I have two books to pick up. Last name, Garbage. With a G." Yes, because "Garbage" is spelled with a J so often. (It was a name like that with a hard G that wouldn't sanely be spelled any other way. To me that was like saying you're Jane Smith, spelled with an S. C'mon.)

Some woman came in and wanted me to find some other books in a series for her. She was being really vague about what the books were about except that they would help teach culture to her son, and she showed me one book in "the series." I actually have my doubts about whether it's even a series, because usually if a book series is released it has like a place on the book where it features the names of the others. This had no such thing. So all she knew was that they were "sort of like this one" and the publisher. Which was frickin' Dorling Kindersley. Yeah, let me just see what books are available by DK . . . good lord, they only publish a good third of ALL the educational material available for children, that's all.

Needless to say I could not help her. ::sigh::

Oh, some woman wanted A.A. Milne books so I took her to the Winnie-the-Pooh section. "Oh, you DO have a Winnie-the-Pooh section!" she said, delighted, and my coworker pointed at the shelf and said, "That's right ma'am, this is the ONLY section in the store where you SHOULD find Pooh!" I think she didn't get what he was saying; as usual he was trying to be filthy. Though of course I'm the one who puts stray Poohs in my apron so I can go around announcing to everyone that I've got Pooh in my apron. . . .

4/25/05

This isn't really an "Asshole" file so much as it's just kind of amusing overall. Some dude complained at the register that there was no one to give him a jail mail form at the customer service desk, so the cashier had me paged. I came over and there was someone else who had been standing there waiting since before the guy had me paged, so I helped her while the dude was still walking over. He couldn't see me from where he was so he turned back around and yelled at the cashier, "Well there's nobody there, I can tell ya that much!" Dude, just GO to the desk and you will SEE that there IS someone. Jeez. He did, but I was busy with the other customer, so he had to wait.

I went to take the lady to her book, and when I returned another associate had appeared to take care of the man. Unfortunately, he didn't know how to help him because someone had moved the prisoner forms, so the associate called me to help find them. When I arrived I told them both if they weren't where they usually were I didn't know either but these days the jails were changing their rules about what they accept and sometimes they insist on it being sent from the warehouse instead of from us by post. Anyway, apparently the dude was a lot more satisfied with the way *I* handled it and he was like, "What's your name again? Well you're the sharpest one in this place. Does everyone here come to you with their problems?" While the other guy was still standing there. How rude.

From there he gave me his information to have the books sent, and he observed how fast I was typing and said, "Oh, now I'm not in any rush, ya know." Good for you dude, but I gotta pee. "I'm retired. All I gotta do is go home and make sure my wife does the housework." I looked at him funny, I guess, and he leaned forward on the desk and added, "If my wife wanted to be a feminist, I wouldn't let her!" He was kind of making a joking face so I guessed he knew he was being goofy and I laughed. That was the end of that.

A lady wanted help with some school reading and was wandering around in the kids' section for books that are way above kids' age level I guess. I took her to the right section (Teen) and I had heard of two out of the three of her books. The one I hadn't heard of, I told her we'd see if it was there in Teen too with the others but if it wasn't I'd go look it up. It turned out it WAS there and I pulled it off for her and commented that this was the one I hadn't heard of. She asked me a couple questions about the other books (one of which I had read, and said so), and then she held up the one I'd said I hadn't heard of and said, "And have you read this one?" Yeah, sure. I just haven't heard of it, but managed to read it somehow. ::sigh:: C'mon, I said that bit twice. . . .

Some girl couldn't find the price on some merchandise and I showed her where it was; it was $6.95. She thanked me, but then soon was back asking if she could open the package to see what was inside, or if she would be allowed to return it if she opened it and didn't like it. The package was clear plastic and you could see all the pieces. I don't know what the mystery was or why that did not satisfy her questions (ya know, why she had to be able to personally handle the school supplies inside to figure out whether it was what she wanted), or why this was such a huge decision that she had to deliberate so much at $6.95. The world may never know. . . .

Some guy was giving me attitude about a book. He came off with such borderline-accusing lines as "Well I saw it in YOUR book magazine, but you don't HAVE it on the shelf" and "Isn't it in your computer at ALL?" and "I SAW it advertised, so I don't know why you wouldn't carry it." Guess what? It wasn't on the shelf yet because it turns out the book's not out 'til tomorrow. I don't blame him for not knowing that--I didn't know either and I work here--but it really irritated me that until I found that out he was being all "omg-I-can't-believe-your-store-would-dare-not-have-this-book." Bookstores do run out of things, ya know. And when they do so, it does not mean we're badly stocked. There was no "in-stock guarantee" like at the video store, okay?

A lady wanted a book and I couldn't find it as even existing in my system. I told her so. "Well, it's a beautiful book," she replied. I tried a couple alternate spellings, came up with nothing again, and told her so. "Well, it's a good one," she replied. I did a search in hard-to-find and still found nothing. "It's a great book, though. Lovely illustrations!" Finally she figured out that telling me how awesome this book is wasn't going to make it appear and left me alone.

A woman wanted Charlotte's Web and I walked her toward Kids' Fiction, explaining on the way that there were about four different versions. "Well how can you have more than one version?" she said prissily. "It's ALL the same book!" Well, let me explain something to you, Ms. Know-It-All. Classic books often have like twenty different versions and yes they are "all the same book." But in this case, our store has the following to choose from: Large hardcover with color illustrations, deluxe edition, deluxe edition with color illustrations, regular paperback, regular paperback packaged with cute spider necklace in shrink wrap, and a double package boxed with Stuart Little or something. I'd venture to say I asked a valid question.

And then a funny thing happened. This lady came in and seemed in a hurry and she attacked one of our associates just as she was trying to punch in. "Okay, just let me clock in," the other associate said, and the lady replied, "Oh, I'm sorry--don't you HATE it when they jump on you just as you're walking in? How about HER, is she clocked in?" (Yes, "HER" is me.) I helped her and it was good 'cause it was a kids' book question, but then after the other girl got clocked in she came over and apologized and said she hoped she was finding what she needed and the woman's like, "OH, no, no, I'm sorry, see that used to happen to ME," and she said when she was pregnant like 15 years ago she used to have that problem and people who knew she worked at the office would jump up as she came in and she was like, "JUST LET ME GET IN THE FRICKIN' DOOR WOULDJA??" and she said hearing her say that "Just let me clock in" brought it all back. Hehehehe.

4/20/05

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that today is Stoner Day, but a ton of my customers behaved like lobotomy patients.

We started the day with this charming young man on the phone.

"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh . . . yeah, do you have the CPT Test?"
"CPT Test?"
"Uhhhhhhhhh like the CPT Test booklet?"
"Are you asking me whether I have a book that helps you study for the CPT?"
"Yuh, yuh!"

I told him I'd go check. We had nothing of the kind.

"Sorry, we don't have anything for that test on the shelf."
[Pause] "You don't have nothin' like that?"
[Incredulous pause] "That's right."
[Customer says nothing]
"Okay?"
"Oh. Uh, okay. . . . "
"All right, then . . . bye . . . ?"
"OH. Bye."

Apparently getting the answer that WASN'T yes shocked him so much that he had to be prompted to go to the next stage of the game which is getting the hell out of my hair. ::sigh::

I've noticed that all the people who go to Customer Service thinking they can pay for books have a particular "HELLO, take my BOOKS, asshole!" way of pushing their products at the C/S associate. It's like, "What's going on? C'mon, start ringing me up, you jerk!" It's usually accompanied by raised eyebrows and a "What do you THINK I want, jackass? Ring up my shit!" expression, a silent response to being asked if you can help them. It's amazing how many different types of people can look exactly the same when they're expecting a certain behavior and they haven't gone to the right place to receive it. The guy who did that to me this morning did one extra thing, though: When I told him he'd have to take his purchases to a register (which I said while pointing, as usual), he gave me a withering look and said, "So I just go up and FIND a register?" No, you go under the big sign that says "Checkout." Everyone always feels so oblivious when they miss that sign. It's frickin' huge.

Then I had this totally dotty woman whose many brain-scrambling antics I cannot even begin to describe. I'll just light on the ones I remember best--honestly, everything she said was funny--so just imagine all this action peppered with a weird bird-like head motion and a cawing sort of loud voice, issued by a woman whose eyes don't quite seem to both be looking at you at any one time.

She wanted to know the order of a series of books. That's a common enough question but weirdly enough one that just isn't so easy to answer on the computer since sometimes a book will have come into and gone out of print and maybe not show up in the 'puter or something--you never know if you're missing one or what and there's no way to make the computer just show books in a certain series in the right order. I told the lady this and said it would be best to look in one of the books, 'cause they usually help you with a list. She didn't seem to know what I was talking about and I said, "Well, if we can go find one of the books, I'll try to help you figure it out." She goes, "I'LL SHOW YOU WHERE THEY ARE!" and starts waddling away, and I was like, "Um, I know where her books ARE," I mean jeez I work here, and it turned out she really thought I was literal about "IF WE CAN FIND ONE." Like I was doubtful that we might be able to. And then she didn't even know they were in alphabetical order; she had memorized directions and was saying them to herself, "Okay, a left here, and then . . . I think it's two more, no ONE more aisle up . . . " and finally I just took over because like I know where the E's are in Fiction. (Between the D's and the F's, letters with which she is probably quite familiar.)

We got to the section and just like I'd suggested there was a list inside each book saying what books came when. Then she was ridiculously confused by the fact that the earlier books in the series only showed a partial list while newer books suddenly had MORE books listed. I explained that they do that because at the time of publication of an earlier work maybe they only know the names so far of maybe the next couple, while it stands to reason that they'd know more as they're, well, written.

Then she wanted to know which of this author's series came first. I didn't get what she meant at first because actually she was asking a question with no answer. She had the misconception that authors will always write a whole series and finish it before starting another one, and she wanted to read all of the author's earliest work before reading the newest. I explained that that's not how it works; sometimes they'll do one in the Stephanie Plum series and then skip to this other one and then come back and write the next one. "OH!" she cawed, "WELL I'M NOT A WRITER, I DON'T KNOW HOW THEY THINK." Ohhhkay.

After complaining that this whole thing was soooo confusing, she ruffled her way up to the register and became someone else's problem.

A woman identifying herself as a "volunteer parent" with some school group informed me that her organization had sent us a letter a month ago and we'd given no response. It involved whether we'd be willing to give them a donation of books for some program. I told her that it's clear to me why she got no response: We don't do donations at a store level. She replied that in that case we should have responded to her letter and told her how to contact Corporate and also that I needed to find out what had become of her letter, who had received it, and how this sort of thing was supposed to be handled. I'm assuming it got opened and chucked by our manager, because hey, we can't help and if you want to follow up we'll tell you so. Anyway, I put her on hold and asked my manager about it on the off chance she might know about the letter, and she was like, "Um, NO," and told me to get rid of the lady. I explained that no one knew what had happened to the letter but I knew what she could do to get the corporate donation form. She replied, "So NO one there knows what happened to my letter. Well THAT is disappointing." She said this all so scoldingly, like we are SOOO unprofessional and she can't believe this. And she about hit the roof when I told her my manager said she could come in and pick up the form she needed but we would not fax it to her. She argued that point with me a couple times, like, "I actually have to COME there to get this form? You can't send me a copy? You can't even fax it? I have to COME there?"

Okay. Let me explain something to you, lady.

YOU'RE ASKING US FOR MONEY.

You are a beggar. You are asking us for a favor. And you can't expect that you just send a letter and wait for us to get back with YOU. You want money and you don't hear anything? Find out why not. It's on YOU. Not us. It is not our responsibility to make sure we chase you down so that you can arrange to get free shit from us. So quit acting like we're a government institution whose purpose is to help you with your charity. We're a corporation. A dirty, filthy, money-grubbing corporation. We don't owe you a thing and if you want to get us to give you whatever we might give you, you better believe you're gonna play by our rules.

Sorry it's so DISAPPOINTING.

Guess she'll just take her business--I mean, her requests for free shit--elsewhere, and we lose out.

Can you tell I'm crushed?

A guy wanted books on water conservation. I told him there was no section for that but it sounded like maybe he'd want to check out the "Environmental Issues" section of Nature. He rejected this and started giving me book titles, telling me to look them up and find out where they'd be in the store since all other books on the subject would be near these. I played the game, but none of the books were books we carried. He ran out of titles and I ran out of patience, and I told him again we should check out Environmental Issues. He agreed this time, and as we walked there I explained that if we didn't ever carry a book the computer couldn't tell us what section it would be in if we did. He replied, "Like working at McDonald's. Isn't it?" I said, "Excuse me?" and he goes, "They don't train 'em very well." Since he used "they" and "'em" like that I'm assuming that was in some way supposed to relate to maybe the people who programmed the computer to be so unhelpful as to not tell us the location of books we don't have . . . but in any case it sounded like in some way he was calling us incompetent and I didn't like it. I showed him the section and escaped him as soon as I could. The end.

This isn't the person's real name, but I'm going to make one up and you pretend that's what they really said.

A couple walked up. I walked up to meet them. I said, "Hi, can I help you with something?" The girl said, "Canfield. C." I said, "Excuse me?" She said, "Canfield." I guess she's incapable of a full sentence. I was like, "Are you saying that's YOUR name and you have a book on hold under that name?" They told me that was the case. "Well why didn't you say so?" Just as often jerkasses come up and go "Grisham," wanting to be led to an author's books. People just don't understand that we are not automatically set up to process only one sort of keyword. And last time I checked most humans do not have a quota of words, nor do they have to pay for those they utter. Speak to me in a complete sentence, and add a "please" once in a while, if you would. THANK YOU.

Heh. Let me write out for you how this woman asked for her book.

"I need . . . something? Like, Men Are From Mars, or something? Women Are From Venus? Or something?"

I think she wants something. Good thing I know where a lot of things are.

A dude had a book title and the author on a slip of paper. I searched. The title didn't exist in the database. I seached authors. The author didn't exist in the database. The dude asked to be taken to the car section, which was fine until just before I left him. He then announced that he would dig through here and probably be able to find it.

Nope.

See, you had the specific title and specific author. Unless you have the WRONG information, I have conclusive evidence that WE DON'T HAVE the book. It's not that I just lack the skills to make it come up in the system. Sheesh.

And lastly, a fun thing. I have a coworker who's always good for a laugh and I needed one, so when I got the patriotic kids' book F Is For Flag, I knew I just had to show it to him and he'd say something off-color.

I did. He came up and covered up the L in "Flag" and said "F is for FAG!!!" Ahh, good ol' funny dude.

What's disturbing is some of the cute little marker-drawn kids on the front of this book DO look a little bit . . . um, perhaps ambiguously gay. This looks a tad odd, don't you think?

4/19/05

Some woman bought FOUR large (non travel-size) travel books for New York today. Before buying them she left them at the register to go potty. While she was in the ladies' room I looked at the cashier and said I smelled a return in a couple days. If someone buys four friggin' travel books and they're not books they're likely to be taking WITH them, it's likely they're going to take them home, browse them at their leisure over cake, and then bring most or all of them back and claim to have cancelled their trip. It happens all the time with inconsiderate people. (And this lady's kid had a baggie of Cheerios, and later I found Cheerios all over the travel section crushed into the rug near a pile of New York magazines and books, so I think we've figured out that she satisfies that requirement.) I'll mention it if she comes back so I can say I told ya so.

So apparently it's my responsibility, when you come in my bookstore, to know better than you do what you want.

A woman asked me if I had any Anne Geddes books. Oh gee, no I don't. Since there are roughly a thousand of them (okay, searching for them on Amazon brought up 223, but who's counting?), I asked the woman if there was a particular one she wanted.

She made an incredulous face and replied in a "what the hell are you asking me for?" tone: "I don't know!"

Well if you don't know, who does?

Okay, so if you're not looking for a particular book and I ask you that, fine. But then it turned out she WAS looking for something specific: A photo album or something. We don't really carry photo albums, 'cept for an occasional random promotional line in Hallmark. So whatever. It was just that "what are you asking ME for?" incredulousness that made me want to write this one down.

Hey, you guys 'member the Harry Potter lady? Well, today we had some fun. We started talking about Yoda and how I love him and I like it that he can fight but he's so small, like me. The lady began spouting a bunch of her usual inspirational junk talk, about how size doesn't matter, et cetera, and then she demanded that I stand in front of her.

"I'm taller than you, right?" she said, and I agreed.

"Well, what do you think would happen if you fought me?"

I of course burst into giggles and told her I had no idea.

"Well I bet you could win," she mused, and at that point I just couldn't stand it anymore and guffawed my way to the bathroom. Somehow even though I am a shrimp I don't think there's a lot of doubt about whether I could take a mid-fifties epileptic lady . . . I guess it would depend on if I can have my lightsaber or not. Grr.

A lady on the phone had been waiting "a couple months" for us to contact her about her book and said that every time she called we would assure her it'd be there in a couple days. Uh-huh. Doesn't sound like something we'd ever do, so what the hell? I figured since she was measuring the waiting time in MONTHS it must be a special order, but when I checked her order immediately it popped up as something that'd been ordered in mid-February, arrived the next week; the customer had been notified, and no one had come to pick it up, which led to its being returned to the warehouse in mid-March. I told her all this--our manager who does that stuff puts very specific explanations in the computer--and this is where the lady lost it. She started telling me in clipped words how we had actually never contacted her (because, ya know, it's impossible that you missed a message) and then wild-goose-chased her when she tried to find out when it was coming (I don't know how people came to tell her that it was "coming" when the computer clearly says it got returned in mid-March) and how since it "slipped through the cracks" at every other stage of the game it probably hadn't actually been returned either and I should look for it. I told her very quickly that it had indeed been returned and that the only thing I can say is I don't know what went on with her trying to track it down or why it says we contacted her on this particular day and left a message but she never got it, so all I can do is re-order it. She accepted that, had me re-order, and told me to put a note down instructing the handlers to communicate with her personally when it comes in. I think it's all taken care of now. The part that pissed me off was the "YOU never called me" bit. Argh.

I was unpacking boxes for the kids' section, and after I returned from one trip shelving books I noticed someone walking from the customer service desk toward me. "Excuse me," she said once she was in range, "but where's your customer service?" I just plain asked her, "What do you mean?" Because how do you come from Customer Service and then ask where Customer Service is? She responded by pointing to the desk, and saying that she'd been there but there was nobody over there so what should she do?? I informed her that no one "lives" at the desk, we just all go up there and help whenever we see someone standing there. Sorry, we suck. But that's okay since you do too!

4/18/05

A dude asked for help finding a book, and when we got to the shelves and I showed him the appropriate section, he stood there slack-jawed like he now had no idea how to go about locating the book, so I did what I often do to be a jerk while I'm helping someone: I talked out loud to myself saying the author's name and systematically searching for them on the shelf, to kind of send this message: "Hey, jerko, it's in alphabetical order! You too can learn the alphabet!" After I did this, the dude goes, "So is it in alphabetical order?" Oh what could have given ya that idea? I agreed that it was and kept narrowing down where the book would be and he replied, "By author or by title?" Dude . . . look, you shouldn't have even had to ask how it was arranged at all because I made that obvious, not to mention that WHERE do you go that books are arranged by title? But on top of that AFTER I'd been digging audibly for the author, he asked that fricking question. WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE LIKE THIS?

A woman asked me for a book that she said was on hold for her. Nothing was on hold for her. I looked her up in the system and she had five orders in her history, but none was more recent than October last year and ALL of them were placed at the OTHER STORE. I informed her of that and of the fact that there were no recent orders under that phone number, but she just told me that she had ordered it here and that we had assured her we were the one next to Stein Mart (which we are). Then she told me what book she had ordered and it's a book I've never run out of since it came out (and I should know, it's a kids' book). I went and got her one and told her we never would have ordered such a thing because we have so many. She didn't care what had happened with the order now that she had the book, and then she handed me this other book and said, "I'm sorry, I was looking at that while I was waiting, you can put that back." IT WAS ANOTHER CUSTOMER'S ORDER. Which means she went behind our desk and just helped herself to shit that was on hold for other people. Jesus!

And now for other employees' encounters with jerks:

I came in on the tail end of this one and asked for the full story later. Apparently a woman came in asking for "books on divorce" and since, ya know, there's a lot of different slants on divorce (how NOT to get into it, how to deal with children in the issue, legal proceeding how-tos, all in different sections), he asked for some clarification as to WHAT she was looking for. She refused to give it, just reiterating that she'd been to Self-Help, found nothing, and wanted "books on divorce." When my coworker explained to her that he needed a better idea of what she needed before he could point her, she said, "No, that's okay, I'LL GO ELSEWHERE," and stalked off.

Hmm . . . I wonder why SHE'S getting divorced?

And then a similar one with a different coworker:

A guy came up and asked him for NCLEX books. He didn't happen to know what that is. (It's a nursing exam, if you don't.) So he asked the customer for more of an explanation and the customer replied, "Like nursing." My coworker asked if that was nursing like the profession, or nursing like nursing a baby. The guy replied, "Well I need NCLEX books!" My coworker explained that that information continued to do him no good because he didn't know what NCLEX was and that it'd really help him if the dude would say whether we were talking about nursing the profession or nursing like a child. The guy just pointed to a section of the store and said, "Well it used to be back there!" My coworker figured it out from there, but still . . . you'd think someone who was trying to get through NURSING SCHOOL would be able to answer a very simple either/or question. Let's all just pray he was picking it up for someone else.

4/17/05

We have a cool demonstration model of the lightsabers we sell--the official collectors' item ones, the $150 ones. People love to pick it up and turn it on. The other store sold them really well while we didn't sell them much at all, so we transferred all our lightsabers to the other store and just kept our demonstration model. Some dude today asked me if we would consider selling the demo model for less money, and I told him that we would not. Then he goes, "I'll give you fifty bucks for it." Okay, dude--sure, just lop A HUNDRED DOLLARS off the price after I told you we're a friggin' corporate bookstore, not a yard sale. You can't haggle at a retail store! And even if you could it's not like it would be my decision! Jackass. Guess you can't blame a guy for trying, but jeez. . . .

Our shitty keyword system strikes again. Today my computer tried to make me look incompetent. A lady wanted--and I quote--"The Kalahari Men's Typing School." That sounded really familiar but I couldn't remember what author it was. I typed it in and got nothing. I tried exact phrase searches for "Men's Typing" and "Typing School" and told the lady what I was doing, and she's like, "Try KALAHARI." Well, I wasn't entirely sure I was spelling that right, so it kinda doesn't make sense to use that as the lone keyword (though I later found out I was spelling it right from the beginning). Then she said it was the same person who wrote "The World's Greatest Detective Agency." That sounded familiar too. But try as I might I could not get the computer to bring it up. Finally my search for "Detective Agency" brought up The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, which I recognized as the one I'd been looking for. I clicked on the author and was quickly led to the book The Kalahari Typing School For Men. As I took the lady over to the section (now that we were armed with the author), I told her about how much the keyword system sucked and she was like, "Yeah, I like my computers a little more forgiving," and whatnot, and ya know, I was just trying to get her to realize I'm not incompetent--the computer system is flawed. (And also I was kinda gently putting the blame on her for not knowing the friggin' titles, even though theoretically our knowledge and tools should help us avoid the problems ignorance causes.) Ya know, the whole "Yeah, if you don't know exactly what you're looking for it freaks out and gives you nothing, so since we didn't have the title exactly right it went haywire." So once we were near the author I informed her that amusingly enough it was written by a Smith. And then she goes, "Oh, I'm sure there aren't too many writers with that name." I kinda looked at her thinking she was joking but she was dead serious. When we got there she was like, "Oh, I guess there ARE quite a few Smiths!" Urgh. . . .

Jeez. Okay, we do this thing we affectionately refer to as Jail Mail. People can buy books at our store and then have them sent to an institution by filling out a certain form and paying us three bucks in cash. A lady came up with her purchased magazines and told me she wanted to do that, and I handed her the form. She responded by taking out the prisoner's address and sort of pushing it at me like she expected me to fill the form out for her.

"Um . . . do you want me to write it out for you?" I asked kind of incredulously, and she just goes, "Uh-huh." I was like uh, okay, maybe she has arthritis or something and doesn't want to write, or forgot her glasses and can't see well . . . maybe she has a reason to ask me to fill out her frickin' address form. She also had a younger girl with her and they both stood there and watched me take the form and give them a bewildered sort of look.

But then it got strange.

The woman had a string of instructions for me to change several things on the form that needed to be slightly different from her information. Here's a list of all the things she wanted changed:

• It said Florida Department of Corrections and she told me to leave off "Florida."
• There was a letter I on the form and she told me she'd made a mistake writing it and it was really a numeral 1.
• There was a dash written in there that she wanted me to remove.

With all these instructions I wondered why the HELL she didn't fill it out herself, but I played along and started copying. Both customers watched me like hawks. Ohhhkay. I stopped writing for a moment because I had one fewer lines to write on than the address had lines to write, and I was trying to decide where the best place to combine lines would be. As soon as I stopped for a second the younger girl jumped in and said, "Department of Corrections . . . " like she thought she had to DICTATE to me. Why the fuck are you dictating if I've got it in front of me? Here, you frickin' write it! And then after I was done and the woman had to sign it, she stood there proofreading my copy and comparing it to the original. Yeah, I know I wear my name on my front, but I'm not incompetent. You're the one who brought me an address that was WRONG IN THREE PLACES. And of course the paper just asked for the sender's name and phone number and the lady's like, "Do I write my address here??" in a blank space off to the right of the labeled spaces. Why would we need your address if it doesn't say "Address" with a blank for you? Just follow directions, ya know?

This was really goofy too. A woman came up with a stack of books and magazines and stood at the customer service desk, and when I came there to meet her she just pushed the stuff at me. I figured it was a classic case of "Customer Comes To the Wrong Desk To Check Out," but when I asked her if I could help her, she replied, "Where's the aviation section?" I asked what she was looking for and she goes, "My husband." I guess maybe her husband was looking for aviation books and she was expecting to find him by finding the aviation section. Anyway then she abandoned that idea, asking me suddenly if I could see her husband anywhere; "He's kinda short." Well let's just see if I might walk around the store asking all the short male customers if they are the husband of some lady who might be looking for them. To make matters simpler I told her I didn't see him--sometimes it's simpler to just say "no" than to explain to them why it's friggin' ridiculous to expect that the bookstore chick will somehow know that's your husband. Anyway, she left her stack there and went off trying to find him, and then I heard an announcement from the front of the store asking for "Mike" to come to Customer Service. I then saw this lady barrelling toward the desk yelling, "Michael? Michael?" Yeah because there's not likely to be any other Mikes in the store. It's not the #1 boys' name in the country for the last decade or anything. I don't personally know and talk to a dozen Mikes myself or anything. I kinda hoped that I'd get a cloud of Mikes. It'd be funny. But the woman found her short Mike and he was going up to the register, but she diverted him and said, "This way," and led him to Customer Service instead. Where she again pushed her shit at me. Then I got to tell her that we don't do checkout at the service desk on account of us having no register. Now how did she end up under the checkout sign by the register asking HIM to make an announcement and then still go back to a desk with NO checkout sign and make a special effort to travel from the right place to the wrong place only to be redirected? I will never understand people.

4/16/05

It's Ladies' Night in Assholeville!

A couple of confused women solicited my help and annoyed me. First off they wanted something fairly standard and hadn't been able to figure out our fiction section's wildly confusing alphabetical author system (I know, I know, all those 26 letters, it's hard to remember what order they're in). But then they came up and kept sort of sounding accusing in everything they said. Like I was trying to find out if books were out yet (and of course they had no information about what the books were called), and they would be like, "Well it sure is TIME for one, there SHOULD be one, are you SURE you're looking right, is THAT all there is, no I've already READ that one." Yeah. Then we had a fun little upheaval because one of them wanted to pre-pay for all the books that we ended up ordering. I told her that unless she had it shipped to her house--straight from the warehouse to her--then we could not accept payment for a book we didn't even have yet. She could order it to her house, pay the warehouse to send it to her, and deal with paying shipping, or she could have free shipping but pick it up here and pay for it when she got them. This especially confused her because I had told her she could pre-pay for the new Harry Potter book, and of course when I told her that we could not take payment for books we didn't have yet she was immediately like, "BUT YOU SAID I COULD PRE-BUY HARRY POTTER." That's different. That's special. The pre-sales of that book help determine how many we're gonna GET. And we do it for all the big books. That's what I told her. Anyway, as I was finishing up ordering for them I asked if they'd ordered with us before and the other lady's like, "No, we haven't ordered here, we ordered at the OTHER STORE." Pause. "Where they CHEATED US OUT OF MONEY." And then they started talking loudly about how they suspected we might cheat them out of money too and how it was awfully suspicious that the last time they used a gift card something (I don't know what) wasn't right--I have no idea what actually happened at the other store but obviously I automatically assume that when someone claims to have been "cheated out of money" by our company that something is their misconception. Anyway. I finally completed the order and sent them on their way, but I'm sure next week when they buy the books they'll find some way to make accusatory statements and get all bent out of shape.

A woman wanted a certain book and I looked it up only to find out we would have to order it. I reported the news. "You don't carry it??" she said disbelievingly. I agreed that that was indeed what I had said. "But I need it today." So I told her that if that was the case we couldn't help her because we didn't HAVE it. "I need it for a report right away, so I can't order it," she added, and still stood there looking at me like she expected me to offer another option that involved me pulling the book out of my ass or wherever I'm really hiding it. I assured her that we could not help her if she needed it this minute, and she replied. "Okay. Well, thanks. But it's a REALLY good book!" I guess that means we're ridiculous for not carrying it. We try to carry all good books!

A pair of girls came up telling me they wanted Terri Woods and that they could not find the books. I looked up the author and found where they were supposed to be (in that again hideously complex section where the fiction books are alphabetically arranged by author), and the girls followed me. When we got to the shelf, I said, "Okay, now this is where we'll have them if we have any." I started skimming through the shelf to zoom in on the specific Woods author they wanted (there's like four), and one of them goes, "YOU DON'T HAVE ANY TERRI WOODS BOOKS???" I just looked at her in surprise and said, "I didn't say that! When did I say that?" She didn't reply because it was then that I found the books. They were upset by the fact that I didn't have the first in a series by the author, and the other girl asked if I had an African-American author section. I told her I didn't because they were mixed in with every other race of author and you have to know what author you're looking for. Turned out the other book they might have wanted was by Zane, and Zane was right next to where we were (ya know, because Z and W are pretty damn close in the alphabet). The girls pored over those and I asked if there was anything else I could help them find. One of them replied, "No, I think everything we'll want is gonna be in this here section." I figured that since they found two African-American author books close to each other that they had found the black books after all. How disappointed they must have been when they found that the fiction section stretches on for half of the front of the store, dozens of bookshelves, and the percentage of black authors on the shelves is probably around the same as black people's percentage in America's population: A minority. Oh well!

4/13/05

Meh. Some guy was asking me for some books in a series, but he didn't know what the next book was called. He was holding the previous book to the one he wanted and ended up digging in the pages to find the title. "Ahh, here we go," he said, and then he gave me an indecipherable word in the title. What he said was "HORE-a-zahn Storms." I was like, "hore-a-zahn what??" I asked him to repeat that and this time he did while showing me the inside cover. "OH," I said. "Horizon Storms." "Oops." Yeah.

It's always amazing to me that there are very common words that people just don't know how to pronounce. This reminded me of the dude who wanted "From Dawn to Duh-KAY-dence," and the woman who wanted books by "PEN-a-lope Green." C'mon people.

A woman came up and told me "a couple months ago" she ordered books but she got sidetracked and never came to pick them up. I asked if she remembered if we called her and she said we never did, but when she asked if I could research whether we still had the books I had to inform her that I was already helping someone on the phone and I would have to do that next. She was not upset by this at all but told me she would be some other place in the store. Yeah okay. I went and helped my phone customer, returned to the desk, didn't see the lady anywhere, and helped several more people without seeing her. Then I just walked over into the kids' section 'cause damned if I'm gonna stand there waiting for her while she takes her time shopping. Then finally she came back and found me, and she goes, "Did you have a chance to check?"

Lady, I know you don't have my job or anything so you don't realize how ridiculous you just sounded. But do you realize YOU DIDN'T TELL ME WHO YOU ARE?

Yeah, let me just check on that book order that SOMEONE ordered a couple months back and never came in for. . . .

I informed her that I hadn't because, well, I needed her frickin' information. It turned out to be back in DECEMBER and it had a note of when we'd called her, that no one had picked the books up, and that they'd been sent back. I reordered for her. I wonder if all that time she was wandering, she was thinking she was just being nice about giving me plenty of time to look her stuff up?

I had to pee at one point in the morning and I went to go to the bathroom. Before I got in the stall my phone rang. I decided, whatever, I'll help them. I left the bathroom and helped the person on the phone, but before I finished a person came up to be helped. Then while I was helping them the phone rang. Then the other line rang. Then another person came and wanted to be helped while I was on the phone, and when I got back from the errand helping the phone customer another in-store customer was waiting behind the first one. As I was helping the second one the phone rang again. And then the phone rang again. You get the picture. Long story short, I had to help ELEVEN CUSTOMERS and it was TWENTY MINUTES LATER when I finally got to PEE. One of the customers out of all those managed to make it onto my Assholes list. I promise you it isn't because my teeth were floating when I encountered her.

She wanted to order a book we didn't have, so I asked for her name. She gave me her first name and I wrote it down. I figured she stopped after her first name because she could see I needed time to write it down, but then as I was putting the finishing touches on writing her first name she goes, "Anything else?" and starts walking away. I was like, hold on there. No, actually I need your LAST NAME TOO and a phone number to contact you. I always wonder about these people who think the giant corporate bookstore wants to be on a first-name-only basis with you. I mean, even when I ordered a book at the locally owned tiny feminist bookshop once, I gave my first AND last name without even imagining that they would only want my first. And they were small! There's a likelihood that I WOULD have been the only person who had my name on their order log for that week! (And this was BEFORE I worked at a bookstore too, thank you.)

I wonder if she'll come in next week and say, "Hi, is my book here? Oh, I'm Amelia." Jesus.

4/12/05

Okay, so, my day was not looking so hot once I came in and within HALF AN HOUR I had received THREE Assholes. Luckily the Asshole traffic slowed down the rest of the day, but still . . . it did not bode well for my sanity at the time.

Asshole #1 was minor. She was standing at the desk when I came up and she just wanted me to give her the book that was on hold for her, but instead of telling me her name she was pointing and saying, "That one." That's happened to me before. I didn't even look behind me and just asked for her name again, and she gave me the title, "It's that one right there on the top shelf!" Lady. Give. Me. Your. Name. THERE ARE SIX TOP SHELVES. I cannot tell where you're pointing from twelve feet away. Just listen to me.

Asshole #2 came through on the phone. First she tells me one title. We'd have to order it. Then she gives me the second title. It's not in my system by title or by author, and besides that the title made no sense, it was like a sentence that didn't parse, so I thought perhaps she had the title wrong but I didn't say anything. Then she shot out what sounded like a third title, but all she said was the words, no explanation for whether it was a title or an explanation or what. I asked her what that was and she just told me the subject of the book. It turned out that was a subtitle for the second book or something. Then she just wouldn't stop trying to give me unrelated info and kept grilling me about the book unable to understand that it wasn't in the system. It was complicated, but annoying, and I'm sure I didn't do a good job explaining what happened. Screw it.

And on to Asshole #3. This one was classic. She wanted some book about Alabama football--and since we're one of Alabama's rivals I wouldn't think we'd be a prime place to have it if it was locally published or something. I checked the title and the author and neither was in the system, and then the lady replied, "But it said in the thing that you had it." I said, "What thing?" She said, "Well in the thing it said that your bookstore was the closest one to me that would carry it." I repeated, "What THING?" and she said, "Huh?" I said, "You keep saying, 'It said in the thing.' What thing?" She told me that it said it on "the website." I asked her what website and she told me it was something she saw on the Internet. Oh, imagine that, a website on the Internet. I clarified for her that I was trying to figure out who exactly is saying we "have" some book that's not in my system. Are we talking about you actually seeing it on OUR website that we have this book? Or are you saying you saw it on your friend's frickin' LiveJournal or something? Turns out she doesn't know where the info came from because her friend told her. Well thank goodness she had clear information. Feh.

Anyway, this isn't an Asshole, but it kinda peeved me. I was helping a woman with Richard Scarry books and she found two Dr. Seuss books and one Little Golden Book stuck in the section. When she found the last book and handed it to me I said, "Aww, people have been sticking stuff where it doesn't belong, why do people have to do this kinda stuff to me?" and she said, "To keep you busy. That's your job security!" OH THANK YOU. Yes my job isn't secure unless assholes make messes. I venture to say I'd still be the kids' specialist--the person who shelves the new books and makes decisions about the section--without people doing me the favor of screwing up my shelving.

And in other news, our men's toilet is broken (though the urinal is fine), so I was definitely surprised but not entirely confused when I was coming out of the third stall in the women's bathroom and very quickly a suspiciously tall person came in the front door and went RIGHT into the first stall before I could see who it was. I blinked and thought to myself, That looked like a dude. I hung around near the opening of the restroom straightening books so I could see if he came out. And he did, and it was definitely a dude. He strolled right out like he didn't do anything wrong. Guess he really had to take a crap and couldn't be bothered to a) Talk to the employees and have us clear the restroom for him or b) GO THE HELL NEXT DOOR OR TO McDONALD'S TO TAKE YOUR CRAP. It kinda bugged me. I mean yes it sucks our toilet's broke but you still should ask before you go in the women's room because even though I don't care THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO DO.

4/11/05

This isn't an "Asshole," but it was goofy. A lady found me in the kids' section walking around cleaning up and she told me she'd found a couple of *sex* books sitting in the kids' section. I was unsurprised and told her that happened all the time, and the look on her face and the "what, REALLY?" response were just classic. She couldn't beLIEVE that anyone would put SEX books in the KIDS' section. What pervs! Actually nine times out of ten it was kids who did it, and nine times out of ten the book is a Kama Sutra book for some reason. She had done me the favor of taking the offending books out of the kids' section and putting them on a random sale table. She showed me where she'd put them so I could reshelve them. One was a Kama Sutra, of course, and the other was just a big sex book. Both were faced out on low shelves of the sexuality section when I went over there to put them up. Surprise! Not.

4/10/05

A woman asked me for a popular gift item and as I was leading her to it she was like, "And I'll need to have that wrapped." I told her we don't do wrapping but we sell wrapping paper. She looked totally thrown off by that but didn't say anything, and then I pointed out the book and its gift edition, giving her a choice. She picked up the non-gift version, held it, and asked me, "And how much is it?" That always drives me up the wall. You're holding the book. Look at its price sticker and YOU TELL ME. So often they don't even bother to LOOK for a price, and then somehow also think I'm gonna know the price of that book without looking. It doesn't work that way. WE CARRY A MILLION FRICKIN' BOOKS. What makes you think I know the prices off the top of my head?

I was bored today. So I decided to liven things up. Because of our inventory last Wednesday, we keep finding RGIS slips. If you don't know what those look like, let me enlighten you:

I took three of them and stapled them end to end, and that made me a RGIS belt. Then I stapled more lost RGIS slips to it lengthwise, hanging down. Then I put the contraption on.

My very own RGIS hula skirt!

It fit nicely. My manager took a look at me, did a double take, and said, "You are INSANE." But she didn't make me take it off. I wore it the rest of the day to much amusement. Yay for making the day less boring . . . and for finding a use for the damn things.

4/9/05

One stroke of jerkness for the whole day . . . imagine that! It was really slow today because of something to do with sports. I don't know.

A lady came up and wanted to know what other books we carried by one author besides the one she'd found already. I looked the author up and we were supposed to carry three of his titles, and she again claimed she'd BEEN to the section and found only one. I told her I'd be glad to give it a second look but if there were none on the shelf then we were just out. When we got over there, I began zeroing in on the author, and she impatiently pointed and said, "He's on the bottom shelf." I ignored her and continued my usual, ya know, alphabetical logic, and she again said, "He's right THERE, on the bottom." Okay, see, you're asking for MY help, so why would you just take me to the section and then point out the crap you already found that you don't want? Anyway, my method brought me to the shelf above the shelf she was pointing at, where the author's section actually began, and I pointed THAT out. She said it was all the same book, but I found one book that was not the same book, though granted most of the books on the shelf were all copies of the one she didn't want. I pulled that one out and said this was one of the other ones that I'd found on the computer and I supposed the other one was just out of stock, and she took the book and started babbling about how she hadn't seen this because it had "the same cover." She said that three or four times, like sort of trying to insinuate that it hadn't been her fault that she missed this book because after all they all had the same design on their cover and she couldn't have been expected to notice that minute detail that the title was different. Well, a) A lot of times series books DO look very similar and b) The covers WEREN'T the same--they both depicted a swastika in red but the design was different. ::sigh::

4/6/05

Today we were closed for inventory during my whole shift so there were no Assholes. As a substitute, I'm going to show you some very strange titles we came across while looking for SKU numbers for the regional books. (These are mostly independent authors' works that have somehow made it into our inventory through book signings or other unconventional means, and they aren't in our computers so we were having to go through them. They often have very entertaining and screwed up titles.)

We found the following weird titles:

Penelope, the Peculiar Purple Porpoise
Now It Can Be Told (She Was a Spy): Code Name: Pussy Obscure
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Uncle Homer's Outdoor Chuckle Book

Yup. Life was VERY exciting today.

4/5/05

Some dude was giving me a title that I couldn't find in the computer and he started giving me shit about it. I kept asking if he had like information about the author but he didn't, and then finally he said, out of nowhere, "I have the ISBN." Oh gee, it would have been helpful if you had MENTIONED THAT!!! Shit. Turned out it wasn't in my database at all anyway, but still.

My coworker is kind of lazy. So this customer came up and said, "Where would I find books by James Patterson?" He replied, "In Fiction under 'Patterson.'" They seemed surprised at getting so little direction, and eventually my coworker took it upon himself to point. Good job!

A woman wanted some obscure book and it wasn't coming up in the computer. (Oh wait, this sounds familiar, doesn't it. Blechh.) When I told her that it was possible it was out of print, she curtly informed me that she has CHECKED and that publishing company is still very much in action. I don't think she knows what out of print means. I tried to explain it to her, that books have their heyday and then go out of print, but she didn't seem to understand and just said thanks and bye very quickly. Well, go 'head, lady, and call all the competition, since that's what you're thinking. Wish you luck!

4/4/05

Okay, so, at one point the Gates of Dickhead opened and Assholes began to pour forth, interrupting each other and following on each other's heels to make sure I dealt with idiocy for a stunning straight twenty minutes. I swear I did not get a moment of peace between assholes. I will describe it now. Assume the position.

So first my manager had a phone call and I figured it'd be short-lived so I gave her the portable phone and decided to hang around until she was done so I could collect it from her afterwards. As I was doing that, a man walked up and started staring at my manager and sort of shiftlessly rocking on his feet like he was waiting for her to get off the phone so he could bug her. I looked at him curiously, and then he peeked at me, tilted his head forward to see if I was wearing an apron (which I was), and then he goes, "Maybe you CAN help me!" I told him that was likely. He wanted a cookbook and I went to help him, and as I was standing there showing him the books he wanted another guy walked up and said to the MAN, "Hey there sir, how're you doing today?" The dude kind of didn't even realize he was being talked to, and I was like . . . what the fuck? Then it became obvious that he was trying to wedge his way into the interaction and be allowed to interject his question; in other words, he wanted to steal this guy's retail slave. He then asked ME how I was doing and then launched into his question. So I took him where he needed to go and then I was standing by a sale table. Just then an older woman walked up to a family of three whose members were all shopping the tables: There was a mom, an older teenage-looking daughter, and a baby, all standing close together, and this woman just walked up to the teenage one and said, "Do you have any fiction on these bargain book tables?" The girl didn't understand at first and then was like, "OHHHH . . . I don't work here!" She apologized and see what's ironic is I was frickin' standing there in easy eyesight and earshot. Immediately she noticed me and got me to help her. I showed her what she wanted and then she wanted me to look for a certain magazine for her. I checked the computer and it said we had it so I trotted back there alone, thinking I'd bring it back. When I got back there and started browsing looking for it, a dude walked up and said, "Don't y'all have Sporting News??" You know, could you maybe begin with "Hi, could you help me with something?" or "Excuse me, I have a question," not just "Hey you, here's my question, now gimme help." I realize that my name tag being on the front of my body relegates me to being less of a human being than you who are off the clock, but that doesn't mean you should be impolite to the servants. I told him I could look it up after I was finished helping the person I was already helping. Then a woman just came up and said, "Where are the New Age magazines?" (It was one of those things where she's "looked EVERYwhere" and then when I show her where they are she says, "Oh, I didn't make it down this far, thank you." Feh.) Then an older dude wandered up and I was like, crap. But he didn't speak, he just started looking at the same mags I was looking at. Then he looked at me and said, "Are you looking for a magazine for me?" How do I know? Turned out he was the lady's husband and the mag was for him. I finally found two copies and he's like, "I'll take 'em both! My grandson is in here." He started flipping through and began quickly and closely following me when I tried to make my getaway, and I got the distinct impression that he wanted to show me his grandson. News for you, buddy: Pretty much everyone in every magazine is someone's grandson, umkay? I will tell you I think that's awesome but I will not actually care to see the article and picture of your random relative. He stood at the desk flipping, and announced, "YUP, there it is!" when he found it, and I could tell he wanted me to come over and admire. I resisted the temptation somehow, you guys. Finally he left. That was kind of the end of the chain reaction, I think. Though there were several other flare-ups during the day.

There was a dude at the register whose kid wanted to pay for his purchase with the contents of his piggy bank: Hundreds and hundreds of PENNIES. And of course, they were in a rush because "We're on our way to Atlanta RIGHT NOW" and they could not stay while we counted pennies. The cashier wisely called my manager to ask if we could accept this. After all, the bank won't accept non-rolled change in amounts like this. My manager said it would have to be in rolls with the person's name and phone number on them. The guy didn't like that and started with the "See here, I spent lots of money in your store every year . . . " bit, so she called the manager to come up and talk to him. He told HER that he spends hundreds of dollars in the store every year (umm, if it's in pennies, thanks but no thanks, jackass). Now see, on the one hand I understand that money's money. But on the other hand, expecting us to trust you as you hand us baggie after baggie saying, "THAT'S a hundred, and THAT's a hundred. . . . " That's a bit heavy to swallow. And it was going to take twenty minutes to a half hour just to count them all. Someone on the clock was going to be wasting their time doing just that, counting pennies and pennies and pennies. That's just abusive. Go to the frickin' bank. At least my manager told them that we'd take the bags but we need a phone number and next time she would NOT take such a thing.

Now for the fun: They sent a very limited quantity of Yoda pins to our store. We only got four. So the awesome people claimed them quickly: One of my managers, two of the oldbie guys, and me. Then a guy who really loves Star Wars was complaining that he didn't get one for his apron, and was bitching that he had to get one. I told him ordinarily I'd be fine with giving up company-issued buttons, but not Yoda. I said that I would consider changing my sexual orientation for Yoda. I would have sex with Yoda if he were not a puppet. For realz. And we would have very cute babies. Probably green-skinned, maybe with blonde hair, and definitely short and pointy-eared. Hah. I think I'll name my daughter "Yodette."

So no, you can't have my button, bitch!

4/3/05

No doopids! Just work silliness, which I will now share with you.

I was bored and needed to wash my coffee cup, and so I put it on my head and started walking around. When I got to the café, my coworker over there said, "You are amazing . . . in an endearing, sort of circus freak way." Gee thanks. Boy oh boy.

A cute little girl walked by my coworker and me as we stood at the customer service desk. She was following her daddy but then suddenly she stopped, stared at us, and shrieked, "PEOPLE!!!" Her dad turned around and agreed with her that we were people. "PEOPLE!" she shrieked again, and I told her she was a people too. Hehehe. She was so cute!

Also, up at the register a couple girls got bored putting away romance books and started making fun of the romance books' heroines' names. Then they adopted snobby English-sounding names for themselves, and began talking in English accents calling each other "Sybil" and "Kerrington" and inviting each other to tea. Then they decided to rename all of us. Some of our guys ended up as Cedric and Charlemagne. My my. A girl came in for closing shift and they named her Delancey Rowan. And I got the name Morgan Wakefield. It was fun, we kept walking by each other and calling out our snob names and saying how do you do and stuff. Hahaha.

4/2/05

Some woman asked me "Do you carry hardback?" today. (Not hardbacks. Hardback. I even wondered if it was a title.) Turned out she had gone to the romance section and seen only paperback titles, and thought it meant our store did not carry any hardbacks. (Somehow she had not looked around anywhere else and noticed that we carry TONS of hardbacks.) I showed her the place where the hardback and large-size paperback romance books are stored--we only separate them because we only have so many shelves and a lot of them are spaced for mass market paperback. I don't know if she understood my explanation but she thanked me and that's enough.