11/28/01
A lot of today was spent passing around my list of stuff I hate about work. (That's over here.) Almost everyone working today had stuff to contribute. It was great.
11/25/01
We have silly acronyms for cleaning and organizing procedures. One of those is SONIC, which stands for Straight, Organized, Neat, Impeccably Clean. While trying to teach its meaning to a new associate, our manager said the steps in the wrong order: "Straight, Neat, Organized . . ." at which point I jumped and yelled, "SNOIC! That's SNOIC, not SONIC!" I got a "shut up." I went off hollering that I was going to SNOIC the store some more. Later, upon finding out that the "Organize" step was taking too long, the manager advised the new associate to just not worry about putting everything in perfect order and just make the store look nice. That removes "organize" from the acronym, so I started hollering "SNIC!" I got another "shut up."
11/24/01
Sometimes older people don't understand that the computers now tell us what change to give, so they freak out when we just give them the amount on the screen instead of counting it back to them the way they used to when there were no computers to do it. I had a guy like that today who insisted that I do it the old way. I didn't understand what he wanted at first, because he was shaking his head as I gave him the change and pointing to the coin change, telling me to "count THAT first." So I counted it, gave it to him, and then counted the bills and gave those to him. He was like, "NO, it goes forty, fifty, nineteen dollars and twenty," and started pocketing his change. I smiled at him and said, "We can switch if you want." He was like, "What?" and I said, "Well, I mean, you could run the register and I could buy books instead." He just shook his head and muttered that he didn't know what they were teaching us in school these days. I gave him his bag and chuckled. It's called a computer, sir.
11/19/01
Last week some woman spilled some coffee on a bunch of books and was SO sorry. Today she had brought us cookies, with a note of apology, thanks for the managers' graciousness over the matter, and a promise to shop only at our store for books until she feels the debt is paid. Ya know, why can't more customers be like this?
More asshole customers: A lady wanted a "devotional pamphlet." I told her we don't sell things like Christian literature to pass out, but we have devotional books. She just kept describing what she wanted, as if I somehow couldn't wrap my brain around the concept of what she wanted and couldn't give it to her because I didn't know what it WAS rather than the fact that WE DON'T HAVE ANY.
And then of course was the lady who was appalled that we do not sell the videotape of the Harry Potter movie. Which came out in the theaters like two days ago.
Today I had a lady at the register who seemed only about half in this plane of existence. I asked her if she got everything she needed and she said "Cash please," so I ignored her and just rang her up. Then when I gave her her change, she looked at one of the five-dollar bills and said, "What's this??" and I said, "It's a five-dollar bill," and she told me it didn't look like it because it was so dirty. It was a little beat up, and I said that was what the last person paid with. She looked shocked and said, "Someone PAID with this??" No, lady, I just wiped my ass with it to piss you off! Gawd.
And if one more person asks me to discount a sale book because it looks beat up, I'm going to scream. HELLO, THAT IS WHY THEY ARE SALE BOOKS--IF THEY WERE IN PERFECT CONDITION, THEY'D COST MORE!
11/18/01
A Nevada Barr book that was supposed to come out in 2002 has its date mistyped and it's slated to come out in 2020. Damn, that's some good advertising.
11/13/01
A manager from our other store called and asked to speak to the manager on duty. I told her who was managing, and it turned out they had a personal rivalry going. To quote her: "I would rather PISS GLASS SHARDS than talk to him." Hah. A lot of other horrible and slightly funny things happened with that same manager today, which was another last straw in getting him fired. It was lovely.
Also, a lady asked if we had any tapes. Since "tapes" could mean audio books, music cassettes, or videos, I asked her for clarification: "You mean audio tapes?" Her answer, with a snooty look like I'm incompetent, was as follows: "YES, I mean audio tapes, like you put in your VCR?" I could not stifle my laugh, and informed her that we do not carry videos but we carry audio tapes. She seemed to realize she screwed up and just walked away.
11/12/01
Today a lady acted annoyed and surprised when I told her her total was over fifty dollars. She said, in a bratty tone, "Then why did the register display say $9.95 a minute ago?" Of COURSE the friggin' register display said $9.95 a minute ago; that was the price of the last item I rang up. You expect to buy like six items, none of which is under five dollars, and expect your total to be around $9.95? What are people smoking?
11/7/01
Wiccan Boy has RETURNED, with an interesting message: "Oh, yeah, I'm not Wiccan anymore." See, even though he's been practicing for ten years (uh-huh), he can give it up because (get this) he doesn't "need it anymore." You see, now he is the lead singer of a successful band--"Well we haven't played anywhere yet, but our CDs are selling like mad!" . . . what, did his mom buy six hundred?--so he no longer "needs" any sort of spiritual system of beliefs, since he got what he needed. I informed him that if he thinks once he gets what he wants he can just toss it over the side, he was never doing it for the right reasons anyway. He said he knew that. Okay, DORK . . . so all "Wicca" is is a defense and attack mechanism for your immature games? All righty then. . . .
11/3/01
Found out today that on Halloween someone put in a complaint that my coworker and I were acting inappropriately . . . and what did we do, you ask? Dressed up like witches at work. On Halloween. Aren't we just disgusting?
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