![[c'mon I dare ya!]](throw.jpg)
That's right, I DARE you to throw a book at me!
1/31/05
Heh. This girl was nice, but the way her question came out ended up making it amusing. She was apparently going on a long trip and wanted something to amuse her and her companion along the way, but she wanted to learn about something rather than, say, just read jokes to each other or whatever. She didn't tell me her mission right off, though; she first asked me for books on etiquette. I took her to the section, and then she was kind of not really looking all that interested, as if she had been thinking etiquette was something else before she asked for it. I asked if she needed anything else and she told me her deal, then suggested maybe she'd like to learn about Feng Shui if I had a section on that. I told her we did have a Feng Shui section, but that was where it got funny: She told me that she just wanted to go to a section full of interesting things to learn about and wondered if I had a section for that. "Sorry, I don't have an 'interesting things' section," I explained, and she agreed that the concept of "things people might want to learn about" having its own section is a little absurd. Sorry; first you have to decide WHAT you want to learn about. I dropped her off in Reference and left it at that.
1/29/05
There was this family that kept losing their drinks. First Dad put his coffee down somewhere in the bookstore while looking for books and enlisted his kids' assistance trying to find it. Then about ten minutes after I thought they'd left, they appeared again and I jokingly asked the dad if they just couldn't get enough of us. "My boy left his drink here," he said, and they went to go find it. Like father like son. . . .
1/26/05
I have a new breed of people to hate: People who suddenly fall silent when you ask a direct question or give them bad news. It seems to happen way too often. I tell them we don't have the book and we'll have to order it, and when I ask them if they want to they just stand there and look at me like they never considered the possibility that maybe the book isn't in the store. This is usually followed by people trying to change my answer, like insistence that the book should be here if others by the author are, or questions about whether I'm sure or whether I can do some other sort of checking. It just gets old.
This didn't happen to me, but this lady was a certified weirdo. She wanted a certain book because of its cover having a design on it that she's going to get tattooed on her body. Then she turned around and demanded that the customer service guy pull down the back of her shirt a little so that he could see her tattoo. He had no desire to do that and kind of humored her but misunderstood what she had been saying and thought she already HAD a tattoo of this book design, so he was like, "Yeah, I see it, that's a moon and a baby," and she's like, "NO it's not!!!" I for one hope that no one ever asks me to pull down any article of their clothing so that I can see their tattoo. If a guy ever insists that I loosen his belt so I can look at the tribal tattoo on his ass, I shall run screaming.
Some lady wanted books on kings. "Where are your children's books about KINGS?" she demanded, and I told her that I had some books on medieval times but no section of books on kings. Then she's like, "But you don't have any storybooks that have kings in them?" I explained to her that she could not expect us to have a section where all the books that involve kings in some way would be together; the storybooks section is BY AUTHOR. She seemed to realize that that made sense, but thought I should be able to search for it anyway, and she goes, "But do you have any books on King Midas?" I told her we didn't. "NO books on King MIDAS??" she said incredulously. It's not really a popular subject for children's books, sorry.
A guy called and wanted to know if we had any "girl calendars." I guess that could mean a couple things, so my coworker who handled the phone call asked for clarification and the dude said, "Calendars featuring girls with very little clothing on." He then wanted to speak to a manager to find out if we were going to further discount our calendars from fifty percent off, because I guess three dollars for a Maxim calendar is just too much for him. The managers got really pissed off when he did that; that he called and wasted the managers' time in trying to dig up what he wanted so he'd be able to pay one less dollar for his softcore. Then he made the associate go count how many there were left. One of my managers was saying how she was gonna go buy them all just so this guy couldn't have them. Har har.
A somewhat foreign man was having some trouble understanding what was going on with his gift card when he was talking to my coworker. See, he had a gift card and the books he wanted were all books he'd have to order, and one was actually a book he'd have to have ordered to his HOUSE because they don't deal with retail stores. You can't pay with a gift card over the computer because the cards can only be used at a register. (Our website has its own gift certificate system.) So the dude got all screwed up over this and eventually we got it through to him that the retail stores and the warehouse are actually separate companies. When all was said and done and we did something else to make him happy, my coworker apologized for the hassle, and the dude replied that he couldn't believe we were a whole different company than our online site and that we needed to "get that straightened out." You're right, we need to get our shit together and become the same company. We'll get right on that buddy!
Okay, so I've seen this girl in the store for more than four hours at a time for the last three days. She sits in a chair somewhere and reads the books off our shelf and doesn't buy anything. Today she marched her little self up to the counter and asked me if we were going to be getting more of this series she'd been librarying. The next book in the series wasn't one we carried. She looked really disappointed, thanked me, and left. Oh, I wonder why I wasn't surprised that she didn't want to order it? Could it be that all she really wants to do is freeload? That's shit because people usually damage books when they read them.
And lastly, I had one of those people who kept interrupting herself to clarify what she meant, and then when she got to the end of the sentence she still hadn't said anything. "I'm looking for--well, really what I need is for the PARENTS, not for the child, because--well, it's for the parents to read to the child, but he's only two months old so really it's something for the PARENT, and so I want it to be entertaining for them too, and well, would you have anything like that?"
I asked her WHAT she was looking for to read to the kid.
"Well, a book," she said. And nothing else.
So I mean, are we talking the parents just want the kid to hear their voice and really we're shopping for Mom? In that case, I guess it depends on what Mom likes, doesn't it? But if that isn't the case, is there a particular kind of book you want? Ehh. I figured it'd kind of be a lost cause, because prying vital information out of certain people is like pulling teeth. So I just showed the girl the baby section and told her these books are good for kids because if they try to gnaw on them the cardboard pages don't get ruined. Huzzah!
1/25/05
Oh my, we have a WINNER!!!
So how does a girl like me get so lucky? Within the span of TWO days I got TWO customers who made my Top 10 Worst Customers EVER list. I mean, you have to be a HUGE bitch to get on there now, considering I've got almost five years of shitty customers under my belt now and you're doing awesome in the asshole department if you even make it into the honorable mentions. But two! In two days! Yesterday it was my manager's customer who threw a newspaper at her. Today, I was the lucky girl.
I was helping a customer back in Fantasy when I heard from across the store, "HEL-LOOOOO! HEL-LOOOOO!!!" Oh great, a bitch at Customer Service, I thought. It's understandably one of my pet peeves when people decide that my possessing a name tag indicates that I should not be treated like a human being. So immediately upon realizing that there was a bitch at the desk, my mood turned sour, and I'm sure it showed on my face as I approached with my arms crossed. I meant to make sure she understood that she was not behaving properly. I don't care who you think you are. You don't yell for help in the middle of a bookstore with a "get your ass over here, slave" mentality. You just don't. (Not to mention I had just been there a moment ago helping this other customer before we had to take a walk to Fantasy, so I knew she hadn't been there very long.) I stepped up to the desk.
"Um, HI," I said, "I'm SORRY but I was helping another customer." (Note that I did not say "I'm sorry" like oh can I please kiss the skin off your ass. I said "I'm sorry" like excuse me for livin', bitch. It wasn't very nice.)
The lady gave me a pursed look and said, "You know what? That's why I don't shop here. The customer service here is terrible." Then she turned her frumpy little bunched-up-sweater self around and marched away.
"Ohh-kay!" I called after her, obviously fairly flippant.
"The employees' attitudes here stink!" she called over her shoulder, and I replied, "Woo-hoo!"
As you can see my dedication to great customer service is astounding.
So, one could say I brought this behavior on myself. You mean I brought a bitchy attitude on myself by not letting this lady act like a child in public? All righty then! See, now I understand that we, the employees, are supposed to kiss people's butts so that they'll keep coming back. But the way I see it is, a) That lady didn't need to be screaming in my store and acting like our customer service is bad because no one was standing at the desk for a moment and b) I'm not paid enough to take crap like that from people. If she had not been stomping off like that I would have told her she should talk to my manager about me, because he loves that kind of shit (and probably would have let her know in a not-so-subtle way that there being no one waiting at the desk is in fact company POLICY--no one is supposed to just live there, they're supposed to be doing projects!--and probably would have been able to calm her down). But some people get up in the morning determined to have a bad day, and that's what they get. Believe it or not, that incident didn't in any way affect my mood. It gave me a fun story to tell, and now I get to put her on my site and make her FAMOUS! Hooray!
Oh jeez. A woman came in and asked where the Harry Potter books were. My manager went to take her to Kids' and asked her on the way which one she was looking for. "Oh, I just wanted to see what he has out." Hmm, referring to the books as being "books he has out" sounds a bit weird considering Harry is not an author, being fictional and all. The lady then helpfully added, "He's the kid who died." Double-take from the manager and all of us at the desk. Turned out she somehow thought Harry Potter was this kid who died of a chronic disease not too long ago, this kid who wrote poetry. His name is Mattie J. T. Stepanek. Sounds a lot like Harry Potter, doesn't it?
Some lady told me that she was looking for a book called Cooter. It eventually turned out that she had the title wrong and it was a book about a dog and the title was the dog's name and she'd remembered it wrong, but that's not the point. The point was that I was trying not to laugh the whole time because among me and some of my friends in elementary school the word "cooter" was nasty slang for female parts. Har har har.
A lady called and asked me to look up a book. I was familiar with the author so I figured I'd just go have a look on the shelf, since I knew where her books are usually kept. On my way over there I told the lady I was going to check, and she goes, "Well, it's not out until February." So I asked her in that case what she wanted to know about it. She said she wanted to know if it was on the shelf yet. I still don't know what she expected me to do, if the book isn't out until February but . . . never mind, I just can't go on, my brain will explode.
And I have one more kind of person that I've decided is my favorite to hate for the week. Right now, my shit list is occupied by people who find it necessary to start telling you long stories about the book you've just found for them, as if because you were able to find it for them you're therefore interested in what it contains. I have been told by well-meaning weirdoes more times than I want to count all about Florida history or some travel book . . . no fun.
1/24/05
Weirdly, today we had this epidemic of people who expected to get rung up at Customer Service. It seriously was like eight people during my shift. And they were all really goofy about it too. At one point a lady was waiting for help behind the customer my coworker was helping, even though I was available. I moved over so she could see there was another person who could help her, and she came around and said, "Can you check me out here?" I told her I couldn't and she replied, "Oh," and then went back in line behind the other guy who was having his book looked up. I had to explain to her that she couldn't get checked out AT THIS DESK AT ALL, no matter which computer she went to. Heh. Also, a dude I helped in the store told me he was going to browse the exercise books and tried to hand me his book, saying, "So just put that up at the counter for me." I was like, why do you want me to put this on the counter, and he didn't seem to understand that my counter was not a place to check out. I also didn't get how come he didn't just carry it with him, it's not like you go to the grocery store and hand the milk stocker your groceries and say, "I'm not finished shopping, but you can just put those up at the register for me and I'll come when I'm ready." Why don't people know how stores work? I can see thinking you can check out at Customer Service and asking about it, but you'd think they'd figure it out if we don't seem to know what they want when they just push books at us and stare blankly. It was so funny, my coworker got a lady who put her book on the counter and pushed it toward him and started telling us both about what a great book on the subject it was, and since no one was ringing her up she just kept talking and intermittently pushing it closer to him. Eventually we figured out she wasn't trying to get him to look at it; she was trying to hint, "Come on, come on, start ringing me up already, I want this." Wahahha.
Some dude called and asked if we carried a book and how much it was. I pulled it up on the screen and told him the price, and asked if he wanted me to check and see if we had any. "No, it's a pretty popular book so I'm sure you have it. I'll be by later." Click. Boy, I'm sure glad YOU know how our store operates! Especially since "It's popular" guarantees that it's on the shelf! Lord. People blow my mind sometimes.
Oh, my first phone call this morning was a woman who had part of her title. Luckily it was just a very well-known book, Simple Abundance, but she knew there was more to it than that. After she said the title she started rambling about how she knew there was more to the title than that, but even though I tried to get a word in edgewise to tell her that I didn't need any more information and was in fact familiar with the book, she kept going with "Hold on now, hold on, I'm gonna go get the book, hang on, I know there's more to that title, hold on now. . . . " I wished SHE would hold on. What I don't understand is a) Why she thought I needed more info when I wasn't indicating any issues at all and b) Why if she was so convinced more was necessary SHE DIDN'T FIND THE BOOK BEFORE CALLING ME. I didn't ask for this extra information or anything, she insisted on giving it to me. Blehh! We didn't have the book anyway.
Okay, so, worst customer of the day award.
My manager was doing an institutional sale on the spare computer. Those take ten freakin' years and the customer she was doing it for wasn't at the register because, well, it takes a long time to compute it. Anyway. So the regular cashier who would normally have been operating the primary register was not standing right there; she was putting away some books close by. Therefore, when this customer decided it was time to check out, it only makes sense that she went to my manager's register; she had no way of knowing that wasn't the place she needed to be.
Upon seeing that this lady wanted to check out, my manager greeted the lady and told her she would page someone to help her. With that the woman took the newspaper she had been about to buy and THREW IT AT MY MANAGER.
"YOUR LACK OF PEOPLE IS NOT MY PROBLEM!" she hollered, and stomped out of the store.
When my manager told me about the incident I was kind of surprised; that is the second time in like a month she's had something thrown at her. "No one has ever thrown anything at me," I said.
"That's because you are small and blonde," my manager replied.
Guilty.
I never knew that my cute pigtails protected me from customer attacks. Maybe no one's ever attacked me because they would feel like they were committing child abuse.
That's right, I DARE you to throw a book at me!
1/22/05
A lady wanting a few particular parenting books was prodding a coworker and me for information. She asked if I had any of a particular book and I didn't know offhand, but we looked it up and got the author. I took her over to Parenting and quickly looked where it should have been, and declared "Nope!" as soon as I saw there was no book where it should have been. She replied with a sigh and then said, "I guess we'll have to look at every single book." I asked for clarification of this comment and it turned out she hadn't known it was in alphabetical order. "That will make finding these others a LOT easier!" she said brightly, delighted. It's very strange how people just wander through life with no idea what the hell is going on. . . .
And this annoying one. I told a girl we'd have to order the book she wanted. "So you don't get it in at all, ever?" she said, and I clarified that yes, we don't stock the book so if she wanted it she'd have to order it. "So . . . if I wanted that book, could you order it?" she said. I just kind of looked at her. I didn't know what to say. I ended up just repeating what I'd already said. Beh.
1/19/05
This issue of "Oh my God everyone's an asshole" will focus entirely on funny things with my coworkers. No Assholes today.
My coworker had the opportunity to say something really hilarious to a customer, but she restrained herself and just told us instead.
This lady wanted a certain newspaper that gave facts and figures about horse racing or something. After being helped to find The Wall Street Journal she pulled out this question about the horse racing periodical and my coworker said she'd never seen anything like that here. "Well, when I lived in Kansas I got it all the time!" she protested. My coworker came within an inch of replying, "Well, you're not in Kansas anymore." I wish she had. She said if someone else had been there to enjoy it she probably woulda said it.
And another coworker was being asked by a customer whether this particular copy of The Scarlet Pimpernel was the whole story or whether it was abridged. She kept sort of bugging him for proof that it was the whole story, and finally he said, "As long as it doesn't say 'The Scarlet Pimp' I think you're all right." Luckily she was one of the ones who laughed instead of acting like a jackass about it.
And my district manager was at the store yesterday and I overheard him talking to another store about a customer who called Home Office to complain about an employee. He sounded kind of stern while he was talking to that store's managers, and I was worried he was going to believe whatever the customer had said--ordinarily they have misunderstood or misinterpreted an employee's actions and end up exaggerating or misconstruing something in their complaints--so I was kind of feeling bad for the employee, hoping she wasn't about to get shitcanned. I got to hear him read the customer's report to the other store's manager, and basically it involved three misunderstandings.
Number one, apparently the employee tried to help the lady find six books on her list, and the only one missing at the end of the interaction was the most important one. She had found two books in the wrong place (well, so she said), so she wanted this employee to "go check in the computer and see if it's there." We don't have perpetual inventory, so the girl's response of "If it's not on the shelf we don't have it" is perfectly correct and understandable, but this lady interpreted that as a sign of laziness and unwillingness to help. Secondly, while she was at the desk, this employee supposedly walked away from her and helped another customer without finishing helping the first customer. It turned out that actually while she was talking to the lady who didn't understand that we can't find out "if we HAVE it" in the computer, a regular customer walked up and this employee greeted her and turned around to get what she always comes in for: The newspaper they'd saved for her. The customer interpreted this as being abandoned and took that opportunity to stomp away, which frustrated the employee. And this leads to complaint number three: The lady claimed that she overheard this employee "talking about her behind her back." What really happened is a manager came up and asked the employee if she was all right because she was acting like she was really frustrated, and she told the manager what had her so agitated. Of course, the woman overhearing this was like "OH I'M BEING TALKED ABOUT!" and asked why she was talking about her. The employee apologized but at this point the lady was totally appalled.
So. Bottom line is, the lady reported that as long as this employee is employed there she will not be shopping at the store, and of course "I am a teacher and I buy lots and lots of books there and if you don't get rid of her you are going to lose a lot of money." Uh-huh.
Countering that, this employee has a track record of having worked for the company for over three years with no complaints, and has always been observed to be one of the best workers. Even if an employee is having a bad day, I somehow doubt she would act as appallingly as this report would have one believe. So I was worried for her because I could see through the customer's words what really happened (and later confirmed some of those things I couldn't have known just from the report). I was relieved, then, when our big cheese guy replied into the phone, "Yeah, seems like we've got ourselves ANOTHER crazy lady." Yay, he's on the employees' side! I found out later that the other lady he mentioned was some woman who decided to report one of our district's stores for their appalling mess of a store, because THEY WERE IN THE MIDDLE OF A STORE-WIDE ISBN INVENTORY and there were books on the floor, and also because of the inventory there were issues at the register and she whined some freakish thing about the ethics involved in letting her buy a book that wasn't ringing up correctly in the register. (They had to ring it up with sort of a miscellaneous scan and charge her the correct price, and she didn't like that for some reason, but they couldn't help it because the inventory was happening and they were restructuring what was IN their computers.) Come to find out that lady was a big cheese at the Waldenbooks that store had just put out of business. No wonder she was bitching about their ethics; can you say "bitter"?
1/18/05
So this guy wanted help finding or ordering books and he came up to me giving me the series title instead of the individual books out of the series he wanted. Common annoyance, nothing serious. But when I explained to him that it would be infinitely easier to order the single books he wanted if he'd tell me what each of them was individually, we had problems, because he couldn't tell from the printed list inside one of the author's books what constituted a series title and what constituted a book title.
I took one look and saw several series listed, and the meaning was obvious. A series would be titled at the top of a list in regular type, followed by a vertical list of the three or four books that were in that series, each title in italics. Then there would be a line of white space, and another series title in regular type, with three or four more book titles in italics. EVERY TIME we came to the next series, he would ask me whether the series title was a book too or if it was just the series title. I explained how the page was set up six different times. He still didn't get it by the end, and kept mispronouncing the words in the titles (such as saying "wielder" as "welder" and then "wilder"). It makes me wonder whether he actually understands what's going on in these books when he reads them.
A lady went to Checkout while I was doing a return and asked the cashier whether the register was the place to ask questions about books. She said it wasn't, that she should go to the customer service desk, to which the lady replied, "Okay, well I'm trying to find out if I can get this book that's in Spanish in its English translation . . . " going on about this as if she's completely misunderstood the whole "you have to go to C/S for that" bit. I stepped in and informed her that I could go to the C/S desk with her if she'd wait for me to complete my return, and she did, so then I walked back there asking her about the book as we went to save time. She just kinda did that usual ramble that had pretty much no useful information, and when we got to the desk and I went to go behind it she said, "So do I follow you up there?" Lady, is this your first time in a store? It's so weird how they act like this is rocket science. Anyway, I directed her to stand on the other side of the counter while I looked the book up, and it turned out she was on some mission trip in Honduras or something when a Spanish person gave her this book and even though it was originally written in English she can't find the English translation of it anywhere. It blew her mind that I could not find the author, the Spanish title, or the English title in my database, but to me it was pretty predictable. You got the book in Central America. It's a religious book. It's got one of those covers that screams "self-published." I am really, REALLY unsurprised.
1/17/05
Happy birthday to me. I wore a tiara to work to celebrate. And a coworker made me cupcakes. I ate four of them. This diet thing is not working out.
Today's only Asshole was a lady who wanted books shaped like food. She seemed to expect there to be a books-shaped-like-food section or something. She told me there was a book called "The Sandwich Book" and also "The Hamburger Book" and so on. I told her I knew of one book shaped like a sandwich--I pulled out Sam's Sandwich by Pelham--and told her I didn't have anything else like it. I didn't think she'd be satisfied with it since this wasn't one of the books she'd named, but then she was like, "No, that's it, that's the sandwich book I meant, where are the others?" I reminded her that I'd said that was the only one I had by that author and if she wanted any other existing books I'd have to order them. But I did wonder how come "The Sandwich Book" was the title in her mind and then "Sam's Sandwich" ends up being the right one at which point she acted like she'd never given me a wrong or vague title, like I should have known this was the one all along. I think you'd have had to heard her tone of voice to really understand why this was so annoying, but just take my word for it.
1/16/05
An older woman and a little girl were wandering annoyingly in the kids' section, and overhearing their conversation made me unsure of whether I was more annoyed with the lady or the kid. First of all, the grandma type was repeatedly asking the kid what the book was called, and the kid was answering with silence or "ummmmm" sounds, even though she obviously knew what she was looking for. Unable to get a definitive answer out of the child, the grandma prompted, "Well, what size is it? Is it a BIG book? Is it a SMALL book?" The girl volunteered that it was "a kind of a medium-sized book," and the grandma was like "OH, okay," and they kept wandering. I found myself thinking, Good God, wandering the kids' section looking for "a kind of medium-sized book" is considered a good way to find things? Yeah, brilliant, guys! Once you find "the medium-sized books" section you'll be in frickin' business! They found me and presented the question to me, and the girl knew sort of part of the title and that it was a Junie B. book, which kinda pissed me off because it's really easy to find Junie B. I hate it when people just think wandering around looking is going to help when what you need to do is determine what category your book is likely to be in. Somehow I doubt looking at the baby books or the dinosaur shelf in Kids' Nature is going to be a likely place to find chapter books, you know?
There is a new FCAT--some Florida test--that they're administering to third graders when before it was only fourth and tenth grade, to my knowledge. I don't know what the big deal is but all of a sudden everyone's worked up. Now, this mom came in and got all upset that we don't have anything on this brand-new-this-year test (and remember, we're not a "Florida" company or anything--they haven't figured out we need this yet). While my coworker attempted to find out if another store carried study materials for third grade FCAT, this lady started whining in a weird explosive way about the injustice of it all, her poor child being subjected to the foulness that is standardized testing. "They don't need to be dealing with this in third grade," she fumed. I agreed with her to some degree about the annoyance of teaching to the test and everyone getting all worked up over it and so much importance being put on one stupid test, but then she started saying junk that pissed me off. "I mean, they're punished if they don't READ fast enough. It's a timed test. What if they don't read fast enough?" Then they're not on level and they might actually need to stay back. "And in the math?" she went on, "They test them on median, and mode? AND THEY HAVE TO KNOW WHAT IT MEANS." What? What's so frickin' horrific about having to know the meaning of what you're being tested on? And mean, median, and mode is not exactly college algebra, okay? Get a grip! Not to mention how do you THINK your kid's gonna do if she sees you freaking out like this about a test? Jeez. After she was gone my coworker and I talked about how pathetic it is that everyone whines about testing and how unfair it is that their children are being forced to actually learn the material. Shit hell. I guess school is for learning socialization, playing kickball, and doing finger paintings. Shows how much I know!
This is by far the funniest incident of today.
So a youngish guy got in line with his wrapped porn mags, and then he ducked out of line to ask one of our male associates how old you have to be to purchase porn.
"You have to be eighteen," my coworker said, and at that point the dude offered to give him the money if HE would go purchase the porn for him. Duh, well, he refused, at which point the porn dude tried to just stick the mags on the shelf in Fiction.
"NO, man, you can't just put those there," my coworker admonished him, and the guy asked where he was supposed to put them. He said if he didn't want to take them all the way back to Magazines he guessed he could just take them to the register and throw them up there for us to put away.
"Will YOU do it for me?" the guy requested, and when he asked why, the dude elaborated, "Because I wanna hit on the girl!" Can't hit on the cute cashier with porn in your hand, after all! Poor underage future sex offender creep. . . . One almost feels sorry for him. Almost.
1/15/05
A lady came up to Customer Service expecting her book to be in because "they said it'd be here today." She actually arrived about an hour and a half before our truck was due, and of course it was going to be a few hours before the truck was all unpacked. But when my coworker told her that, she started hollering about how "THEY SAID IT'D BE HERE TODAY!!!" and announced that this would be the LAST time she shopped here and that she was going to Barnes & Noble. Oh-kay.
A dude had an argument with our manager because he claimed that our cashier told him he was supposed to get a discount on the purchase and somehow on his card. There is one discount; if you get the card, you get the discount. He perceived that the card's price was discounted AND the purchase was discounted, and insisted to our manager that "I KNOW what I heard." My manager told him she could re-do the transaction but he didn't want that. He just wanted to bitch, not find a solution.
I had a fun conversation with someone who wasn't even on the phone. We were conversing through the woman's daughter. Now, Mom was an old lady hollering in the background, Daughter was a confused younger woman, and then there's me, the retail chick going "OH-kay." Now, Mom had a series in mind, Daughter was conveying to me that Mom had a series in mind, and I was conveying to Mom through Daughter that there was nothing in the computer by that name. Bleh. I was able to hear Mom screaming in the background about how she bought the books at our store and she knows we have them. Daughter was like, "Mom, I think you're crazy." Yeah. How about you get me a title or an author and we'll tawk.
FUNNIEST occurrence today was this girl. There was a page, "Julie to the register." I had to do a return, and there I was dealing with this crap when up comes this teenage girl. "Is this the register?" she said. We told her it was and she said something like, "Well . . . okay . . . well I heard an annoucement?" We're like, huh? And she goes, "Well, I'm Julie."
Yup.
So basically, if you hear your first name announced in a huge store, they must be talking about you, especially if your name is really common. Got it? It's ALL ABOUT YOU.
1/12/05
Today's most bizarre, convoluted question: "I'm looking for a CD version of a book on tape, on audio."
I got yelled at by a woman whose order hadn't been shipped on time. It was shitty what happened to her, but I wasn't too pleased with the way she talked to me. See, when we place an order it goes out of our hands, and the warehouse people seem to have fucked up; they said this book was available to be shipped out in 2-3 days, and NOW I look and it says "3-5 weeks." They kinda changed their story. But the lady was like, "Oh, the young lady was adamant that they had it," et cetera, and she said she wished she remembered her name; I could see on the screen that it had been one of my managers and I told her so, and she sort of laughed derisively and said, "Oh that's great, your MANAGER there doesn't even know what she's doing." 'Scuse me?? It's not difficult to read a screen, and that's what she did. We can't help it that THEY LIED TO US. But then I told her I'd call the warehouse and get the full story, and she was like, "Yes, I need to know if they can't get it anymore because then I'll need to warn people not to shop with you guys." Uh-huh. I agreed with her that we needed a better system of INFORMING people of problems with their orders, but that's not really much help either at this point. She kept talking to me like I was a jerk about calling her back; I'd said I'd call the warehouse and call her right back and she was like making sure ten times that I understood she was sitting by the phone and that I was to call her RIGHT back afterwards. Because, ya know, it was in my plan to have a coffee first or something. Whatever. I got the bad news and gave it to her, at which point she demanded to speak to "the TOP manager, not the gal I ordered it from." She got to talk to our AGM. And neither of them was happy about it. "Was she as ugly to you as she was to me?" my AGM asked me. Probably not.
A lady asked me to help her find a book and I did. Then she took it and put it under her arm and pulled out her wallet and was like, "Okay, how much, here ya go," and starts trying to hand me her frickin' money. I'm gonna try that next time I'm in the grocery store, hand the milk stocking guy my pocket change. Jeezus. Where has she been living?
And I had another incident of a person asking for a section that was up front and despite the fact that I pointed at it and then came around the desk I found that the person was scurrying at breakneck speed in the opposite direction. I don't know what about the back of our store causes customers to assume all books are there regardless of all evidence to the contrary. The end.
1/11/05
Just a random peeve. I hate when customers who are doing returns give me these weird partial answers as their reasons. I need a reason for a return. I ask, "What is the reason for this return please?" and they say, "Oh she didn't want it." Or "I already had it." Who is "she"? Did you get it for a present for "her" and she already had one? Did you buy it for yourself and you had the hardback at home, or did someone buy it for you and you already had it? I have different categories to put it under based on whether it was a gift or what. Could you stop talking to me as if I know the whole story?
Some lady was confused about where we were located today, and she kept asking me to tell her which side of the road she was going to see us on if she is going "toward Newberry." The problem is . . . we are ON Newberry Road. I asked for clarification and she just kept repeating that if she was going toward Newberry what side would we be on, and I asked her if she knew where Stein Mart was and she just kinda repeated it AGAIN, and so I explained (for the second time) that she couldn't be going TOWARD Newberry Road unless there was something she wasn't telling me (like that she was coming up from 62nd, which made no sense). I went on to explain that if she was going toward the INTERSTATE, we'd be on the left, and she responded with this kind of confused "Well that's what I was ASKING" type response. No, you were asking about going toward the road you're driving on and that's a physical impossibility. I should have just picked a direction and said to hell with it. Sometimes that's the best way to deal with people who won't listen.
A lady asked where the newspapers were and I asked which paper she wanted. (They're in a couple places but the popular ones are up front.) She said she wanted the Sunday edition of the New York Times. I told her we carried New York Times but didn't have any Sundays. She was one of those people who just stands there and stares at you like she wants you to take it back when you give her an answer she doesn't like, and at this point she pulled her trick. I stared back and then told her that today was Tuesday and that we have TUESDAY'S NYT but not Sunday's. "You don't keep the Sunday one?" she asked, and I informed her that when we get Monday, Sunday goes away. "Well MOST places keep newspapers until they sell OUT," she informed me, and I told her we didn't do that; we put out the old when we get the new. "And today's TUESDAY," I reminded her. She did her staring trick again. You shoulda seen it! She was VERY good at it! Finally she asked me where she could get one. I told her I didn't happen to know any place that keeps their Sunday newspapers. But apparently, since she attempted to make me give her access to the secret Sunday papers we were sure to have stashed away by dropping the comment about how OTHER places keep newspapers until they sell, she must have known at least one other place. Why, if she knows so much about OTHER places' newspaper-keeping habits, was she asking ME?
A guy came up and told me a book's title and author. I started typing it into the computer, and then he started saying other things: "They called me and said it was in." Okay, so you expect that you come to the counter and say a book title and author and I'm supposed to know that means you ordered it and it's in? Jeez. He rambled on: "They said it was in, and they wouldn't lie to a sweet old fart like me!" I giggled over that. I asked him if he needed anything else, and he said, "Yeah, I need a nice middle-aged eighteen- or nineteen-year-old girl to cook and clean for me." I played the game and told him I was way too old for him (I did wonder, though, if he thought *I* was that eighteen- or nineteen-year-old girl), telling him my birthday was next week and I'll be twenty-seven. He said, "Oh, yeah, you're over the hill." Hehehehe.
Some lady was returning a book because her granddaughter had already read it. She had a list of books that had been suggested to replace it, and one of the authors was Lois Duncan, with whose work I am familiar. I commented on it and she said, "Oh, I know, she's supposed to be good, but you didn't have any." This made me do a double-take 'cause I know we have some. "Did you look in the teen section?" I asked, and she replied that she had, that she figured it'd be "right by" these R.L. Stine books and she hadn't seen any. Whatever. After I did her return and she left, I checked the shelf. There were TWELVE different Lois Duncan titles. I guess she was probably one of those people who thinks that all the books her granddaughter likes would be on the same bookshelf, but it makes things difficult when people don't realize that R.L. Stine, whose last name starts with S, is likely to be quite distant from Lois Duncan, whose last name starts with, ya know, D. It just blows my mind.
And speaking of which, there was a guy who just didn't seem to understand anything that was going on. I was up there for a return and overheard this happening to the other cashier. She asked him if he found everything he needed, and he seemed to be hard of hearing and replied snottily that if this book wasn't what he needed then why would he be buying it? He then informed her that he had heard about another book but he guessed it wouldn't be out yet because if it had been "it would've been right by this one, right?" Um, of course. With no information about the book and no clue where you'd gotten it, we can easily tell you that if we'd had the book it would most certainly be by that one. Turned out he'd gotten this book on bestsellers, too, so this other book wouldn't have been "right by" it unless it too happened to be a bestseller. People just sometimes don't look for systems or order in anything and just wander aimlessly, somehow managing to get to be as old as this guy without figuring out a damn thing.
Some kid in the kids' section today was pushing an obnoxious stuffed animal's trigger, which made a jaunty spring-bouncing sound. He was about ten. His mom came over and told him to cut it the hell out. He replied, "I can't." And kept doing it, dammit. His mom told him to stop again and he replied, "I can't help it!" She kept telling him to stop and he kept protesting, "But I like it!" and "I can't help it!" again. Finally she took it away from him. Later I heard him apologize for making noise (which was weird) and the mom said, "That's okay! It's just, enough's enough!" Amen.
Some lady who brilliantly began her interaction with me through the words "do you work here?" was all annoying to me. She asked me for a book and I went to look it up and then I found she hadn't bothered to follow me, she just kinda felt like whatever, send the servant girl on her errand and she'll come find me. Okay whatever. So I found we carried the book and left the desk to go find out if it was on the shelf. She noticed me leaving the desk and practically ran over to me to POUNCE and demanded, "DO YOU HAVE IT?" Okay, lady, hang on a second . . . I AM TRYING TO FIND THAT OUT. I guess she figured if she didn't constantly monitor me--since, ya know, I AM an incompetent retail clerk--I'd forget what I was doing and wander away in a haze of obliviousness. Argh! Argh!
1/10/05
Today was Vague Question Day™.
"Where are your instructional guides?" Lovely--ya know, 50 to 80% of nonfiction books are about how to do something. How about narrowing it down for me, asshole? (He wanted books on how to play bridge, but thought asking me for "instructional guides" would be good enough. Jeez.)
"I want to find out if a book came out in paperback yet?" I said okay to the lady, and she replied, "I want to know if it's in paperback . . . would you know offhand?" I've got an idea, lady . . . how about you tell me WHAT book you're wanting to know about, and I'll tell you if I know "offhand" whether there's a paperback. I don't understand how she would just think I'd be able to answer yes or no to this question. "Yes, I know offhand about all paperbacks." "No, I don't have any information about any paperbacks." And it was some obscure book too. Weh.
A lady had me show her two books and she was going to look them over and decide which she liked better. "So the one I decide against . . . should I just put it back?" No, lady, I want you to EAT the one you decide against. Yes put it back! Jeezus!
And here's the supreme weirdo of the day. I have a feeling I have not heard the end of this one and that one day soon I'll find out more, but for the time being this is all I know.
Some guy came in early in the morning, asked for my help with a book like anybody else, and then sat down at the table behind Customer Service. I noted that after he'd been at the table for a very short time, he'd spread an amazing amount of stuff all over it. Briefcase, cell phone in a special holder, and papers out the wazoo . . . and he was hard at work. He damn near looked like he was at his desk in a cushy office. I kinda chuckled.
Then I noticed that he had taken a piece of stiff paper, made a little stand-up sign with it by folding it in half, and written some company name on it with a marker, setting it up like he was on official business.
Okaaaaaayyyy. . . .
I ignored him and figured he was harmless. But then this lady came up to me and said, "Yes, I saw the ad that said [some company] was taking interviews here, where are you all doing that?" First thought: "Um, you're wrong, we don't have some other company interviewing people in our store." Second thought: "Oh my God, the company name she just said is what that guy wrote on his fake placard." I kind of bewilderedly informed the lady that we knew nothing about it but that there was a dude at the table behind my desk who seemed to be on related official business. She went to him and I didn't hear from either of them about it so I guess that was the right answer.
BUT!
I asked my general manager and my assistant general manager later if either of them had ever heard about or given permission for this to occur. Both of them looked at me like I was speaking Martian. "I wish he'd done that while I'd been here," my GM said. Now, not only did he set up shop in our store, but he advertised that he would be there and apparently didn't clear it with anyone (unless there's something I don't know). Now I'm just hoping it happens again so I can get more dirt on this. In any case it was really fucking funny.
1/9/05
There was a guy who had like no information about his book and he still expected me to find it. He said the first word was "The" and the last word was "Game" and that there was some other word in the middle, and he had what he thought was the last name of the author (and when I typed that in there were NO authors with that last name in the system whatsoever). This wasn't so bad, but then he came up with a second title. That title wasn't in the database with an author anything like the one he'd mentioned EITHER, so I started digging up books by the author, and while I was scrolling through the list of books by the author (there were a ton) trying to find anything that resembled the title, he started doing this thing I hate: He started telling me in this "I don't know WHAT you're doing wrong" sort of voice how this author is VERY well known and well-established and has been writing for many years. In other words, if I can't find it it's because I'm fucking up in the search, not because it's unavailable. Finally about sixty entries into the list of the guy's books I found something with a SIMILAR title--he said it was called The Human Condition and it was actually The Human Factor--and I got to explain to him how the computer's picky because it operates on a keyword system, if I type something that's only somewhat close to the title it doesn't know what I'm talking about. The guy wasn't a jerk at all, he took the blame on himself and said "excuse me" a lot, but I still didn't like that whole "well he's an ESTABLISHED author" thing.
A girl asked for a book that isn't being sold in retail stores (yet? at all? I don't know), and when I told her that it was only available from their company she was like, "What? That's CRAZY!" And she looked totally shocked. So I presented it to her: "WHAT'S crazy?" She informed me that NO one seems to have this book. Well, ya know what? Some authors aren't actually published and are selling through their own company where they printed a bunch of their own copies. Some authors are published with very small presses and they don't automatically deal with retail stores. Some authors just want to make all the money themselves and give no store a cut, so they sell only through their websites or their own devices. I don't think that's "crazy." It's inconvenient, but it's not our fuggin' fault.
Oh, and it happened AGAIN--some parent scolded kids for putting stuff back in the wrong place and told them, "This lady works here, and we don't want her to get overworked!" Hehe! What is this, a rash of good behavior? I wish it'd spread to others. Our store was a pit last night.
1/8/05
I had a lady who ended her sentence in the middle today. I'm sorry, but sentences CANNOT END ON THE WORD "THE" (unless they are ABOUT the word "the"). She asked me for some classic book and fizzled out with, "I didn't know if it would be in this section or in the. . . . " I stood there waiting for her to finish her sentence but then she stood there looking at me like she HAD. So I called her on it. "In the what?" I asked. "Huh?" She was totally STUMPED. I explained that she had asked me if it would be here or "in the" and I didn't know in the WHAT. She was like, "OH, I meant like, well, somewhere else other than here." Yeah. Okay. Well I helped her and it turned out her book was not in the kids' section. It was in the.
I had some kids totally destroying my section today, and I started doing something I don't often do: I started shadowing them. In an attempt to look like a mean old grown-up, I stood near them with my arms crossed and watched them pull books out and run off with them. First they each pulled a copy of Knuffle Bunny off the shelf, and one of the copies slid out of its dust jacket and hit the floor, which caused the kid to laugh before picking it up. The other kid copied him and made HIS book fall out of the dust jacket. Later they came back and just threw the books on the shelves with their dust covers still off, and they put the jackets down in front. Then they each grabbed a copy of Pinduli and started running off. An Eric Carle book fell off the shelf because of the roughness of their removal of the books and one kid stepped on it after it hit the floor. I hit the roof at that point and said, "Whoa," and went over there to pick the book up, and I said in the kids' general direction, "Wow, there's just book avalanches all over this place! Books falling everywhere! Oh isn't that awful!" A guy who seemed to be at least one of the kids' dad came over and started scolding the kids to "be respectful" and explained to them that it was this lady's job to pick things up and that they weren't making my job very easy. I about had a heart attack. "THANK you," I said brightly, and went about my business. The dad watched one of the kids put a book back and he put it on the shelf all willy-wally and upside-down with the pages separated by another book--obviously NOT paying attention--and the dad told him, "I don't think that's how it goes, do you?" Heheh! I also overheard these kids deliberating about whether to put the books back in their dust covers when they denuded the Knuffle Bunny copies, and what was funny is they decided to put the dust covers back on because they were afraid someone would pick up the jacket and try to buy it only to find that there was no book inside. "We wouldn't want them to get fooled, that would be TERRIBLE!" said one kid. I thought it was pretty hilarious that he thought someone would not be bright enough to realize there was no book in there if they picked it up, but kids are silly creatures.
During Yu-Gi-Oh! today one of the older guys that plays came over looking all sour and asked to speak to the manager. He then plopped down a porno in front of the manager and informed her that we had about thirty kids back there and there was this porn magazine unwrapped on the front shelf. My manager was like, "Well, that sucks, nothing we can do about it though," and the dude was actually all horrifically offended about it, like we were unclean and guilty of corrupting minors because some perv decided to open a pornographic magazine and leave it where kids could see it. Guess what? We don't have a force field around the nudies, and we can't control all the pervs. SORRY.
Argh, this lady was just overall annoying. She had three different titles and every time I gave her information after looking one of them up she promptly forgot what I said and later asked the same question again. She also had an inability to read her own handwriting and kept taking ten years to puzzle out what she'd written on her piece of paper. Finally after we checked the shelf for a book we were supposed to carry and she'd asked me twice if we or our other store "would have" it, it became clear that she was hinting (not asking, but hinting) that she wanted me to call the other store and SEE if they had it. So I called them. It was a popular book she was looking for, so I just asked the guy at the other store "Do you have any more of the Amber Frey book?" (We in the bookstore all know what it is.) The lady felt compelled at this point to lean over the counter and explain to me that it was "the 'Witness' book," as if a) I hadn't already looked for it for her and expressed complete familiarity with the title and b) I needed that information and wouldn't be able to properly discern whether the other store had it unless she butted in with information I hadn't asked for because I KNEW ALREADY. They didn't have it either. She asked me to give her my store's phone number so she could keep checking up on whether we'd received it, and after I wrote it on her piece of paper I asked if she could read my handwriting. I don't think she quite caught the irony. Heh.
Some lady asked me if they had any of our stores in New York City. I told her we didn't, and she goes, "So just in Florida?" So . . . it just follows that no stores in NYC equals "Florida-only company"? 'Fraid not. I just thought the logical leap--and the tone of voice being so matter-of-fact--was odd.
I was performing a return and this guy had a receipt that showed he'd bought the book on a credit card. I asked him if he had the card with him and he goes, "NO, I don't think I do." I told him that I would therefore have to give him store credit, and asked if that would be all right. He goes, "NO." So I told him that if he didn't have the card and didn't want to do store credit or exchange it for equal or greater merchandise (paying the difference on that last), we could not perform any transaction here. It was then that he pulled out his wallet and produced the card. It seemed odd to me that only after threatening him with the store credit option did he even CHECK his wallet for the card. I think he just wanted cash and figured I'd give it to him if I had no other option. But no other option equals no other option, bye-bye see ya we already have your money and if you won't cooperate with us by the rules of the return policy then we don't HAVE to do anything, thanks! This guy also gave me his phone number to look up his discount card, and when I found it (giving no indication whatsoever that I needed more information), he still told me the first name and spelled the last name, and when I told him I didn't need that he interrupted me to spell it again. ::sigh::
I'm done.
1/5/05
I had a really annoying, sort of confusing return today. First off the guy seemed to think that he had an incredibly complicated situation when he was just returning two items and exchanging them for two others. His reasons, though, were frightening. First off, he said that he was returning the calendar because he couldn't write in it. I thought at first that it just didn't have big enough spaces or something but he said he tried to write in it and it didn't work. "They should TELL you those things on the package," he complained, though I can just imagine them saying, "By the way, do not try to use ink on this calendar, it does not work." While he was explaining how ridiculous it was that the calendar could not be written upon, I took out a ballpoint and drew a smiley face on it. He said again, "They should TELL you these things," and I said, "Well, I just wrote on it." I gave the face some hair and ears. He looked at me all surprised and said, "Well, I tried TWO of my pens on it and it didn't work!" Oh well. Mine did. Maybe you were trying to write while it was on the wall and the trouble was your pen didn't have enough gravity. I don't know. I don't care now, because we're returning it.
And then his other book he was returning was a Netzer book of food counts. "I WANTED a book that told how many grams of the essential nutrients different foods have," he said, "but that one's nothing but recipes." This surprises me since generally there are NO recipes in Netzer books. I flipped the pages. As usual, it's just pages and pages of food counts. No recipes. I asked him where he was talking about and he couldn't explain, but just kept saying it wasn't right because he didn't want a recipe book. Okay, whatever.
So I completed his return and then charged him for the items he bought, and he owed me money. First off that surprised him because for some reason he thought he was making an even exchange. The calendar he returned had been half price when he bought it so of course I credited him only half price, but even if the calendar had been full price he would have spent more with the new purchases than he got returned. In any case he was all flabbergasted and actually wasn't even sure he brought his money, but he had, and then when I gave him the slip to sign for his MasterCard he was all, "I spent thirty-six dollars?" (The slip was for like twelve something, and he couldn't believe that he spent that much--I read the prices off to him and I guess it made sense enough 'cause he signed it.) The whole thing was just kind of insane.
This morning some lady wanted Eragon. Does it surprise you that I already didn't like her? Anyway.
She asked me for Eragon and we didn't have any--I told her so off the top of my head 'cause we've been out for at least two weeks--and then she asked if there was a teen section so I took her to it. On the shelf happened to be one copy of the "deluxe edition" of Eragon, which is more expensive, but I pointed it out to her and told her it was a deluxe edition and that it had like extra art and a preview chapter from the next book or something. She told me she didn't want that, she wanted "the other one," and then told me it was a "softcover." I told her Eragon doesn't COME in softcover but then she started arguing with me that I'd already told her it did since this was a different edition. I had to explain that I never said the other edition was softcover, and whatever she thinks I am *now* saying IT HAS NOT COME OUT IN PAPERBACK.
She then asked if I would call the other store and find out if they had a copy and I agreed. While I was on hold she told me she'd seen copies of it with a sale sticker for 50% off on them. (That is NOT something I've ever seen at my store--that makes no sense.) Anyway, she told me I should ask them if they had that sticker on them if they found one. I told her I would ask and then I asked her for what name I should give them if they had one. She obviously wasn't listening to my question because in response to that she started with, "Well, I want you to ask them if they have . . . " and on and on about the 50% off one, the thing she'd just said to me. I told her in a weird hesitant way that I knew that was what she wanted because she'd JUST SAID SO, and then I told her I'd ASKED what name she wanted me to use. She finally told me.
Finally the person came back and told me no, there was no Eragon, so I got off the phone and told her so. Her response was just to stare blankly at me, and I was just like, "WHAT?" Then she came out of it and said, "And would you have it in softcover?"
If we had a "break glass in case of emergencies" pistol at Customer Service, I'm honestly not sure if I would have shot her or myself. Good God.
And a lady committed one of my new pet peeves today. When I informed her that the author she wanted had no books readily available--the only one available was for special delivery and dubious availability--she responded with, "Well, she's a VERY well-known author. . . . " Because, ya know, I've worked in a bookstore four and a half years and never been asked for anything by her, and her book is obviously out of print and difficult to get, but if you tell me scoldingly that she's very well-known, maybe I will respond by changing my story.
1/4/05
Some lady was asking me for three books in a row and of course hammering out all their titles in one breath, so I didn't really catch the last thing she said, but when I finally got to that one and asked her what the last book she was looking for was, all she gave me was, "And I need the Sunday School book." I asked her if "The Sunday School Book" was the title, and she was like, "No, no, it's the book you use for Sunday School every year, the lesson plans and whatnot." I told her I didn't think we carried anything like that (I've been asked something similar once before and the closest we get is like homeschool books that have Christian stuff in them), but that if she could give me a title I could look up its availability. From there she argued with me about how it was just "the book they use to teach Sunday School" and apparently was quite flummoxed that I couldn't do anything with that. I keyworded "Sunday School" and came up with a list, and when I read them off to her she recognized one and said it was probably the right one. We've never carried it but when I offered to order it for her she said she'd just get it where she usually does: At a Bible bookstore. C'mon. Though with this interaction I kind of returned the favor for being a jackass: She wanted a book and I thought it wasn't out in paperback yet, but she said it was because she had seen it at Wal-Mart. It wasn't in its section and it wasn't featured up front, so I let her go, but then not a minute later I walked by a new cardboard display with about a billion of the book in it, new in paperback. Damn I hate when that happens. ('Course, it's not like every time someone puts up a new cardboard display anywhere in the store all of a sudden they go around and inform every employee that it is there, but still, it annoyed me.)
A guy approached the desk and told me he wanted a book called Soiled Doves. That doesn't really make a lot of sense so I asked him if the last word was "doves, like the bird?" He goes, "Well, not necessarily," and went on to tell me it's a western. I looked it up and only one title came up, but I'd have to order it. I read him the author but he was like, "I don't know, but it's a western." I scrolled further down and the book turned out to be A HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION IN CHINA. Somehow I don't think that's what he meant. He asked if I had a western section. I took him there. Heh.
A guy called on the phone and started buttering me up right from the start. All this "how are you today?" and "how were your holidays?" and junk. I told him I was fine and that I had "made it through." He goes, "Yeah, that's the spirit, baby." BABY?? He went on to tell me that he was planning on getting about eight copies of one title from our store and he wondered if he would be allowed some kind of special discount for buying so many. I had to bite my lip to suppress a grin--he thinks buying EIGHT is a lot? Jeez, you should see some of the shit that comes through here. Anyway, I informed him that there was no bulk discount at all, only institutional discounts that receive a percentage off and stuff. "What do I do to get an institutional discount?" he asked, and I explained you basically have to be government, education, or church and you have to set up an account with us and junk. It was obvious that none of these situations applied and that whatever group he was buying eight copies for is NOT an official sort of group, but then he started whipping out highball talk as if it would help intimidate me into either giving him a discount or just making him feel better by agreeing with him about how much we suck.
"Well, the retailer makes money when THEY get THEIR discount! YOU guys have one of the largest volume in the country and you're not even gonna do nothin'. That's just sad." Et cetera. I was not intimidated at all and just calmly told him that was how it worked and we don't have any reason to do a bulk discount for eight copies unless it's through an institution that has a contract with us or something. Then he backed off and told me he knew it wasn't my fault and blah blah blah. Then he hung up. The end.
Ahh, and a cute funny thingie. My manager handed me a return slip and asked me to sign as manager. I sign as manager whenever I supervise a return, but in this case she had signed onto a register as if she was a regular cashier and therefore she needed a manager signature to authorize her return since her signature was called for in the cashier's spot. I signed and kidded her that I was her manager. She was like, "Yeah right," and I told her, "Hey, the way I see it is, my name is on that line. For the five seconds or so that I was signing that, I was your boss." She told me to dream on and I reminded her that I had turned down the offered manager position twice. "What, you don't like pain?" she replied. Hahaha.
1/3/05
Hey, I have a new pet peeve! It's the people at the register doing returns. Not all of them (though I do hate being called away from what I'm doing to deal with them); I hate a special breed of them. Whenever the customer is returning something and I am refunding them the amount onto their credit card, they have to sign two pieces of paper: The credit card slip that grants us access to put money on or take money off their card, and then our return form which we keep for our records. EVERY TIME I have a return that's in this situation, I tell them that I have two things for them to sign, and while they're signing the first one I hold the second one and tell them I have another one for them to sign when they're done. And yet, 90% of the time they put the pen down and slide the paper and pen at me like they think they're done, and when I give them the other paper they either look confused or they try to take it because they weren't listening to me and assume it's some kind of receipt. I really, really detest not being listened to, damn it.
So, speaking of returns. . . .
I had this guy at the register who was doing an exchange. He was returning this book that was only like $3.99--little Magic Tree House book his son already had or something--and then he was purchasing a couple big nonfiction books. He kept hedging around asking me if I could credit him the return difference onto a gift card he had, but then he told me he then wanted to USE the gift card to pay for the whole purchase, so I told him it wasn't worth crediting him for the one book and then using the same card to pay for other books, I'd just do it as one transaction and it would give me one amount he owed at the end. He didn't follow me, apparently, and kept doing things like taking out his discount card and pushing it at me when I'd already rung it, or trying to give me the card, or for some reason telling me, "No, THIS ONE FIRST" when I picked up one of the two books he was buying. (I still can't figure out why he cared which one I rung first, because he was buying both of them.) Finally, at the end of the thing, I told him the total he owed me, including the credit from the little kids' book. I zeroed out his gift card and put that money toward the total he owed, and then told him he was down to $25.16. He was holding his credit card and I waited for him to give it to me, but he wouldn't. "It's $25.16," I said again, and this time he gave me the card but then he was like, "So what did I end up owing you?" I told him $25.16 again and he said, "What? That doesn't make sense . . . wait, which one is it, 25 or 16?" I said, very evenly, "TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS AND SIXTEEN CENTS." "Oh, oh oh oh," he said, finally getting on the same page with me I guess. I don't know what he thought I meant, but then when I gave him the return form and all the other junk he still acted very confused and I think he thought I charged him too much or something, he had continued to ask weird questions while I was ringing up and stuff as if he didn't trust my computer to do the math correctly. Some people just worry too much. I thought sure he was going to stand there and puzzle over his receipt for a while and eventually make me explain everything to him, but it didn't happen, thank goodness.
Some lady came up to me in the store and asked, "Do you have somewhere where there's a list of the books that are coming out?" I pointed over toward Customer Service where we have a billboard that has the most popular upcoming titles and opened my mouth to accompany the pointing with, ya know, words, but then she goes, "NO, no that's okay we don't have time." And then she went away talking about John Grisham to her friend. Umkay. . . .
A lady called over to me, "ExCUSE me, I'd like to check out!" I glanced up at her and told her I wasn't the person running it, but before I could say anything resembling "I'll page the guy" she goes, "WELL THERE'S NO ONE UP HERE!" I know that. Why would you announce to me that you need to check out if there was someone up there? I am not incapable of making this logical leap of understanding! Seriously!
There was a guy asking for an application and for some reason his demeanor annoyed me--I found myself thinking he'd be an asshole customer if he was looking for something. He asked if he should just turn his application back in to me when he was done, and I said, "Yeah, or you can just give it to whoever's at the desk." I hate it when people think they now have to give it back to ME since I gave it to them, so I always make it clear that anyone can take it and put it in the application file. "Well I didn't SEE anyone at this desk," he said back, and I thought, BINGO! Asshole customer! I told him I UNDERSTOOD that--why else would he have come and found me and made his request to me in the back of the store?--but that I was letting him know any employee could take the application. Then when I ended up taking it back (he came and found me in the store anyway), he had put in that he wanted--get this--NINE DOLLARS AN HOUR for starting pay. Yeah, that'll go over well, considering I make seven and a quarter and I've been here since JULY 2000.
One more crappy thing. I noticed today that no one who has EVER asked me for books on hunting has ever done so without saying the words with a pronounced Southern accent. (This generally makes the word "hunting" sound like "hunt'n.") Heh--no prejudice intended, but isn't that a ripe coincidence?
1/2/05
A guy wanted a book we didn't carry so I read off some prices of the versions he wanted. He kept seeming uninterested and noncommittal whenever I asked if he wanted to order one, so finally after telling him about three versions I could get with still no interest, I asked him if it was because he was only looking for copies in stock. "No, I just was hoping for one that was cheaper than that," he explained, and then told me he could get it online for about five bucks cheaper. "Oh, of course," I said, and explained to him that any time you get something off of an online store, it's not going to be retail price. He was still kinda looking at me funny so I went on to describe how it's only worthwhile to get it in the store if a) You don't want to pay shipping, b) You don't want to give a credit card over the Internet or you don't have one, c) You don't want to wait, or d) You want to be able to look at the book before buying it. I told him if none of those things mattered to him, it's definitely the better choice to buy it online. "But it's weird," he protested, "because I was going to buy it from YOU GUYS' website, and it was cheaper THERE." Yes. This is what I've been talking about. I guess people just don't know that this is completely established: Online orders ARE CHEAPER. Sometimes the shipping equals it out and sometimes not. Deal!
One of my coworkers got a doozy at the register. She said her customer had one of those old driver's licenses and was writing a check, so she asked her to take it out of the wallet so she could read the expiration on the back. The lady did so and whined about why people always ask her to do that, so the cashier explained that she had to see the expiration information that was on the sticker they paste on the back when you renew it. "WELL, *look* on the *front*," the lady said crabbily, and the cashier turned it over and found that the lady had placed a tiny sticker on the front of her card that said "2005." Apparently this was supposed to be enough for her to go on to see the expiration date and not have to bother this woman to have to go through the extremely arduous process of removing her driver's license from her wallet. When the cashier said she could have told her about that sticker because most people don't exactly make their own expiration date stickers, the lady barked back, "Well, I'm not most people." Then you know what? Do everyone a favor and clue in everyone who's involved, because making a big show out of tolerating their behavior just so you can be righteously aggravated about being inconvenienced is just pointless.
A man with a young son came up to me and asked where the Guinness Book of World Records was, so I asked him if he was looking for the adults record book or the one Scholastic made for kids. "The one for KIDS, of COURSE," he replied, which annoyed me. First off if I ask which you want, it's obvious there are two items that match your description. And secondly, just because you have a kid with you does not mean I should automatically know you're shopping for him. As it turns out Guinness doesn't even make one just for kids (only Scholastic does), so I ended up taking them to the reference section anyway. ::sigh::
Someone was really ugly at the register today. He came in really early and the register chick had walked away to get something situated (I don't know what she was doing), so elsewhere in the store we hear this guy calling from the register, "ANYONE WORKING CHECKOUT??" One of my coworkers went over to help him, and as she was checking him out he gave her a bunch of grief; when she asked if he had a discount card he was like, "NO," like the question offended him, but then he started rambling about how his wife probably had one and when she offered to look him up he said "NO" again like trying to give him a discount was this big inconvenience for him. Feh. Then he tried to go out the side door, and we'd JUST opened so no one had thought to unlock it yet, and when he pushed on it and it didn't open, he huffed at the cashier that it was locked, so she unlocked it for him and he goes, "I could have BROKEN MY HAND! That would have been a pretty lawsuit." Who pushes hard enough on a door to break their hand anyway? Dickmunch.
This lady was nice and I helped her find a couple books, but then she came back and asked me if a coupon she had could be used on the books. Okay. Now the coupon said that it was on a particular series of hardback children's classics. It even SAID "hardback" on it and pictured the books. She had two paperbacks. I explained it to her and she still didn't seem to understand that even if it had been ANY two hardbacks, she DIDN'T HAVE HARDBACKS. And she had gotten out of line at the cash register just to come back into the store and ask me that.
And I caught some lady going through our boxes. That's right, she just walked up to some shipment boxes and started opening them and rifling through. Would you do this at a grocery store? Anywhere? I just can't imagine going up to a sealed box in a store and opening it like it's mine. But then again, customers are always doing things I wouldn't dream of doing. That's what they're for; to provide amusement for all you folks. I sure hope you're enjoying it.
1/1/05
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Now, as tradition decrees, 'tis the time for JACKASSES to call and ask if I'm open, and when I say, "Yes, we're open," they say, "Oh. Um. You are?" Yes. Yes, we are open. "Really? I didn't think you'd be open today." No actually we're not open but I thought it'd be funny to make you come out here thinking you could buy books and then laugh as you tug on the door. I also thought it'd be fun to come to work on a day we're not open and then answer the phone. Need to know if we're open? Fine. Call. But now ask me a question about a book or hang up, 'cause I got work to do. We are, after all, open.
I don't really have any Assholes for today except that everyone was calling and being annoying. There was one who called and said, "Are you open tomorrow?" Why would we answer the phone today (showing we're open) and then not be open tomorrow?
These two ladies were sitting in some chairs toward the back of the store and when I walked by they stopped talking and stared at me. Then one of them broke out with, "LOOK AT YOU, aren't you just adorable!" Um? I thanked them and the lady was like, "Awww, you just look SO cute, your hair is precious." Thanks. (I had pigtails tied with big fat black and blue shoelaces, if you want to know.) When I walked all the way past I heard one lady say to the other, "A-DOR-able!" There's something to be said for being called cute by middle-aged ladies when you're (gasp) pushing thirty (oh no, not me!). Wait, are you allowed to say you're pushing thirty if you're twenty-seven? I think that's allowed. Joy.
There is a book fixture in the back room right now. It's white wire and you put a book on it open so customers can see. I think it was issued by some encyclopedia deal or something. It was pulled off the floor for whatever reason, and we have a manager who seems to delight in throwing away fixtures and stuff when we haven't been told to. So this time, our assistant general manager wrote a note to him addressing him and then saying, "BACK AWAY SLOWLY! DO NOT THROW AWAY!" Hahaha.
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