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

7/31/05

All I got today was a drive-by Asshole . . . I walked by a woman talking on her cell phone and she told whoever it was, "Yeah, right now I'm at Barnes & Noble. . . . " The hell you are.

7/30/05

Not a good day for everyone's favorite KAM specialist. Beyond the jackassery and inconsideration of customers, I also got squirted by a bottled soda, had a pain in my leg all day, had nowhere to sleep for my nap, and was late to work. Combined with the crap that happened today . . . let's just say I was REALLY happy when 4:00 rolled around.

First of all, we got a total weirdo in the café. I happened to be over there getting my coffee when he arrived, and this sort of late-middle-aged dude interrupted my conversation with the café girl by saying, "Just keep talking," encouraging us to not consider him an interruption because all he wanted was a coffee sample. Of course, he didn't know WHICH one he wanted to sample and there are three coffees made every day, so the café chick told him what they were and he chose one from South America. "Does that come with any crack?" he said. Then he took the joke too far, saying we should include one crack rock with each cup of coffee, to which the café girl replied that that would make the coffee really expensive.

He then interjected, "You know, you're really attractive. Did anyone ever tell you that?" A terminal wise-ass, she immediately replied, "My mom." He went on to blather about how he thinks brunettes are very attractive (which is ironic because she is actually sort of a strawberry blonde under that dye) and how people like ME probably get all the attention. He kind of indicated me with slight distaste when he said that, like it's disgusting that blondes are so well-liked. Whatever. The café girl shot back that actually I get lots of attention because of my huge BRAIN. Yeah.

The dude eventually left us alone and we reconvened at the customer service desk, discussing his extreme loserhood and poor taste. Then he came up again and started telling her that she should make sure to refer to herself as a "barista," like he was sure she didn't know the word. "Actually I'm a master barista," she replied, and he said she should put that on her tax return. "They don't ask," she said. He didn't seem to understand that he wasn't being witty and wandered away again.

Then, he hit the cashier to buy his stuff, and since our cashier today was male he didn't get to do any bad attempts at romance, but he did decide to complain because there is no way to get the free coupons in your e-mail unless you sign up for a discount card and he wanted to whine about that. So our cashier sent him back to me (God! no!) because I have the corporate number. I gave him the damn numbers and after that he wouldn't stop blathering about other junk like how our store used to have cheaper books and he could get presents for his whole family for fourteen dollars, et cetera, so when I got another customer the guy just stood there behind him waiting for help. I interrupted the dude pretty quickly to help the actual customer, who was looking for Virgil poetry. "I know a song about Virgil," said Weirdo, and he began to sing it for us. Something about Virgil someone-or-other, and I said, "Yyyyeah I don't think that's the Virgil they mean." "Well he's NAMED after him!" the dude announced. I moved to take my customer to the literature section and the weirdo called after us that if we don't have it the customer should try Goerings because they have more highbrow stuff there. Yeah, well, they're kind of an academic-oriented privately owned bookstore. We're a corporate whore mass-market popular-appeal megastore. What do you expect?

Finally when he left he had to stop by the café to be a creepy loser one more time, and he said to the café chick, "I just couldn't leave without saying goodbye to the attractive girl. Goodbye, attractive girl!" She replied, "Goodbye, creepy customer!" I couldn't have said it better myself.

My other big annoyance was the horrific walking tornado, also known as Free-Spirited-Toddler-With-Unattentive-Mom. The weird thing was that Mom was right next to her throughout most of it; she just didn't do anything about it. The first thing I saw was that she was shopping for baby books while the child was ripping a dust cover off a hardcover book on an endcap. When Mom saw me kind of standing there watching the kid, she said (as if for my benefit), "You're just bound and determined to mess everything up, aren't you?" GUESS WHAT? YES she IS, and it ISN'T CUTE! I did my normal morning round of the kids' section and two aisles actually were so littered with stuff that you wouldn't be able to walk down them without moving things. (I am not joking.) The kid had even pulled cardboard displays down off of shelves so that they spilled their toys and stuffed animals all over, and this one display of Klutz "books in a cup" had its book cups distributed over a large area of the section, the display itself emptied and lying in the middle of the aisle. I couldn't believe it and went to get a cart. When I parked the cart nearby her mess and started picking it up, the kid actually came out of the aisle and pushed the CART into a pile of Hello Kitty dolls in hard plastic boxes, and they tumbled down in an avalanche that narrowly missed hitting the kid. Mom noticed and turned around and stacked them back up (badly, so I had to fix it anyway), but I pointed out to Mom that she'd moved my cart to do that and asked if she was okay, you know, as if it was concern over whether the kid might hurt herself with this behavior that was causing me to say anything. She replied, "Oh, I've learned that if she doesn't cry, she's fine." Yeah, but my Hello Kitty dolls aren't! Jesus! One other time I saw her just grab onto a cardboard display and pull, and my Giggle Pets came tumbling out in a flood of vibration and mechanical laughter. Mom said, "Oh crud." She generally picked up anything she SAW the kid doing, but the problem was the kid was allowed to wander into the next aisle fairly often and Mom never picked up whatever she did there. (I guess if she didn't see her do it, it must have been some other little monster.) When they decided to leave the kids' section, I overheard this: "Where are Mommy's keys? [Pause] Where are the keys? Where are Mommy's keys? You had them when Mommy answered the phone . . . let's see. . . . " I was torn between hoping they were lost somewhere only a toddler would think to shove them (because that would just serve her right) and wishing she'd find them (so she'd get the HELL out of my store!). She did eventually find them though. I found out that when she finally went to the register, the kid kept putting her hands on everything and pushing, and she pushed down a pre-purchase plan sign and some impulse buy display at the register. Lady, can you just help your kid learn control and moderation in a place like the playground and your own house? Not only is this child literally destroying our property over and over WHILE YOU WATCH, but she's done several things that could have hurt her!

I was at the register talking to the cashier about something and up came this lady wanting to do a return. Apparently she recognized me because she started talking to me kind of familiarly and then said, "Oh, by the way, remember that book I ordered? I need to just cancel the order, we found it somewhere else." I was like, uh, do I know you? She asked me if I remembered and I was like, "NO. . . . " And she repeated her title and said it promptingly as if of course that would jog my memory, that's right, she was the one who ordered that book last week! Because I don't order dozens of books a week or anything, no really, you're memorable. Jesus, it kills me that some customers think when they shop from you you're suddenly their new best friend.

Some kid called and asked for three manga books and a humor book. Then he wanted to know how much they were altogether. Since I was talking to a kid I figured he probably wanted a pretty exact figure--sometimes they actually do come in having counted their pennies. I asked him if he needed an exact amount because I had no calculator at the desk (which is true) and he'd have to hold on a couple minutes while I figured it. He didn't seem to know what to do about the fact that I didn't immediately know the answer--because jeez, what's wrong with these shop people, they're supposed to always know the answers!--and then he just started ballparking, like, "So you think it'd be like thirty-five bucks? Twenty-eight? Maybe like twenty-nine?" Kid? Either shut up and deal with it when you get here, or tell me yes you want me to go figure it out on the calculator for you. This is not a multiple choice test and if I tell you I do not know how much money it will be, I am not saying it to be lazy. I really do have to go add it up for you and stuff. Bite me.

Some lady wanted a book that was called I think Small Steps, Big Changes or something. She said the title, and then I repeated it back to her. "Okay, Small Steps, Big Changes." "BIG changes," she repeated, in a tone like she was correcting me. I was like uh-huh, THAT'S WHAT I SAID. I looked the book up, and it said it was in Diet and Health, so I tried to confirm with her: "Is it a diet book?" She replied, "It's adult nonfiction." OH THAT IS SO HELPFUL! Adult nonfiction. Let's just go to the adult nonfiction section. God, these people are driving me batshit. You think you could just answer my question and say whether it's a diet book?

More annoying people: Some woman came up with some super-discounted books with sale stickers on them, some labeled $2 and some labeled $1. Then she said, "I see some of these books are two dollars and some are one dollar. Is there any way some of these two dollar ones can be one dollar?" First off, that's just sad that you're trying to discount them further when they're that cheap. Secondly, this is not a yard sale, this is a retail store. And lastly, WHAT THE HELL? Yeah let me just make them "be" one dollar instead, doesn't matter. "Oh yes ma'am since you asked, I'll just make it cheaper for you now." Does that actually ever work?

I found out that yesterday one of my coworkers had a really bad day and some asshole yelled at her at the register. She was trying to pick up a bunch of Buy 2 Get 1 Free sale books and she was trying to get one book for free that wasn't part of the sale. Her problem was that the Hardy Boys series books that are in hardback were part of the sale and the paperbacks were not, and she wanted her free one to be a paperback from later in the series. I SORT OF understood her point because the paperback was the same price as the hardback, but it ISN'T PART OF THE SALE, only the hardbacks are part of it and we can't key in an item that's not part of the sale as being a free book or as being one of the books that she buys in order to get one free. The hardbacks are the ones that are on the sale because WE HAVE TOO FRICKIN' MANY OF THEM. When my coworker wouldn't let her do it she freaked out and started yelling at her that she was going to take her business elsewhere, and started shoving the books at her, and the cashier (who is always really bright and sunny and stuff, she's totally got this kindergarten-teacher attitude about her) just said in a bubbly voice that that was okay and she'd put them back for her. For some reason the woman decided that her saying so was rude and demanded to know her name and said she was going to call her manager and complain. Ohhhkay.

And at least I can end with this: A nice one. A pair of women shopping for Jenny McCarthy's book about being pregnant were completely bamboozled by the fact that it wasn't next to her other one about her baby's first year. (As mentioned in other entries, the organization of the section makes a lot of sense in that all the books about pregnancy are in one section together by author and then there's another section about actually raising the kids, but try to tell that to some people.) Anyway, they were afflicted by severe cases of oh-God-i-don't-understand-itis, but one of them who's shopped with me before spotted me and said, "Hang on, I'm going to ask this wonderful lady." Heh. She came over and presented her question and I took her right to what she wanted (slipping in one of my little explanations for how shit works, of course), and then the lady's like, "Oh, isn't she just awesome?" I replied, "Yes, I do rule." Heh. I asked if they needed anything else and they didn't and I said, "Too bad; I'll have to wait for another day to rule."

Sometimes I say very silly things and think I'm funny.

7/26/05

A little kid was being obnoxious, and he walked sort of right near me and then turned around so his back was toward me, and then said very loudly, "HMM, I wonder how much THIS is??" I guess I was supposed to come over and help him. But then he walked away toward his dad and started bugging the dad about how much the price was. Foo.

7/25/05

Had a weird lady on the phone wanting to know if we sold comics. I said yes and she's like, "Okay?" I asked if she had the title and she said, "Yes. Okay?" I said, "Okay," and she's like, "Okay?" OKAY, lady! She finally gave me the title and it was something I was familiar with (much to her surprise), so I looked it up but we didn't carry any. The computer said we could order any of the individual comic collections from 1 to 4, but what she wanted was something called "perfect collection" that was all four of them. I kept telling her that that wasn't in my system, only the individual issues were, but she kept saying she wanted that and then asking "But what do you have there to order?" I would tell her again what I was showing and then she'd go "Perfect collection?" I kept saying, "NO, no, we do NOT have access to 'Perfect collection,'" and then she'd ask for a box set and I said we didn't have that either. But then every time I told her that we had individual volumes she seemed to get really excited all over again and go, "OH, that's GREAT! And what is available?" I must have told her four times that any of the first four volumes--individually--were available to order, and then she'd repeat the title for me and finish with "Perfect collection?" Finally I think I got it through her head and she ended up ordering the first one and asking me whether if she liked it she'd be allowed to order more. No, lady, I forbid you to order books from us and give us money. C'mon!

A kid with FIVE books on his summer reading list came into the store today to get them. Oh God I hate slackers. I hate when they first get their summer reading and all the goodie-goodies attack us with requests, but the slackers are worse because all of them act like they've never bought a book before and I always get these sour faces when they find out their teacher has assigned something long, and then they inevitably ask if I have it on audio. Anyway, this dude and his dad were there and they had this odd trait of THINKING REALLY LOUD. They should really learn to control that. (Or maybe I should just stop getting annoyed when people's brains tell me what their mouths don't.) As I was leading them around to find the books they needed, I clearly got the message that they were upset that I was expecting them to come with me; that if I was gonna go a bunch of different places I should have just seated them in cushy chairs, bought them coffee, and told them to put their feet up while I fetched their books. One book turned out to be in the history section rather than in the literature section, so I told them we had to go there and when I looked they weren't behind me, they were just standing at the desk, leaning on it lazily and looking pissed off. Oh now don't trouble yourself; *I'll* gladly retrieve your books for you! Since you're being forced to READ these books, someone should do everything they can to make it easy for you. Whatever asshole. Could you please put a muzzle on your brains? (And before they left I asked if there was anything else and the dad was like, "Not unless you've got DVDs of these!" Jesus.)

Haha. A woman asked me for a book called Snow today. I asked if she knew the author. She did not. I said, "Do you know anything about it?" Immediately, she said, "No." I grinned because I knew the fun I was going to have next. I patiently scrolled through the list resulting from my search for Title: Snow and nonchalantly reported that there were twenty-two titles showing by different authors who had books called "Snow." Looking surprised, she suddenly came up with a lot more information. "It's a paperback. I think the person who wrote it's last name starts with B. It was a New York Times book of the year." Guess what, lady? Those things you just told me qualify as "other things about it!" I asked her if it was a children's book because a lot of the "Snow" books appeared to be. She said it wasn't a kids' book. Look! That's FOUR things you knew about it when you answered "No" to my "Do you know anything about it?" I asked her if it was fiction. "Yes, it's fiction." Oh wait! FIVE things you know about it! The first author I rattled off to her (who DIDN'T start with B) got an immediate "That's it." Obviously she knew more than she was letting on. Now let's see. Would you imagine that I was asking what it might be about out of curiosity? Just to be annoying? Just to QUIZ you? NO! I asked because THERE ARE TWENTY-TWO BOOKS CALLED "SNOW" GODDAMN IT! Ever occur to you that I ask questions for a purpose, not to just run my mouth? C'mon now.

Had one of those lovely slacker summer readers call me and ask for two books, then ask me which one was shorter. Ass. I told him they were about the same and made him come in to make his own goddamn decision.

Three people IN A ROW came up to Customer Service with that expectant "I want to BUY this!" attitude to which I replied by sending them to Checkout. A fourth came after a couple more customers. One of the people who did that was an older man wearing a SpongeBob Squarepants necklace. Good God.

This was my first phone call of the day, and for some reason it annoyed me because it seemed apparent that the woman did not realize she was talking to someone who does this all the time. To someone whose job this indeed is. She told me what book she was looking for and as I was acquiring it she rambled about how it was an older book and probably paperback by now blah blah blah. I got it and she asked me what the price was. I told her. She asked how many we had, and when I said we had two she asked me to put them both on hold. Then she said, "Now where would I pick them up, back at the . . . ?" She didn't finish the sentence, so I waited patiently. Finally she said, "The, the desk?" I said, "Yes, they'll be at Customer Service," and I asked for her name. Noted it. Put it on hold. She started rambling about how she wouldn't be able to pick it up until after work in a few hours. I said that was okay. She goes, "All right so . . . is that okay?" I didn't just say that or anything. And finally, "And you put two copies on hold?" I didn't say that earlier or anything either. I promise you, lady, I do do this sort of thing often. Like five days a week for five years. Fuck you.

7/23/05

This week's peeve is people who think the existence of a cart in the aisle is an invitation to put discarded books onto it. I usually use a cart on Saturdays to help me clean up the carnage that is Kids' after a Friday night, and inevitably when I have to leave it alone to help people I come back and stuff is thrown onto it as if they just think that's what it's for. I promise you I would rather you try to put the books BACK.

I overheard a very vociferous woman complaining to my coworkers that she can't be expected to know whether she will like a book because our category/price sticker obscures some of the blurb on the back. She said it with this really snotty attitude and said like, "I cain't READ the BACK!" Hey lady? When you buy books do you just leave the sticker on them forever? A lot of people actually take the sticker off. Meaning it is not part of the book. It comes off. It moves. If it is so important to your evaluation of a book that you be able to read those two or three words that the sticker covers, then peel it off and read them and put it back on. Don't just look at it and go, "OH MY GAWD, THEY MUST JUST NOT WANT ME TO BUY THIS SINCE THEY COVERED UP THE WORDS" and then start whining. Why are you so helpless?

I had to help a woman who was getting books for a kid who was in a bad-boy camp or something. He wanted all these Gary Paulsen books and she had not brought her glasses and was having issues reading the letter he'd written her. She kept holding it at arm's length and making these horrible squinted faces and complaining about her lack of glasses . . . and she kept coming up with really goofy results, such as calling The Winter Room "The Vinter Room." Even after I said it correctly at least twice she kept screwing up her eyes and reading it as "Vinter." WHAT THE FUCK IS A VINTER? Anyway, I finally got tired of waiting for her to hit upon the obvious course of action and asked if *I* could look at the note. God.

Today we started this tax-free thing on school supplies and kids' books. I'm not sure what the deal is on all that shit, but apparently two days after buying some books a woman found out about it and called me. She explained that she had bought a hundred dollars' worth of books and wanted to come back and return them and re-buy them so she could get tax off. I told her first off that'd be a manager's call and second off I didn't really know what titles would qualify for the tax exemption. She said they were travel books--seems to me far outside the realm of "school supplies"--and then she kind of squeaked out this apparent lie that they were "for, um, history. Geography." Sure lady. You just want freebies. They're not for kids at all. I told her again she had to talk to a manager to make the decision about that, but she assured me that that was okay (wait, it is??) and that she'd just come in. I prayed that she'd come in during the assistant general manager's shift because she is notorious for taking NO shit and would undoubtedly give her the hairy eyeball as she informed her that she was completely out of line, but I didn't hear about her coming in so she probably didn't. Argh! Stop trying to get something for nothing and screwing up everyone else's day in the process!

7/20/05

I got a nice change here: This one woman wouldn't stop complimenting me. It was really goofy too, she kept saying I was a "wonderful child" (even though she didn't sound particularly old--but then again how do people "sound" old?) and kept thanking me and telling me I am wonderful, just because I looked up her book, found out we carried it, and put a copy of it on hold for her at Customer Service. Strange that she would compliment me so much just for doing my job.

One of my coworkers got this lady who wanted a book "right now" (you know, one of those "I must have it tomorrow and it's everyone else's problem" people), and it was a book we had to order. After telling her so she proceeded to stand there and state her problem (she needed it tomorrow so couldn't wait for it to come in if ordered) and then she would look expectantly at the guy. I don't get it. He told her again that we'd have to order it and she just kept saying how that wasn't going to help and then standing there more with her eyes wide open, not moving or suggesting anything we could do. After she walked away I asked him if he'd checked up his ass for the book.

Two moms watching four kids let my section get trashed today. When I went in to pick up some of the carnage one of the moms said, "I apologize if our children have moved some books around." She proceeded to explain that they TRIED to put them back but didn't know where everything went, and that they TRIED to keep them under control but, ya know, there's FOUR of them. I didn't really say anything except to ask them if any of the stack of books they'd supposedly TRIED to put away were being saved for purchase, and then I went ahead and started putting them away. I think the woman wanted me to cheerfully say, "That's okay!" and absolve her of her guilt. Well, if she wants to do shitty things and then do nothing but say, "I know it was wrong, I'm sorry," and be forgiven, she needs to go to frickin' CONFESSION, because I ain't no priest. I'm a pissed off bookstore worker and I am not impressed with how hard you TRIED to control your children. Not even close.

I was with a dad and his daughters who wanted a book, and it was one of those classics with like eight versions. I found three price- and age-appropriate editions and let them examine them, and when the dad chose one and went to put the other two back, he just bent down and made as if to throw them horizontally on top of the shelf. Then maybe his genitals sent him a subliminal message that they were about to be kicked, because he suddenly changed his mind about leaving them that way and instead bent to put them where they belonged. Even that was half-assed--he put one of the books in backwards so I still had to fucking fix it.

My favorite jackass call today was from a woman who introduced herself by name and said she was a psychic, and that she was looking for some books. Apparently she had a pupil who is trying to learn to be psychic also (I guess?) and when Master Psychic Lady sends her pupil to the bookstore to get this book, Wannabe Psychic Lady is confused to find that we have no such book existing in our database. So Master Psychic Lady was calling to give us what for about not having the book.

The problem was, this lady wouldn't stop talking long enough to let me help her properly. First off after she introduced herself and got no gasp of recognition, she crabbily asked me if I hadn't listened to her on the radio. I told her I don't listen to the radio and she seemed very annoyed that I did not know who she was and suddenly jump into scrape-for-the-local-celebrity mode. Sorry, actually this sort of thing has happened to me once before (not at work, but in an IM) and it didn't work then either. She went on to talk about how she is on the radio all over and has this show and oh yeah blah blah book blah blah they can't find it blah blah it's such a great book and she can't seem to find it and every time I send people to YOUR STORE to get this book nobody can HELP them blah blah BLAH!

So I got her to shut up long enough to put her on hold and pick her up at the right desk, and then even though I had not forgotten the name of the author or how to spell it she went ahead and reminded me of the spelling. Guess she was trying to show how psychic she is by telling me what I undoubtedly needed to know. Anyway, I found the author of her book in my system but one of the books he wrote wasn't called what she said it was and the other wasn't listed at all. She didn't seem to understand what I was saying and kept trying to give me the information again.

I tried looking for the title that wasn't coming up, and there was a ping for a book with the right title but it wasn't by the author she'd mentioned. I said, "There's a book called that but it's not by him." She replied, "Oh yes, it IS by him." I tried to get this through her thick noggin but she didn't understand that I wasn't denying that her author had written such a book; I was saying that the only book in my system with that title was not by the author she wanted. At this point I got another lecture about how great the book is and another explanation of how her student can't find it. She started rambling about ordering the book and got all confused about whether she should order it for herself or for her student, and actually the problem was that she wasn't even sure if her student would be coming to get it but if the student didn't then she herself would, and she hemmed and hawed about what name to order under.

I told her that it didn't matter as long as SHE knew, and if Student wanted to pick up Master's book then all she had to do was ask for it under Master's name. Anyway, finally we got the book ordered and when I had to get her information she proudly gave me both her real name and her Radio Psychic name, and started rambling about how anyone at the number she gave me would know either name, and then she started talking about her radio show again and telling me I needed to listen.

I almost wish that lady really was psychic so she could have known how deeply, disgustingly tired of her I was at that point. Maybe then she would have shut up earlier. But no, I believe you, you're a real Person On the Radio Saying You're Psychic--OOH, let me squeal and fawn and tell everyone that I got to talk to a celebrity! I wonder if these people realize that very few people in the real world have heard of them?

7/19/05

Some snotty customer gave my coworker trouble at the register (to the tune of "there's nobody OVER there!!" when she told him to go to Customer Service for assistance), and I was called to help him. AS I was walking there, the dude got to the desk and immediately started drumming his fingers as if we needed a signal that he was waiting. He announced that he had a book on hold and told me his name, so I turned around to get it. As I did that he spelled the name in an overly enunciated fashion, because I am obviously incompetent if I wear an apron and name tag. The dude went on about how it was a paperback or maybe a hardback, and then he repeated the spelling of his name without any provocation. Look, guy. I seriously am not having trouble finding your book. I promise, you saying your last name is enough. I do not need it spelled. I do not need it spelled TWICE. I do not need a description of the book. I would really appreciate it if you'd let me grill you for information if I need it, because otherwise I'd really like to hear as little of your voice as possible. After I got him his book he went back to the register and acted like a buttwipe with my cashier again. Whatever.

And I got another pointer. That's those people who point at their book instead of asking for it by the name it's under. "I've got a book on hold . . . it's THAT ONE!" [Pointing.] I ask for a name without turning around. "It's THAT one!" [Pointing more urgently and closing one eye to aim the pointing finger directly.] Look, just give me a name. Lining your eye up with your finger does NOT enable me to have a clearer picture of which book you're pointing at. What is your problem? Are you a preschooler?

7/18/05

Grr. Run-of-the-mill non-listening woman on the phone today asked about a book, and I told her, "I don't have that book in the store, we'd have to order it." Her reponse: "So . . . you don't have it?" Whenever I get these bozos I generally reply with the same exact words in the same exact tone so that their aural memory will remind them that "hey, she just said that!" Hopefully it WORKS.

A couple girls looking for school reading stuff needed a biography about a famous American. I took them to Biography and told them they could just browse through, they were organized by who they are ABOUT so if they want someone in particular they can look under the person's name, and other than that just browse. I said if they didn't have a particular person to look for there wasn't anything the computer could do so the best thing to do is just look at what we have available. The girl who needed the book replied by telling me she was interested in a particular woman doctor and was like, "Would you have anything on her?" Well I just fucking told you twice that the section's organized by who they're about, so why don't you LOOK? Argh. I found her one sitting right where it should have been, too. People. Meh.

A lady came up and wanted a book, and the title search yielded several books with different authors. When I asked her for the author she said she'd look it up in the book where it was referenced, and she was gone a long while. Finally she brought the book to me and showed me that there was no author listed, just said "See [title]." Turned out that the dude was referencing his own material elsewhere in the book and that was a chapter title. Jeeez. She was a nice lady though.

Some little girls came up to me with big old eyes and informed me that they'd knocked over my cage of Giggle Pets. At first I thought that they were just telling me because they were being honest and wanted to make things right, but one of the girls made it painfully obvious that she was telling me because she wanted some kind of sympathy for the box falling on the other girls. Well, guess what? Number one, where the hell are your parents that you can molest a display to the point of making it fall off the shelf? And secondly, if you wouldn't FUCK WITH EVERYTHING YOU SEE then maybe you would have fewer products fall on you. Not to mention that a cardboard box and a bunch of stuffed animals is not bloody likely to cause a concussion. And the box is lower than waist height so it's not like it could have fallen on their heads or anything. The Giggle Pets make a lot of noise so I actually heard them going off for a long time before the girls came to whine to me. I wish I had it on video. Heh.

Okay, this one's a keeper. This woman and her daughter said they needed a replacement copy of a book that they'd been borrowing from the girl's teacher because they'd damaged it. It came out further along that it was more than just "damage"; their dog had urinated on it. At this the lady added, "I TOLD the teacher that it had dried and it didn't smell or anything, but ya know, I guess it's COLORED, so she wants a replacement copy." It kinda sounded like she thought the teacher was being awful picky, wanting a pristine copy. Okay, look, HELLO--YOUR DOG PEED ON IT. THERE IS DOG PISS ON THAT BOOK. IT DOES NOT MATTER WHETHER IT STINKS OR IS WET. IT IS DOG PEE. Christ!

7/17/05

I had to go over to the café for something and I overheard a couple people being jerks. These two women were being painfully talked through the process of choosing which drink to order, and it ended when the café girl asked one of them whether she wanted a cold drink or a hot drink and the lady wailed, "I don't know!" "Well, do you think you'd prefer it HOT or COLD?" she prompted, and this lady just acted like it was the million-dollar question! Later when I came back to talk to the café chick she informed me that these ladies had just been hell to work with and with all the hoopla she accidentally handed the drinks each to the wrong woman. They didn't realize it themselves until they'd each drank some of it. One of the girls approached and complained that this wasn't what she ordered and that the other woman had what she ordered. The café girl was understandably confused about why they didn't just switch if that was the case, and assumed that because she had come up there, there was something she expected to be done about it. "Do you want me to re-make them?" she asked, and the girl just regarded her with an uncomfortable silence and sort of looked around, then edged away and sat down. The café girl went about her business and soon the girl was back and she asked again, "Are you wanting me to re-make your drinks?" Again, silence! I think she wanted her to, but didn't want to ask her to. She wanted repentance and requests for forgiveness or something. Finally when she was prompted a third time the girl said, "No, I guess we can just switch," and went over to do so. Hello! If that was what you were going to do then why didn't you DO IT and stop wasting everyone's time?

I overheard a woman asking one of our associates to help her find "Thesauriseses." Yeah.

My new manager was trying to help a kid who I found out had been asking around the store with his vague information. I happened to come up when the kid was rattling his crap off and my manager had no idea what to do. Since it was a kids' book it was immediately thrown into my pen, and the kid described "a book with a box, and it's about a ghost and something about a war?" Weirdly enough I knew what he was talking about and nonchalantly said, "Yeah, that's Something Upstairs by Avi." (I think I have yet to have to use the computer on a kids' book in front of that manager, so I'm sure he thinks I'm a goddess.) I ended up ordering the book for him since we didn't have any and also getting him a copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But now I'm kinda pissed that I bothered to help someone who had such vague information--it helps perpetuate the illusion that you don't really need to know anything to find a book in a bookstore if its employees are competent.

Ahh yes, and today one of my coworkers told me that a movie will be being made for Eragon, and when he told me I was unluckily in the middle of eating nacho Doritos. As a result of this stomach-wrenching and disgusting news, I let my mouth fall open and allowed everything in it to fall out. Appetizing, huh? That's about how I feel about an Eragon movie. Want to know why?

7/16/05

I just love people who are off their nut but their bullshit is your fault. Some woman was all upset because we didn't have her favorite Maurice Sendak books--she asked me about them and first off I'd never heard of them so she thought that was borderline disgusting. When I revealed to her that according to our computer we don't carry them and have never carried them (which is probably the reason I've not heard of them), she got all flustered and flummoxed, and said, "I'm appalled, really." I was like, "You're APPALLED?" and she's like, "YES! I can't BELEIVE you don't have my favorite ones!" Then it turned out that the books weren't even by Maurice Sendak, he just illustrated them. Mmmyeah.

My favorite comment in reference to Harry Potter (which came out today):

Greeter: "Hi, are you here for Harry Potter?"
Customer: "NO, I'm a CHRISTIAN!"

Yeah, so that's that.

Some dude and his son were all pissed off because they came to get their HP book and found to their horror that THEIR COPY WAS A SECOND PRINTING. The daddy wanted me to find him a first printing and was all whining about how "That's the REASON we PRE-ORDERED." Pre-ordering doesn't have anything to do with what printing you get! For all you know the only first printings were for the pre-bought books on the Internet or something, or the ones being shipped, or available only to certain people! Don't know! Whatever! "Frankly I'm SURPRISED that they're all second runs, I have to be honest with you." Look, we didn't guarantee you a first printing and it is no travesty that the book is a second printing, I have to be honest with YOU. The guy wanted me to give him some magic answer about how to find one, like that I could find a code on the outside of one of the hundreds of boxes that would tell me they were first printings inside, and they were standing around by the door with these "I'm SO unsatisified!" looks on their faces. I eventually set them up with the other store who claimed to have found some first printings. Later I discussed this with the café girl and she agreed with me that this was just silly. I guess if you're a collector it matters, but still . . . it's the same frickin' words! I hate crap like that.

Snotty Jerk #2394873: She wanted cryptograms but not in magazine form, and I went through Games and Puzzles with her and found ONE. The whole time we were looking for more she was going, "Well there's GOT to be more than ONE, there's GOT to be more than ONE," and I actually said, "No there doesn't" at one point and explained that it's not like we specialize in that or that if we carry one it logically leads to us carrying more--it's not the whole cockroach adage, where if you've seen one there are ten you can't see. Eventually I found two more things and she took them all so she could show the person who would be deciding, and as per my usual dismissing offer I said, "Well, let me know if there's anything else I can do for you." The lady barked back, "You could GET more IN!" and stalked off. Okay let me get right on that and change what the bookstore carries.

Some weird school-related fundraising group wanted to take some of the cardboard boxes that HP 6 came in and auction them off for a good cause. We told them they could have like ten of them and my manager asked me to take some to her that I had on the bottom of my cart. I brought them up and asked where she wanted them and she tapped the top of the shelves at Customer Service and said, "Up here." I eyed the great height, and she goes, "C'mon SHORTY!" As I put them up there I gave her such a look of death that everyone started laughing and my manager called it "the hairy eyeball." Yeah, it's funny that I'm very short. Woo-hoo!

7/12/05

Some dudes with a sense of humor amused us today. They came up to the customer service desk trying to check out, but one of the two realized it was the wrong place and tried to steer the other away. The oblivious one insisted, "We've got to check out HERE!" and the smart one said, "Man, this is CUSTOMER SERVICE. That says CHECKOUT over there!" The oblivious one replied, "Uh! You know I can't read!" and the smart one said, "Then why the HELL are you in a bookstore??" Um, my point exactly?

Some woman wanted kids' educational materials on CD, most specifically stuff that taught phonics. I showed her our very limited selection, maybe three different CDs, and she was like, "But I can't even open these and find out if they're what I need." I was a little puzzled by that--I mean, what did she want to do, listen to them?--but she was unconvinced by my insistence that, hi, you can read the back and see what it teaches and what level and stuff. Unless you DO need to hear it to determine if it's appropriate, I don't see what else you expected to learn about it by being able to open the packaging. I told her that if it is bought and then it turns out to be the wrong thing, her friend who wanted it can return it, but on CDs we can't have them open or we won't return them. She's like, "Oh well we won't KNOW if we like it until it's open, so that doesn't help." I didn't get what she expected me to do about it. WHAT did you want to open??

My favorite dork customers for today were these two ladies I heard on the other side of the wall. They were squawking in these semi-outraged voices about how they couldn't find What to Eat When You're Expecting. They had found What to Expect The First Year and What to Expect: The Toddler Years and were very disturbed by their inability to find others. "But they're SUPPOSED to be all TOGETHER!" one said, and the other's like, "OF COURSE they are, WHY wouldn't they have them RIGHT THERE TOGETHER??" Okay, so I came zipping around the corner to shut them up and explained to them that the reason they'd found a book about THE FIRST YEAR and then a book about TODDLERS in two different sections and then NOTHING about pregnancy was that so far they'd walked into the "Baby" section and then the "Toddler" section but had not yet reached "Pregnancy and Birth." All of which have signs above them. You're in Parenting. That's not the same as Pregnancy. They have signs above them to direct you. So use a little common sense before you squawk indignantly about how ridiculous it is that we don't have your book where you expect it to be.

A woman asked me for an audio version of her kid's school reading and we found out we'd have to order it. When I told her it would be about a week and a half before we got it she decided against it and I said, "Oh, really? Okay." She looked startled and said, "Why do you say THAT?" I was like huh? "Why do I say what?" "When I said I wasn't ordering it you said, 'Oh really?' WHY do you SAY THAT??" I just kind of looked at her and said, "I don't know. You decided not to order it and I'm like, 'Okay, waaah, you're not buying it and I can't help. That's all.'" She looked at me like I was indescribably strange and just walked away. I guess I'm not supposed to express any kind of regret that I can't help? Okaaaay. . . .

Some girl wanted more Traveling Pants books today so I took her to Teen and showed her. She said, "But where's the fourth book?" I told her there wasn't a fourth book and she said, "Yes, yes there is, I SAW it at Barnes & Noble." I told her that was impossible because there was only just recently a new hardcover for number 3 and it's not out in paper yet and, ya know, we would have known. She's like, "Well it was AT Barnes & Noble! I should have bought it!" I told her I'd like to see that and she should indeed go get it and show me. Probably she just saw the first book with its new movie cover OR like this supplemental thing that has pretend letters the characters sent to each other. THERE ISN'T A FOURTH BOOK YET. Sorry but I truly do know what the shit I'm talking about.

Had another lovely person try to walk behind Customer Service with me when I led her and her daughter to the desk. I went up on the little stage with the desk and the daughter went around and the mom tried to get on up there with me. And she didn't understand what I was talking about when I tried to politely get her to get the hell out either. I had to be like, "Uh no this is for ME, you stand on the other side," and Daughter had to be like, "Over here, Mom!" Fehhh.

Some woman from Lake City had an ad for a hardcover book for like 32 bucks (it said four installments of 8 bucks) and she wanted to know if she could get it cheaper. I showed a paperback for $17.95 in my system and told her I could order it for her, and she just kept telling me she was hoping that she could get it cheaper than her ad said and could she get a discount. Lady, almost 20 bucks is less than over 30 bucks. That is not difficult math. I shouldn't have to tempt you with a discount. In answer to my impeccable logic she said, "Well, I'm from Lake City," which I guess was supposed to tell me that she'd be driving a long way to get it but in reality was only telling me she was a dickhead. I still don't know what her problem was or why she seemed to think $17.95 for the paperback was not as good a deal as 4 installments of 8 bucks for a hardcover.

7/11/05

A woman with a somewhat young girl (maybe eight?) was in the store being semi-obnoxious, and she sent her kid to me to find the price of a toy cash register. It was on there, but they'd missed it and I read it to the kid. Her eyes got really big because it was like forty bucks--I guess both of them had assumed that its being on a table meant it would be "on sale" and cheap. Then the kid went away, picked up another cash register (exactly the same as the first) and came up to me and asked me if that was the same price. Feeehhhh. I think I'll try that with cans of soup next time I'm in the grocery store. "How much is this one? Well what about THIS one? You mean ALL the cans of tomato soup are the same price??" Then later I found at least three toy cash registers sitting on endcaps and shelves where the kid had just walked around shedding them I guess. That'll show ME to charge forty bucks for a toy that talks and calculates and has a microphone!

We sell a ton of those annoying Monopoly knock-offs. Today I heard a dude pass the pile of them and say, "Kick-ASS! It's BEER-OPOLY!" Yes, Beer-Opoly is so kick-ass. Next.

Meh. I was rolling a cart through the double doors of the back room and a coworker held the doors for me. Then the coworker was so kind as to warn me, "You've got another set of doors to go through!" Oh really? You mean I've been working here five years and I had no idea there's another set of doors after this? C'mon. I don't normally write up my coworkers but that just seemed necessary.

Another asshole at the customer service desk came up and asked for the book being held "under Baird" (okay, not the real name, changed to protect the jerk) and our new employee went to get it and it's not there and of course it turns out "Baird" is the guy's first frickin' name. Come on.

7/10/05

Heard the worst butchering of the name "Elie Wiesel" today that I've ever heard--the girl asked for "Night by EE-lie WISE-lee." (In case you don't happen to know, the guy's name is pronounced "EL-lee Vee-ZELL.") I asked the girl to hold on while I checked, came back with one in my hand and said, "Do you want me to hold it for you?" She replied, "Well how much is it?" I told her it was $6.95, anticipated her next question and said it was indeed paperback, and then said again, "Do you want me to hold it for you?" Pause. "Well . . . can you hold it for me?" Girl, please don't make phone calls when you forget to turn your ears on. Thank you.

A dude came up and asked us, "Where'd you move your bathroom to?" One of our employees showed him where the restroom is and I was like, "Where'd we MOVE it to??" but he didn't reply, he only said, "When did THAT happen?" Yeah dude we moved the BATHROOM because we didn't like where it was. Never mind switching the pipes around and all that. Oh wait. We must have moved it and not been aware of it because there's no chance that you're misremembering or that you're mistaking us for someplace else. Not at all.

Some lady was shopping for books about swimming for her kid. After they found some, on the way out the lady stopped me and informed me that they'd MADE a book with photos of her kid, like their own little cute "I'm taking swimming lessons!" book. She showed it to me--big spiral binding, shabby construction, unprofessional photos--and then she said, "She came IN with this one, this is ours" and stuff. As if she was worried I was gonna think it was a store book that she was stealing. Because ya know it looks so much like a real book and all. Jeeeeez.

7/9/05

I hate the Yu-Gi-Oh! kids who haven't checked to see if there's a tournament or anything and then come up to the desk to demand the sign-up sheet. "Where's the SIGN-up??" they blurt when they come up, no manners at all. And half the time when I tell them there isn't a tournament, they don't seem to be able to comprehend it. It's annoying.

Some woman I helped may have been hard of hearing but from her responses I think it's more likely she was just thick-headed. First off she wandered up behind a crowd of people at the desk and just stood there, and I was talking to the girl from the other store about Harry Potter event plans, not really doing something work-related but sort of. Anyway, she stood there staring into space and when I realized she might need help I positioned myself where I could access her and said "Hi there" to her. She didn't respond and just looked off into the distance like no one was talking. I said, "HI, did you need help?" and still no response. Finally, "Ma'am? Excuse me?" Nothing. "EXCUSE me? Do you need help?" Finally she's like, "OH oh yes." Asked me for two books and I recognized both titles and said, "I think we carry those." Response: "What?" "I THINK WE CARRY THOSE." "You DO or DON'T?" Jeeeez. She was not all there.

In other news, we received the (boxed, sealed, and restricted) copies of Harry Potter VI today in the shipment. I licked one of the boxes. I don't know why. I wanted to be able to say "I licked Harry Potter." It seemed like a good idea at the time.

7/6/05

So today I had a teenager who wanted a school reading list book, and he didn't like it when I took him to the teen section (which was where the computer said his book would be). First of all he was annoyed that we were out and said, "You're OUT??" in this sort of disbelieving tone of voice, and then he added in this snotty voice, "It's not a GIRL book!" I was like, "What do you mean by that?" and he gestured at the books around its place on the shelf and pointed out that these were all girl books. Well, sorry but the teen section does have a lot of girly books in it. I told him that his book really did go where I was showing him ("I promise," I said), and he still looked unconvinced even when I pointed out that the author had several books in the teen section, just not that one. He was all, "How could you be OUT??" about it and when I asked him if it was for school reading and he said yes, I said, "Maybe that's why."

After that he kept coming back and plaguing me and asking me questions about military books and routinely misunderstanding me. You ever have one of those conversations with someone where you honestly are not sure the person understands your language? This was like that. Like, he said he wanted books on Air Force and I told him that he should look in this section which was just general military stuff until you hit these sections about specific wars, and he replied, "It's not ABOUT a specific WAR, just AIR FORCE!" Ya know? (I said, "I understand that, and that's why I said to stay in THIS section BEFORE you get to the specific wars.")

After that he was just kind of being a goofball and asking me if I thought he looked like Tom Clancy with his sunglasses on (even that was kinda snotty, he was like, "See the resemblance?" and I'm like, "Not really," and he's like, "It's the GLASSES I am reFERRing to"). Weirdly enough the book he was looking for came out of a drop shipment while his family was still there and we were able to give it to him.

The same weird thing happened to me twice today! First a woman called, had me check for a book, and then told me she *didn't* want me to hold it because "I'll be by later and I'll be getting some other things as well." I said, "You DON'T want me to hold it?" and she repeated, "No, because I'll be there to look at some other things as well." Like that makes sense somehow. I hung up with her and put the book back on the shelf like she requested. Then I got a phone call later: "Hi, I think I talked to you earlier--I called about a book?" As opposed to the other sixteen people who called about the weather report and my sex life? Umkay. (It was that lady, and she'd changed her mind and wanted me to get the book and hold it.) Then LATER another woman called and asked me to grab a book and hold it, and called again later identifying herself as "I called you about a book?" (She wanted to confirm that it was the right one compared with another version.) Why do people think that "I was the one who called about a book" makes any sense?

7/5/05

Okay, so, I had a busy moment and both of my phone lines were tied up. I had two people on hold and was off checking on a book for the first of the two people. When I came back, the woman who'd been holding informed me--sounding very weirded out, incidentally--that someone had come on the line while I'd been gone and said, "Hello?" to her and then informed her that he was a customer trying to use the phone and that he'd put her back on hold. I was like, uh, OKAY . . . and looked behind me and there was a dude picking up my other customer service phone TALKING TO MY OTHER ON-HOLD CUSTOMER, telling him the same thing! He was trying to dial out but he couldn't because both lines were in use, and so he was just picking up the lines and talking to my frickin' customers! And then, after he tried both lines, he picked up Line 1 AGAIN and started doing the same thing while I was talking to the lady. I turned around and said, "SIR, we only have two lines, you're going to have to wait until one of them is free!" and he's like, "Oh sorry." I mean wtf? He turned out to be one of those people who thinks he owns the store or something, he'd been trying to badger my manager for like the last half hour and it turned out what he wanted was copies of purchase orders he'd done with us because HE'D lost his own copies. Yeah but we have to scramble and spend our work time to unearth these fucking records for you while you pick up the phone and talk to my customers. Jeez.

A lady on the phone had that attitude of "I know everything and you'd better chop-chop in helping me." She told me briskly that she wanted this book and it was "THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER," and I hadn't heard of it. After that she treated me like she was probably talking to someone incompetent because I hadn't heard of this number one bestseller. I looked it up, found it up front (it was actually our number NINE, but whatever), and told her what she wanted to know about it. Our discount on top ten items is 30% automatically, and the discount card for club members still works on top of that for an extra 10% off the discounted price; when I told her that she's like, "Okay, forty percent off, that's very affordable," or something like that, and before I could correct her that it WASN'T 40% but 10% off the 30%-off price (why would we bother to say "30% plus another 10%" if it just was 40%?), she barreled over me asking to talk to my manager, so whatever. I just left it at that and gave the phone over. I don't know what she wanted after that.

Oh jeez. So this dude called looking for an obscure magazine. It wasn't in my system so I told him so, and he started whining about how he can't seem to find this magazine no matter how hard he looks and maybe they are discontinued and how can he find out? I told him the best thing to do was to do a search on the 'Net to see if the company had a website. "Oh, well I don't have . . . I don't . . . I don't have a website," he said, which probably translated into real life words as "I don't have Internet access." Anticipating his next question, I told him that at our store we didn't have 'Net access either, and that the best thing to do would be to try to get on the 'Net somewhere and find out. "Well . . . can't you just look it up on the computer?" he replied. Okay. I gave him a moment of silence and then told him I had already looked on the computer to the best of my ability and there was nothing in our store's database and no way for me to look for anything else. I elaborated on that a little because I really think he didn't get that all computers don't automatically search the Internet. Then he asked me if the other store has the magazine. I told him they don't and excused myself to go cry in a corner.

And now my jackass lady. First thing is she comes up to the customer service desk and phrases her question like this: "Hi, I'm looking for a book? It's Flowers and Trees. Jones?" (I changed the information, so that's not exactly what she said, but I'm trying to protect the jerk here.) So I looked up her book and the only book with her title was by an author that WASN'T Jones. So I told her that and she seemed confused and said she didn't know who the book was by. Since she'd told me "Jones" at the beginning of the conversation I decided she must just have had an unlucky phrasing and came to the conclusion that SHE must be Ms. Jones here to pick up her book. Okay. She confirmed this when I asked if SHE was Jones, but then there was no book on hold for her. Damn.

I asked her if we called her but she said no, she called US, and asked us to pull it and hold it. How long ago? "Sometime last week." I informed her that if we aren't told a specific day to hold it until and then the person doesn't come for three days, we put them back. (And chances were very high that we'd purged Customer Service recently because we were having a DM visit today and we like things to not look like shit.) I asked if there was any chance she'd called and had it put on hold at our other location. This was answered with a look like I'd grown another head and a very sure "No. . . . " I told her I could certainly check the shelf for her and get her a copy if we had any, and she said, "Well, I'm very late for work now so could you please HURRY?" I gave her a look like, "What the FUCK?" and said, "Oh-kayyy?" and bounced over to check for the book. No dice. Shit!

So I came back and told her we had no book. She told me calmly that that was okay and she was late for work and would check with us later. After she strolled away, I picked up the phone and told my manager that this was called "satisfying my morbid curiosity," and I phoned up the other store, where I was promptly told that there was a Flowers and Trees book on hold for Jones.

Yeah. So I wrote a nice little note explaining the situation for if she comes back. I hope she comes back on my shift so I can tell her she did call the other store because they're the ones who have her book on hold, dammit.

7/4/05

I had three phone calls all day and all three of them just wanted to know if we were open or what our hours were. Heh. It was a dead day. Most people just assumed we wouldn't be open and didn't bother.

One of the few customers I *did* have was obnoxious in that he didn't know the title or author of his book but was adamant that since it had been on the New York Times bestseller list last week we should be able to figure out what it was. Actually I was very cooperative about this because we actually DO have a copy of the New York Times list on our computer, but when I looked it up none of the books on their top 15 nonfiction hardcover books were about the same subject this dude wanted. I read him like all the titles and he kept saying, "No, no," but then insisting that my list was "old" because none of the titles on there had been on there yesterday when he looked. Well, my list had at the top of it "7/3/05 through 7/9/05," but I guess that made no difference because then the dude wanted to SEE the list. I let him come around and stand in the employee-only area with me perusing the list (since just reading it to him apparently wasn't enough), and even though it was a book about some aspect of Clinton's presidency, he then wanted me to bring up the fiction list too, and then go back to the nonfiction list and let him look at it some more, and on top of that he kept pointing out that this one or that one was on last week's list but in a different place, and "No that one wasn't even ON there last week, this is OLD" and stuff. Now, actually, this just would have been annoying a little bit EXCEPT THAT SOME OTHER CUSTOMER WAS STANDING AT THE DESK WAITING. The dude could see this. I had a customer waiting for me to finish and this dude has to go through a list he's gone through twelve times itemizing for me what he thinks was in what order last time he looked despite the fact that it's his own damn fault he didn't bring the title or author of his book. Feh! Luckily my other customer was patient and didn't seem upset at all when he finally got to ask his question. :)

A couple tried to check out at Customer Service today. The usual. The funny thing about it was that after being directed to the checkout, the couple started arguing with each other about whose fault it was that they came to the wrong desk! "YOU wanted to come back here," "No YOU said we should go to this desk," weh weh weh. Okay, dipshits, neither of you had a damn thing to say on the subject as you were both standing at the wrong desk laying your books down. Neither of you knew where the hell to go so it really doesn't make any sense to try to pin the blame for it on each other. Not to mention that IT DOESN'T FRICKIN' MATTER. Anyway.

7/3/05

A couple looking for a computer book doubted my bookstore-working ability today apparently. I tried to help them find a book that the computer carried, and of course the inevitable "Well did the computer say you HAD one??" came out when we were unable to find it. I explained how the computer does not have the ability to tell me "yes we do no we don't" if it's something we carry, it can only tell me "yes we carry it and this is where it goes." The girl of the couple was like, "Well then, how come I've had people tell me immediately when you DON'T have something?" I said we CAN tell that, if it's something we've never ordered then we know we don't have it, but then she started saying that people have been able to tell her by our computer if we carry something but we're out of it. What is this, a Jedi Mind Trick? Or is it your attempt to explain to me that you KNOW how our store works and therefore I'd better get on with the business of helping you correctly? I told her in no uncertain terms that we have never had any ability to look something up on the computer and know for a fact that we have it in the store, and when our interaction ended she still had that "I-don't-believe-you" look on her face because SHE knows what happened the last time she asked someone else, but ya know, I'm sure she's just misinterpreting what happened or possibly someone knew off the top of their head that we didn't have something in stock because they'd checked before for someone else. Ya never know.

Someone called me and informed me that she and her husband had just been in the store and accidentally left a magazine there. But the way she said it was "We just bought SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLARS' WORTH of stuff at your store, and one was a magazine and IT WASN'T IN THE BAG." So in other words, "Look here missy, I'm a HIGH-ROLLER CUSTOMER and YOU ripped me off keeping this magazine and I WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GONNA DO ABOUT IT!" They lived in Jacksonville so it wasn't going to exactly be easy for them to come get it. I told her I'd check for the abandoned magazine up front and get permission from my manager to send it to them. "Oh-KA-ayyy," she said doubtfully, like she wanted me to do something else like teleport it into their ever-more-distant vehicle. I took care of it and packed it up to send, but I thought it was especially funny that it was a porn. "Dammit, my husband needs to jerk off immediately! You better send that to me now!" Har.

Beyond that we just had a couple kids asking for the new Harry Potter when it isn't out yet. The girl was like, "And do you have any more of Harry Potter 5?" and her brother like elbowed her and said, "SIX!" and she corrected herself, and after I explained that it wasn't out yet she was like, "Well someone told me it was out!" I said that the person who said they were out was out of their mind. Heh.

7/2/05

This week, I hate it when I leave a book cart somewhere and come back to it only to find it's got discarded books on it. Like some ass just thinks that's where you put books when you're done with them instead of putting them back. Dickfaces.

A lady wanted a popular author's books and she had only checked the mystery section. This author also writes regular fiction books that AREN'T mystery, so when I looked in the computer I found her books split pretty much evenly between Mystery and Fiction. I told her so and she shot off her mouth going, "Oh, but that's just STUPID, you should have all her books together so people looking for her books can find them!" When people say something silly I like to say something silly that almost sounds like I'm agreeing with them but really it's designed to show them how silly they are. In this case, I said, "Yeah, see sometimes that happens, like with Dr. Phil McGraw? We put his DIET book in the WEIGHT LOSS section but then his books on RELATIONSHIPS in SELF-HELP!" She said that doing THAT made sense but doing it with fiction books didn't make sense. Whatever, lady. I tend to think that if you're going to have different sections of fiction and the author writes different kinds of books it would be weirder to group them all together under pick-one-any-one of the genres the author writes just in the name of having them together. Der.

A girl wanted my help finding this SpongeBob flip book her friend had bought at our store. Well, after a thorough search I determined we didn't have any more, maybe her friend bought my last one. I knew exactly what she was talking about, seeing as how there is only one SpongeBob flip book and I have taken care of the section it's in for years and have frequently been annoyed by its small size (which makes it difficult to shelve). Anyway, she got me to call the other store about it, and while I was on the phone she kept describing the book to me even though I had made it clear that I'd seen the book and knew exactly what it looked like. She kept showing me with her hands how big it was and telling me what it looked like. Girl, how many times do I have to tell you that I already knew what it looked like? Wahh.