10/17/01
Did you know that there's a book called FOURT by Harry Potter? Well, actually, there isn't, but there is according to a customer who came in looking for it today. I couldn't help it . . . when the guy asked me for books by Harry Potter, I said, "But he's fictional!" The guy didn't seem to understand. He said he wanted "Fourt," but I figured he wanted the fourth Harry Potter book and showed him Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. He said it looked awfully big for an eight-year-old to read (which it is, but I've heard of eight-year-olds reading it!). At that point it seemed to me he thought I had the wrong book, and that because it was not "Fourt" and was so big, I was probably misinforming him. He was disturbed that it only came in hardcover and was so expensive, and proceeded to ask if he could use his Barnes & Noble gift certificates in our store. I then had to give him a detailed description of why, as a bookstore that is NOT Barnes & Noble, we could not give him store credit for their gift certificates. Finally, he asked me if looking up "Fourt" on Amazon.com would do him any good. I said no. He left.
10/13/01
For months I'd been promised a promotion and raise. First it got put off because our boss was at a workshop out of town. Then he never came back, and then he was moved to another store, and we were supposed to have a new manager, but he never came until the week after we expected, and then I was told HE would have to approve my promotion/raise, and then HE said not 'til after inventory, and then after inventory I was told I would get it but then he talked to HIS boss and SHE said HE had to "get a feel for the store" before I got it. GRR. So, I've been given the run-around on that and basically gave up. Then our (new) manager was out of the store for about three weeks; no one saw him except occasionally he would come in and say the store looked like shit. And then, today, after being missing in action forever, he announced to me that I'd be getting my raise/promotion, effective tomorrow. I suppose he had to be out of the store for weeks at a time in order to properly "get a feel for the store," eh? Our company is so ridiculous.
10/10/01
Very odd occurrence today. A woman came in claiming someone had called her that morning saying her book was in. Odd, since no one in the store had been doing customer calls that morning. She insisted she had been called and it was us. I looked her order up on the computer and it was indeed a book that should have been delivered to our store, but the problem was, WE DIDN'T EVEN HAVE OUR CUSTOMER ORDERS UNWRAPPED AND TAKEN OFF THE DELIVERY SHIPMENT YET. The boxes physically weren't open; there was not a possible way this woman could have been called. And yet she was there, claiming to have been called. (I found out later from her that her sister called HER and said that we called and said her book was in, which leaves more room for it to be garbled along the lines somewhere, but still . . . what??)
10/9/01
I had to re-teach someone the alphabet today. A guy wanted a book and acted really sarcastic with me when I told him where to look and he said he'd already looked there. I always offer to take a second look, and occasionally you get the jerk who's offended, as if my suggestion that I (who's used to looking for a needle in a haystack) use my bookstore expertise to try to help their sorry asses. Well, this guy insinuated that I was saying he didn't know the alphabet. He showed me how along the bottom row it went straight from C to E. He unfortunately didn't realize that that "skip" was because he had to start at the top of the next section to see the rest of the C's and then the D's; it didn't "skip," it just became the next bookshelf. The book he wanted was right there, and he was just so focused on the fact that it skipped from C to E that he refused to move his eyes to the next section and see how they were organized. Heh.
Also, I was rearranging the First Reader books and uncovered a book called Elmo Goes Ah-Choo! right when someone in the Kids' section sneezed. (Interestingly enough, when I wrote that down in my journal so I could remember it, *I* sneezed right then.)
10/8/01
Today the Gainesville Sun newspaper collector came to get his weekly pay, and it was abnormally high this week, as it has been since the September 11th disaster. He said it was a big check this time, and I said sarcastically, "I can't imagine why." He totally missed the sarcasm and proceeded to explain to me why the volume of sales of papers was so high. I snickered.
Sometimes people write "please check ID" on their credit cards so that they must show ID to use it, ya know, to prove they're not using a stolen card. Well, today, some guy gave me his credit card and it said, "See ID, you fuckhole!" Incidentally, his card bounced, but at least I checked ID.
Lastly, someone asked me for the "Yin-Yang section." What the hell is a Yin-Yang section? I know what the symbol is, but since when is there a category of books called Yin-Yang? It turned out the book this person wanted was Feng Shui or something, but she sure was insistent that it was the Yin-Yang section and sure got pissy when I had no idea what to tell her.
10/6/01
In Pokémon League today, a kid mistook a little girl for a little boy. When reporting who won their card battle, the boy said, "I won, he lost." The little girl piped up, "You mean 'she,'" and the boy agreed, "she," then looked at her incredulously. "You're a 'she'?" Heh. She had short hair, but she definitely looked like a little girl and even had traditionally feminine little earrings. Go fig.
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