My Record of Work: The Annoying, the Interesting, and the Just Plain Weird--The Year 2004.

4/28/04

I had a lady ask for a book, and after I found it for her she was like, "Oh, thank you . . . I looked EVERYWHERE!" I kind of kiddingly said, "Well, not HERE!" She replied, "No, I mean everywhere in this STORE!" I just didn't know what to say to that. I mean, that's what I meant too, and . . . well, she COULDN'T have looked there, because she didn't find it! I figured out later that she mistakenly thought that I thought she meant having gone to other stores to look for it. Weird.

A lady I'd helped a few days back came back to the store and remembered me, and needed me to help her with something else. I finished helping her and then realized she was wearing the exact same shirt she'd been wearing when I last helped her. I wonder if she never takes it off?

My funniest one today: A lady who was standing in the chapter book section asking me for Magic Tree House videos. "Last time I was here I saw them," she explained, and I told her I wasn't aware that that series even MADE videos--however if they did, we didn't sell them here. She said, "But last time I was here you had them," and I said, "No, we don't sell movies . . . EVER." "No, I am sure I saw it here," she said for the third time, but then she interrupted herself to grab something off the shelf and say, "Oh, here!" Showing me the box she'd picked up, she said, "See!" and wiggled it a little. "That isn't a video," I said. "What is it?" I turned it sideways for her. "It's a box set of books." Then she asked me if I could get her the video. ::sigh::

4/27/04

First, let's mention a lady who was looking for Pat the Bunny. I only had like weird variations of it--I think Easter wiped us out. So I had Pat the Puppy and another bunny book by the same author but it wasn't the first one. The lady, completely flummoxed by this, said (in reference to the non-original Let's Find Bunny or whatever), "But . . . can you still pat it?" Er? "Yes, can you still pat the bunny?" I reckon you can pat anything you want. Just don't expect me to watch.

I had a guy at the register tell me he had a discount card that I should look up in the computer. I couldn't find him. When I told him so, he replied by spelling his name for me again. I just kind of ignored that and tried a couple variations in case someone entered it in wrong when he signed up. But there was nothing, so I told him again that his card wasn't in the computer, maybe it was more than a year old and expired by now. His reply? HE SPELLED HIS NAME AGAIN, this time like this was a third grade spelling bee. I replied, "I'm not having any trouble spelling it." I presented again the possibility that it was expired, and he replied that he just didn't see that it could be so because he and his wife buy so many books. I guess that means that time doesn't continue to progress for them. Anyway he backed off and was like, "Well, you tried," and he said he'd get his wife to check her card or whatever. I probably would have given him the discount if he hadn't gone and criticized my spelling. Everyone knows you don't do that.

And finally, my big amusement for the day. The little bad boys. They were maybe early teens, two boys--I found them in the New Age section, and one of them asked for my help. "Yeah, where are the ssmmmmmm?" "Where's what?" "The smmmbbs," and this time he mumbled while walking away from me, his back was turned. I said, "Look, I can't hear you," and he just looked at me and he said rather loudly, "Books on Satanism." "Ohh," I said, and walked him right to a couple Church of Satan books. I favored them with an interesting factoid: "Did you know that Anton LaVey openly admitted that he started the Church of Satan just to make money?" "Smart dude," said one of the kids, and I started to try to excuse myself with the usual offer to help them find anything else if they need me. Unfortunately they called me on it right away. "Yeah, um, we also want to see Mein Kampf." "Okay, probably over here in Biography," I said, leading the way. "You really know this stuff, don't you," said one, and I informed him that I'd better since I've been at the store for like four years. "That sucks," said the other one, sympathetically. "Yeah, it does suck," I said. I checked the shelf and all we had was the sequel to Mein Kampf as well as several other books about Hitler. I said we were probably out, and then kind of threw a jab at them: "You guys are looking for some pretty weird stuff today, huh?" "Uh, we're writing a paper," said one of them, and I was like yeah sure right and left them to their thing.

Soon enough, they were back: They wanted some author my computer had never heard of, but after that did not satisfy them they came back again, and the one kid's request was one of the funniest I've ever heard.

"Yeah, I was looking for like real books on . . . you know, like people who do stuff."

Without batting an eye, I replied, "Sorry, we don't carry any books on people who do stuff."

It came out in some halting conversation that they were looking for some book on drug smuggling, from the movie Blow. Okay. I took them to the true crime section, and on the way I was like, "Oh, so is THIS for your paper too?" "What paper?" asked the other. Yeah. I showed them where the section began and ended, and threw this out: "But don't go too far past there, because then you get into the GAY section." "WHAT?" said one of them, looking shocked, and I pointed to where the "Lifestyles" sign started. I got to walk away laughing as they both noticed some of the titles of the books and started shrieking, "EWW!" (I guess they wanted to make sure I knew they WEREN'T GAY!!!)

Later on they had books on growing marijuana, and another of my coworkers noticed that they were standing around staring at me, and after they'd finally left the store I found a chair piled with books on Satan and Hitler. Charming young men. I fear the idea of them. But personally, when I looked into their faces all I wanted to do was giggle.

Oh yeah, we got our cardboard display for Shadowmancer today and it includes a really big cutout of a scary dude in a robe wringing his hands in that easily recognizable Evil Guy™ way--and the thing has a gizmo that make his eyes glow red. I decided the cutout was my new boyfriend (it is approximately my height), and spent some time doing some rather inappropriate cuddling with it. Yay.

4/26/04

It was like an Assholes Free-For-All here at the bookstore today! Yes, buy one get one free JACKASS people! Don't worry! We're not in short supply! Get yours today!

I was on the phone with a customer and the register guy paged me to the Customer Service desk. I was looking for something on the kids' sale tables for the woman on the phone, and those tables are right next to the desk, so when the woman who needed help showed up, she saw me. And she started mumbling some things that I guessed were supposed to be directed at me, stuff I couldn't quite make out but the general sense of it was "What does it take to get someone who works here?" and "Does anybody work in this place?" So I called her on it--I took the phone away from my ear and looked at her and said, "Excuse me?" She just looked at me, and I said, "Sorry, WHAT did you say?" She replied, "*I* need *help*." I said, "Yes, I know. I'll be right there once I'm finished helping the woman on the phone, okay?" She didn't respond and just leaned on the desk and looked away. Yeah lady . . . the world stops for you. (When I helped her she was all brusque, too--just like "Tell me if you have this" and when it seemed we did "show me where" and stuff. Grr!)

My manager gave me this amusing bit: Apparently some lady did not know the difference between fiction and nonfiction. When my manager started leading her to the fiction section to give her what she asked for, the woman started saying, "Well, but I didn't think it was FICTION, I thought it was a made-up story . . . oh, WAIT. Ohhhh." Heh.

Some lady came to the customer service desk and kind of stood back a ways, and wouldn't look at me. I was waiting to see if she'd approach the desk and ask a question, but she kept just standing there kinda looking around like she expected someone else to make the first move. Finally she looked at me a few times, then looked away, still just kind of wearing an impatient sort of aura. So I bit the bullet and asked her if she was waiting to ask a question. Unfortunately she ran me right over with a misinterpretation; when I opened my mouth and said, "Are you--" she said, "OH fine thanks, I'm looking for . . . " et cetera. I think she thought that I said "How are you?" when I said "Are you . . . ?" She didn't hear the rest of the question because she was already responding to what she thought she heard. Oh well.

I asked a lady at the register if she needed a bag, and she replied, "Oh, no, thank you, just put it in a bag please." Okay.

Weird lady at the register was talking about having just returned from two days at the beach, where she had attended a nephew's first communion. "He was so cute, walking around with all his bling bling," she said, which disturbed me considering she was a mid-forties white lady. "They had glow-in-the-dark rosaries and everything. I was going to get him one of those 'Jesus is my homeboy' shirts, but my sister said she'd kill me. But EVERYBODY'S wearing them!" Yeah lady. Because first communion is nothing but a lightswitch rave (necessitating glow-in-the-dark rosaries), and the worship of Jesus is a big-ass party up in this crib. Freak me out!

Had another routine dipshit walk into the back room thinking it's the restroom. I don't know how many times I'll be compelled to say this, but I just don't understand the mindset that lets customers walk blithely through unmarked doors.

Back by the magazines, some guy approached me and opened with, "Do you know about this place?" I told him I knew a few things. He presented me with the incredibly difficult task of finding him a very mainstream and centrally located magazine, and when I got it for him he said, "See, you DO know after all!" Okay. I hope so, after FOUR YEARS almost.

This lady gets, like, a prize I guess. First of all, there were two of them, a couple of older women asking for stuff. One of them asked me for "books on Monte Carlos." At first I figured she meant a car, but then before I got the request in the computer she replied, "You know, like The Horse Whisperer." I'm like, uh? I asked her what she meant and she said it was a book that had something to do with talking to horses. I didn't know if she was talking about The Horse Whisperer or this other Monte Carlo thing. But then she revealed that "Monte Carlos" is actually an author. Maybe Monty? In any case Monty's parents are very sadistic. Anyway, so I asked her point blank what this had to do with The Horse Whisperer since that book is not by any Monty Carlos (and incidentally there was no such author in my computer). She said they had nothing to do with each other. Except they were about horses. So when I told her that this Monty fellow doesn't show up in my computer, she asked me if I knew if the other store would have it.

Yeah, that tells you something right there. I can't find the existence of this guy, and yet she wants to know if I can find her information about what the OTHER store has. I explained that according to my computer this guy doesn't even exist. So she's like, "Do you sell horse books like The Horse Whisperer?" and I said we had a nonfiction section of horse books, but that The Horse Whisperer was fiction and there weren't going to be similar titles around it, the fiction books are done by their authors. Anyway. She didn't seem to get this, and asked me to take her to the nonfiction horses section, and as we were leaving the other lady yelled out, "And after that come back, because I have a question too!" Great.

So, over in the horses section, we look around and she's like, "Well, do you think it would be here?" and I asked would WHAT be here, and she goes, "You know, those Monty Carlos books," and I told her again that I had no idea about any Monty Carlos books, the guy doesn't appear to exist, we need more info. So then she just abandoned the horse books and wanted me to show her The Horse Whisperer. My computer had said we carried two versions of it, one large-size paperback and one mass-market size, so I took her for the large-size first since it would have been closer, but we were out of it. I could tell that as I took her toward the back of the store, she was wishing she hadn't asked me because she figured I was incompetent. I could just tell that she thought I didn't know what I was doing because I wasn't able to give her an answer to her impossible question. I finally got her a copy of The Horse Whisperer in mass-market paperback, and then AGAIN she asked me, "And, now, that other one?" "That other WHAT?" "The one we were talking about before, Monty Carlos." WHAT THE HELL? I told her the same thing again and she repeated her question about whether the other store would have it, and I just gave up and went to see what the other lady wanted.

Well, her companion wanted a book and a video of this happy baby thing that's been advertised a bunch lately, and I told her we had the book but we don't carry videos, just books. Reply? "Well how about a DVD?" DVDs ARE videos. The V in DVD even STANDS for "video." "We don't sell movies, ma'am." "Could you order it?" Jeez, no, we can't order it--we don't sell movies, we don't order movies, we're NOT A MOVIE STORE. So she talked me into calling BORDERS for her. I didn't really care though, because I don't mind calling "the competition" if it's something she can't buy from us anyway. So they didn't have it and she was nice and thanked me and left, deciding to buy just the book.

I came up to C/S later and saw that someone had been searching for "Carlos, Monte." Oh crap. I found the nearest associate and asked him if he had made that search, and he said some woman came up and grilled him about it. Well, that put to rest my doubts about whether the woman just thought I didn't know what I was doing. She did mention to him that she'd already asked me (after the fact, of course), to which he replied, "Well . . . it's the same computer!" HAH.

My café coworker had just gotten in for her shift and was walking away from the desk after clocking in, and a man approached just in time to see her walk away from him. I passed her and greeted her, and then came up to help him. At which point he burst into laughter.

I was like, "What?" He just shook his head and kind of gestured at my café coworker, and kept laughing. I asked him what again, and he said, "Was she even supposed to be BACK there?" Um. I said yes, and that she worked in the café and was clocking in. "OH!" he said, with more laughter, "I thought she was just a customer walking behind the desk!" Yup. Funny.

4/25/04

Some dude called me and was hard to understand because of the cell phone, and his question was really freaky: "Yeah um I was in there last week and I wanted to know if that book came in yet?" I asked him if he ordered a book, then--most people who want to know if a book came in did indeed order one. But he was like, "No, no, I was in there and I was looking for this one book and they said maybe Saturday, so I wondered, did it come in yet?" Um. "It's NOT a book you ordered for yourself?" "No." "Then WHAT book IS IT?" Yeah, it must just be that one book we ordered to come in sometime next week. We don't, like, carry over a million titles or anything.

I helped a guy get his book that he'd ordered, and then he asked me, "Does this work on that?" indicating his discount card. I told him it did. So he just dropped it on the counter and looked at me. (When I looked at him, his mouth was open slightly and his eyes were blank, it was an amusingly vacant expression.) I asked him if he needed anything else and he said he didn't, but then figured out promptly that he couldn't pay at my counter. He went away. Yay.

And in other news, I found a Dr. Seuss book jammed in the diet section. What was amusing was that the title of the Dr. Seuss book was The Butter Battle. I guess these people were battling butter in more than one way.

4/24/04

A lady had called our store the day before and ascertained that we had a certain book, but didn't ask for it to be held. And apparently it had been advertised locally because the author was signing books somewhere. So I took her to the section to see if it was there, and predictably (as is often the case when there is a media event involving a book), there were no copies left. Sort of as a "well it's your own fault" jab, I asked her again if she really hadn't put it on hold. She said she hadn't, but then asked me, "Well could you maybe just check and see if it was pulled?" I just repeated back to her, "Check and see if it was pulled? Sorry, I don't know what you mean." She rephrased that she wanted to see if maybe her phone call had caused them to pull it anyway. I told her if we pull something for someone, we specifically have to have a name, if she didn't ask us to then WE DIDN'T PULL IT. She kept going on about if I could "check." I think this is probably yet another instance of someone thinking I can somehow tell with my computer if a book is physically in the store . . . and WHERE!

In other news, my manager got accused of robbing someone's house. Some dork came up to her and asked if that was her truck outside. She said, "Yes . . . WHY?" "Well, my house was robbed last night," he said accusingly, "and that truck was reported at the scene." Uh-huh. She replied that she had closed the store last night, it wasn't her frigging truck, but the guy kept giving her attitude and she asked him if he'd gone to the police. He hadn't. She commented to me that he sure was lucky if he'd lived through a robbery and managed to see the villain's truck going away. He probably just meant a burglary. Either way, I somehow doubt my manager is robbing some guy's house when she's also working the closing shift.

4/20/04

Maybe it was just something to do with today's date (Woo HOO, it's FOUR-TWENTY, let's smoke a bowl!), but my store was overloaded with Assholes today! Observe.

I had some girl on the phone today, and I put her on hold to go look for her book. When I got back and asked her if she was still there, she replied, "Hello? HELLO?" Confused, I said, "Hello," and she said, "OH, good, I didn't know if you were coming back, I thought I got cut off. When you went to go check on my book I heard a click and then I was, like, listening to the RADIO or something, and I thought you lost me." Oh my shit, has she never heard of hold music?

This girl wasn't really a jerk, but her thought process made no sense to me. See, having looked through the section her books would have been in and finding nothing, she approached the desk and asked me if I could now check in the computer and find out for her if there were maybe some that were *supposed* to be back there but had been misplaced. "Misplaced??" I asked her, and from there I came to understand that she thought my computer has the ability to tell whether we physically have a book in the store, she was hoping I could find out that there were indeed some books that just had been taken out of their intended place of display. Okay, no, you're not an ass for assuming or hoping that our computers have perpetual inventory--they don't, but okay--however, this is where I lose you. EVEN IF they did, now, how would it help your situation if I plugged in the subject you wanted and it said we DID have a book or two that hadn't been sold and therefore must be elsewhere (misplaced) or frigging stolen or something? How would this honestly help you, except to maybe taunt you with "Haha, well yeah it's probably in the store SOMEWHERE!" "Ahh yes, well there are two books that have been misplaced or at least not sold, so . . . let's go on a journey around the store looking to see if we can stumble across them among thousands of bookshelves!" The computer doesn't have a frigging homing device, does it?? I don't understand. Someone explain this to me.

I was helping a lady find a book, and when we found it it turned out she wanted two copies, so she had me call the other store. Before I did so, I leaned over to look at the cover so that I could get the author's name, and said it out loud to myself. After I walked away to make the call, she kind of stepped out of the aisle and shouted after me how to spell the author's name. Yeah, lady, I need a spelling on that after you just saw me read it off the book. Jeez.

Had a dude asking me for an unpronounceable book--some word I'd never heard of--but I made a guess at the spelling and something staggered onto the screen by Aleister Crowley, just as the guy told me that it was a book by Aleister Crowley--and he mispronounced both "Aleister" and "Crowley." (Yes, I know how to say it--because once I was curious and looked it up so I don't sound ignorant when I say it, same as looking up Chuck Palahniuk so I can frigging say it to people. "Crowley" rhymes with "holy." Palahniuk is pronounced "Pal-uh-nick." I have spoken.) Anyway, then the guy re-spoke the title and said, "I'm not sure I'm pronouncing it right." I just broke into giggles because I doubted it too, considering how successful he'd been with the author's name.

Grr, I was ordering a book for some lady and just as we were finishing up the other line started ringing. I told her I had everything I needed and we'd be calling her when it was in, ya know, gracefully trying to get off so I could answer the other line, but it was then that she decided to tell me the life story of why she wanted the book, blah blah, lowers cholesterol, her sister has it, blah! GRR.

Some lady said she'd found the first three volumes of a series and wanted to know if we kept the fourth and fifth somewhere else. Yes, that makes a lot of sense. We have a "fourth volume of a series" section and a "fifth volume of a series" section, it wouldn't make sense to just put them all together, like, where you found the FIRST THREE. Grr.

Argh, some friggin' lady wanted a potty book for her son or whatever, so she took it upon herself to remove one copy of every title on the subject that I carry, where she plopped them in a stack by the play train set so she could look through them as her son amused himself. Then she chose the one or two she wanted and just left the stack there. I thought that was the end of it but then later throughout the day I kept finding potty books here and there throughout Kids'. I don't get it.

A lady called to see if a book she'd ordered was still on hold. She said she remembered that SOMEONE called her a couple weeks back but she didn't understand the message so she just erased it, and only today did she think, hey, that might've been the book message! So, she said, "Do you need to look me up by order number, or what?" I replied, "All I really need is your name." She proceeded to tell me the book's title, and I repeated, "All I REALLY NEED is your NAME." She gave it to me and I checked, and it was still there, so she said she'd be in soon. I wonder what her deal was?

A girl wanted me to check for a magazine for her. I looked it up on my computer and it was one we usually carried but now it goes in a different section than she was used to looking. So we checked there, and didn't see it. I told her that if there were none here, either we were out of the old and hadn't gotten the new, or were out of the new, or just hadn't received the shipment for the title yet. She replied, "Well can you go check and see if it's in stock?" Um, what the hell are you talking about? I replied, "Well, if it's a magazine we carry, the computer tells me where to look, and we come to the shelf and see if it's there. That's checking if it's in stock." She persisted that I "check the computer," and I had to go through this several times to explain that there wasn't anything else I could find by "checking the computer." It tells me what we carry, and where. If it is not there, we don't have it (or someone artfully hid it from us, which makes it equally impossible to buy). I guess maybe she figured if she pressured me enough, I'd realize there was something I could do to make the magazine appear so she could get it. I will never understand why so many people think they have to come up with bright ideas about tricks I can perform to help them that I just wouldn't have thought of myself after nearly four years of doing this frigging job.

4/19/04

Not a hell of a lot of Assholes today! I did have one lady ask me, "Do you work here?" while I was standing there in my apron with my arms full of Spy Toy product, stocking a shelf. I turned to her and was silent a moment, hoping that she was one of the jackasses who thinks "Do you work here?" is a way to open your interaction with an employee, but no, she was standing there actually waiting for me to answer. I just gave her a sort of sarcastic "yes." Also, some dude walked into our back room today and asked me, "Are the restrooms back here?" Yeah dude, feel free to walk through unmarked doors to your heart's content. I can't imagine just walking into an unmarked door. Even if it's weird-looking or goes through a company storage area, every public bathroom I've ever been to has been MARKED. Don't go through unmarked doors, asshole. (Had another guy ask me, as I was coming out of the unmarked doors, "Is y'all bathroom back there?" I guess maybe it just smelled like it today.)

4/18/04

I found a copy of the Kama Sutra in the Disney section today. They didn't just leave it on the shelf, either. They jammed it in with the Read-Aloud Storybooks. So now I had to look at two people sucking each other's faces with their legs wrapped around each other, right next to Bambi for Christ's sake. What would Walt think??

The only annoying thing for today was when I had to do the register break and they put me on the corner register--and because of the combined conditions of a) there being tons of racks of impulse buy crap at the register and b) my incredible little-person status, no one can frigging SEE me at that register. So I have to kind of get people's attention. So this one lady walked up to the register and kinda meandered. That could mean either she was still browsing or she didn't see me. So I got her attention and she SAW me, so I figured she would come over when she was ready. But then when I next looked up she was standing at the register farthest away from mine, and I looked at her and she was staring at me with like the most ANNOYED look on her face, like, "Can't you see I want to check out? How dare you rearrange the reading glasses rack when I'm waiting!" So I asked her if she was ready and she gave me a strange prompting "YES. . . . " I pretended I had no idea why she was annoyed and said, "Okay, good, well, I'm open. . . . " Oh wow, what a concept . . . you go to the register the salesgirl is standing at! She figured it out after that and proceeded to not suck. The end.

4/17/04

Some lady asked me to look up two books for her. One was only available in hardcover (having come out two months ago), and one was a book we only get if we order it for someone. She declined to order because she was from out of town, but when I asked her if she was interested in looking for this other one we were supposed to have, she just declined and said, "I'm gonna see if I can get it in paperback, thanks." Good luck, lady. Paperback for that title isn't even on the horizon yet. . . .

I had way too many people come in today asking me if they could pick up the books they ordered when they hadn't been called. One lady came to see if her title was in yet, and when I asked her if she just ordered it this week, she said, "No, it was a few weeks ago." So I looked her up. The computer told me she ordered it exactly seven days ago. Yes, that's supposed to be this week's shipment, since you ordered it ON last week's shipment date. Grr, I just love how seven days equals "a few weeks."

I helped a dude and gave him some information about used books, and so he said, "And as a reward for helping me, I am going to tell you a riddle." Hahaha. Then he told me two riddles. One: What animal has two ears, four legs, a tail, is a REAL animal, and sees just as well from both sides? A blind horse. Haha. Two: The devil backed into an electric fan, and then went to a liquor store to try to fix the damage. Why? Because he heard they retail spirits there. HAHA!

I was on the phone with someone at the other bookstore when I noticed a woman and her grown daughter approaching the desk with books. The younger woman told her mother that this wasn't the place to check out, and the older one insisted that this WAS checkout. The daughter had to point at the sign that says "Customer Service" and then contrast it with the "Checkout" sign across the store before grandma believed her. Then she walked up to a sign advertising our discount card and read it out loud to herself. "TEN dollars a YEAR?" she said in disbelief, "They make you PAY for a DISCOUNT CARD?" Then she made this indignant little squeak-grunt noise. I got off the phone at that moment and the woman came up to the desk to demand of me whether the CARD actually costs MONEY (you know, like it says on the sign). I assured her that it was indeed ten dollars a year for ten percent off everything. "I've never HEARD of such a thing!" she said, still completely floored by this concept of memberships actually having a fee. I didn't even know what to say to that. I mean, what planet does she live on anyway? It's really rare if some kind of privilege card does NOT cost money, especially if it's a steady percentage discount and not like coupons or something. If we were just giving out the discount card for free to everyone, why not just make all the books cheaper instead and save paperwork? I would have explained to her that it's worth it if you spend more than a hundred dollars in the store in a year (and it's not worth it if you don't), but she was busy walking away with her hand pressed at her chest like she was holding back a heart attack at such a notion, so I decided I'd better not even attempt to talk to her. Yeah.

4/14/04

Argh. Well, my manager left to do the usual three-minute errands and ended up with his car in the shop, so I had to be in charge of the store for over two hours today, by myself, with just a cashier and a café person to help run the store. (And since neither one can leave their desk, you know, I was kind of up the creek. Yes, that sucks.) Anyway, I had to come to the register to handle a return or something, and I was politely waiting until he was done with the customer because I wanted to discreetly ask him if he'd hang onto the portable telephone so I could nip off to the potty--I'd had to pee for forty-five minutes. (Note to self: Chugging coffee = bad!) But then, of course, I was attacked by a customer at the register who was all hoity-toity about there being no one to help her.

"Can SOMEONE help me find a book?" she demanded, "There's no one at that desk!" I told her it was me who was supposed to help, and she said, "WELL, you're never BACK there!" I told her I was the ONLY person in the store who had to help every customer and that I had come up here to help someone else, but she didn't seem to care. She wanted a Nicholas Sparks book, but when I came over and found her the hardcover she said she really wanted it in large print or, failing that, the paperback.

I told her I'd find out if it came in large print or paperback, and she proceeded to leave the desk and go lounge in a chair while I checked. I found that large print did exist but that we were out, and that paperback also existed and we were supposed to have it. I had to pass where she was sitting in order to go see if the paperback was on the shelf, at which point she called out to me, "Did you find out?" I told her I was finding out RIGHT NOW. (That's right; I've got a name tag on, you see, so that means I'm thicker than a brick. If you don't keep reminding me that I'm on an errand, I will forget all about you.) I came back with the paperback and told her large print was orderable and that we usually carried it but if we were out they weren't sending any more. (It was one of those weird publisher-only orders.)

She came up with the bright idea of asking me to call the other store for her, so I did that and they happened to still have their large print copy (wow!). So she told me she'd be heading over there now, and handed me the hardback and paperback of the book I'd found her, commenting, "I'll just leave these with you." And off she went. (Heh, I called the other store again to tell my friend over there that I had just sent a jerk his way.) And yes, after handling this I did eventually get to go to the friggin' bathroom.

I was shelving in the kids' section when some lady came over and asked me, "Do you basically just work in this section?" indicating Kids'. I said, "Yeah, I'm the Kids' specialist." "Ohh. Okay," she said, and got a sort of confused and sad look on her face, and then started to walk away in a wandery sort of way, as if she was looking for someone who could help her. When I asked if I could help her with something she made it clear that she figured since I was the Kids' person, I wouldn't be able to help her with anything else! Weird. I had to assure her that it isn't like there's a specialist for every aisle and she just has to be lucky enough to find them. It disturbed me that she just figured I was useless without either asking me if I could help or asking where she could find someone to help. I guess by answering that I was a Kids' specialist, I made her think I couldn't do anything else. Hehe. (As we all know, bookstore workers' brains are programmed with only one task.)

Then two annoying people hit me straight in a row, overlapping slightly.

First, a woman wanted me to help her find a particular type of interviewing for colleges book. She had already been through the colleges section, and didn't want to look in the interviewing section because it was mostly career-oriented. I asked her if she was only interested in what was in the store right now, and she said yes, she wanted something today--and in that case, my answer was that she had those two sections to pick from and that was all we had available. At that point the next customer on my list here decided to come out of the business section and try to get me to help her, but at that point I didn't know she was going to turn out to be a freak; she was nice then, and understanding that she couldn't have me because I was helping someone else.

So this first customer started doing the thing that really annoys me. "But can't you look on computer?" she said. (Yes, "look on computer.") I explained that no books about college interviewing would be anywhere else in the store, but then she still wanted me to look on computer and find her titles. I reiterated that the only books that would yield other than the ones in that section would be not in the store, but obviously since I had not looked on computer I must be trying to blow her off, so she kept insisting and I just did it, mostly to illustrate my point. Finally she understood when I gave her the results.

So then I went back in the same general direction because I figured the other lady was probably hanging around wanting help, and I found her wandering the self-help aisle.

She wanted a "how to succeed" book, and actually it was a particular one that she had seen in the store before. I asked her if "how to succeed" was the title (or part of it), and she didn't know, but . . . well, it was RED. About that big. She'd seen it here before. How helpful.

I said I'd go look up the how to succeed book on the computer, but she didn't want to leave the area, telling me again that it was in Business. Well, you've been wandering around in Business without finding it, so what do you want me to do? Anyway, I couldn't find what she was talking about because, well, she didn't really have a title, and she explained that it was geared toward helping teens succeed. I told her the self-help aisle had a teenage section, but she again told me the book had been in Business, and wouldn't go to that section with me. Instead, she just planted her feet in the business aisle and kept sort of describing it to me (again), and kept picking up books saying, "THIS isn't it . . . THIS isn't it."

Okay. So we've established that we have no idea what the book is called or whether we have it, but somehow you think with no information I can help you. I guess what she wanted me to do is stand there beside her and somehow maybe do a magick spell to make myself able to find a book that only she would recognize. Did she want me to stand there and watch her comb the shelf? I explained that with no information I could not be of any help. She answered this by telling me she knew that, in sort of an apologetic tone, but then she would proceed to pick up other books and tell me they weren't it, and tell me again that it was red and for teens about success. Well, we've established that YOU know what you're looking for and *I* both don't know and can't find out. You're on your own, lady! And I left her there. Wheeee!

4/13/04

I do this thing where I try to help people without having to go to the computer if I can help it. So if someone can kind of give me some clue as to what type of book they're looking for, I'd rather take them straight to the section if it's something easy. This was the case--a lady asked for a particular author and I thought it was just some fiction writer, but I didn't know what kind (fiction? mystery? horror?) so I asked her what kind of books the author wrote. "Nonfiction," she replied. Ha ha, man. I replied, "That's an awfully big category." Turned out the author wrote fiction anyway.

Other than that, there's nothing to report except that I had a smelly customer. I don't mean a bad one--I mean, she was malodorous. Stinky. SHE SMELLED LIKE PUNGENT, RANCID, STALE SHIT. I have had customers with bad body odor before, but never have I had a customer who smells like she shit her pants and is just walking around oblivious. Good lord.

4/12/04

A lady asked me abruptly where we have our gift wrapping service. I don't know about you but I don't automatically assume every place I go has gift wrapping. I told her we don't gift wrap and she seemed all flummoxed by it.

I was writing down the above incident when some people came up to ask a question, and the daddy admired my handwriting.

"Did you memorize the Wingding font, or is that something else?" he asked. I explained that it was my own language called Oatanese, and that no one could really read it but me. "That's what happens when your mother reads your diary," I explained. "You start inventing languages." Heh. Later on the family was walking around in the store and I heard the dad mention it again with one of his kids. Apparently Oatanese blows people's minds. (BTW, if you didn't know, I write this stuff down in a code language in case, ya know, I ever lose one from my pocket--wouldn't want some customer to find my piece of paper with bad customer interactions summarized on them, full of filthy language--especially if the bad customer themself found the paper!)

Grr. I was returning a book to the shelf and in the process ended up walking by a girl who was standing at the end of the aisle I had to pass. She was just standing there kinda staring at me, and I met her eyes and smiled, but she didn't stop me so I walked past, looking for the place to put the book. As I was shelving it, she walked past me, and commented to herself (read: To me), "OKAY, let's try this AGAIN." She went to the customer service desk, planted her feet there in this sort of officious way, sorta glanced at me, and then began to look innocently up at the sign that said "Customer Service." What the HELL is that all about? Sort of amusedly confused (say that five times fast), I went over to the desk and said, "UM, do you need HELP?" She acted sort of sarcastically surprised like, "OH, HI, yes I need help." I got her book that was on hold and that was it. The whole interaction reminded me of dealing with small children.

Had a man who left his brain in his other pants at the register today. I asked if he had a discount card and he said he thought he did but then when he rooted through his wallet he didn't find it. I offered to look him up, and though he didn't seem to comprehend the fact that I was asking him questions when I asked him what store he got it at and things like, oh, his name and whatnot, I managed to look in the database and ascertain that either he never had a discount card or he had one so long ago that it expired. I began to ring him up normally after explaining the situation, and he commented, "Well, is it something I paid for?" I told him that if he did indeed have one in the past, he paid for it. He suggested another name to look under--which I did--and still no dice, so then he said again, "Well, did I pay for it?" I told him the card costs money, so yeah he paid for it if he ever had one. "No, I mean can you tell if I bought one?" Dude, that's what we've just spent the last three and a half minutes trying to find out. I replied, "I don't KNOW if you ever bought one--I'm asking YOU!" Hahah. After that he said, "Well, but can I get that book?" Well, this isn't Sam's Club--you don't have to have a card to buy stuff here. Duhh.

4/11/04

So today I had to deal with all the people who decided to call on Easter and ask, "Are you open?" Valid question, of course. But annoying to have to answer it sixty-three thousand times.

Found out some jerk verbally abused our cashier yesterday because she thought her speech about the discount card was misleading. The card usually costs ten bucks, and our cashier said to the lady that it would only cost her six dollars. She accepted it and left, but then came back hollering about the receipt saying it charged her ten bucks. She insisted that she had been "led to believe" that it only COST six bucks and THEN on TOP of that she got the ten percent discount. Well, the cashier didn't say that. It ends up COSTING you six dollars because you PAY ten and then SAVE four, and that's four dollars you WOULDN'T have saved if you DIDN'T get the card. Our cashier called another customer service specialist up to help explain, but she kept shrieking about it being misleading, to which he replied, "NO, it's NOT misleading." Finally our general manager came up and tried to explain it to her, and she whined that he should teach his employees to explain the damn thing right. Well, the way I see it, she never said anything untrue, and if she WANTED more details she should have asked exactly how it figured out. "It ends up costing you six dollars" is true, so there.

Heh, I had a guy come through my line who told me about getting annoyed by price stickers covering up the back-of-the-book synopses on paperbacks, and I told him I always just move the sticker. We started talking about stickers and I told him about that one time on 6/19/02 when some woman got mad at our company for putting a discount sticker on Dr. Phil's face. He thought that was amusing and we started talking about silly things, and then he asked me if I had any bookstore jokes. (The only one I could think of was the one from 3/15/04, and that was um INAPPROPRIATE.) So he said, "Have you seen that bumper sticker? 'Why Can't Johnny Read?: Now on video!'" HAHAHA.

4/10/04

Apparently some jerk went off on my manager yesterday--she didn't like the E-check policy because she was convinced that it would contribute to increasing her chances for identity theft. According to my coworker, "She seems to think there's this nerdy little guy going through the files whenever someone writes a check." Dude, you write the check, the machine reads the number, it deducts the money from your account, and then we give your check back to you. She kept insisting that she told us three times that this policy was NOT okay with her (yet somehow no one heard any of the three times), and that somehow using her credit card for the transaction would have been more secure. Truth is, the more people who actually handle your check, the more likely you are to suffer from identity theft, and when you do E-check the only people who handle your check are you and the cashier. If you process a paper check, you also have your check handled by whoever packs the deposit as well as the bank teller. Bingo. Bottom line: NO one is going to steal your identity just because you wrote a check, unless they were that determined to steal your identity anyway. She said that she was going to call her attorney and get us in trouble for the E-check policy--when we warned our district manager about the situation he actually laughed. And he said that if that lady's attorney is actually brought into this, he will laugh in her face too--and if they don't, then our corporate lawyer certainly will. You can't force a company to return to its old check-processing policy just because you don't like change.

My manager got accused of being a telemarketer today. She called some guy to let him know his book was in, and he replied, "What're you selling?" Nothing but the book you asked us to order for you, sir. After he figured it out he actually became very jovial and made fun of himself, laughing 'til he coughed. Haha.

That jerk of a man who's number one on my worst customers list was back in the store today, spreading his jackassery as usual. He came in to pick up the books he'd ordered. After picking them up from the counter he commented, "And I guess I have to go to the OTHER place to buy these?" (You know that, man--we've discussed this before. YES, you have to go to CHECKOUT.) Then he whined to our manager that we need to start putting everything at the same desk so he doesn't have to walk more than one place, and then when he got to the register he had out his calculator and legal pad, and told our cashier, "This should come out to $101.04." It didn't. It came out to $101.08. And he claimed that that was our fault! "No," he said, looking at his calculations, "nope, you're wrong. It's $101.04." He paid the controversial four cents, but complained as he did so that everyone does this to him--everyone skims a little off the top, it's how they make money, they think he doesn't notice but he does, and it makes him mad that we take his money that way. She was just like, "Yeah whatever, it's right," and let him mumble his asshole self out the door. Oh, and according to our back room girl, he got frustrated with her quick speaking and told her to drop dead. She hung up on him. Good girl. I hope one day he does something worthy of us banning him from the store.

Some lady went to the customer service desk and said, really loud, "Hi!" I was way back in the kids' section, not even in sight of her, so I figured she was probably talking to someone else or was on her cell phone or something. But then she said, "Hello! Hello? Hel-LOOOO!" like she was trying to get someone's attention. I started the long trek toward the desk to see if anyone was helping her, but she was already meeting me halfway. "HELLO!" she said, right in my face. "Hi," I said pointedly, and from then on the interaction was basically normal. I dunno, I just can't imagine going to like Wal-Mart or something and not seeing anyone at their C/S desk and noticing an associate way down an aisle and screaming "HELLO!!!!" at them. It just isn't done. Or, in this lady's case, apparently it is. All I can do is shake my head.

4/7/04

I brought muffins to work today. One of my coworkers said, "You've got some really nice muffins." Then he paused and said, "Oh, I'm sorry, that sounded dirty, didn't it?" It was hilarious, 'cause seriously he is the LAST person you would think would say something like that, he's not the type. I guess maybe he is. Hahaha.

My only real Asshole of the day is this lady who caught me at the end of my shift. She said she wanted CDs on how to speak French; she'd seen them at the airport but they wanted too much money. So, I took her over to the foreign language section of Reference, and pointed out to her that the French section had plenty of CDs and tapes along with books to learn other languages. But unfortunately, she had this weird conception that I was also showing her computer programs.

"No, we don't sell software," I explained to her, but she didn't get it--she didn't understand that "CD" does not EQUAL "computer program," so every time I told her that various things had CDs in them, she got confused and thought it WAS a CD-ROM even though I kept telling her we only had audio. She kept asking weird questions about whether the CDs would show her things on the screen, and just wouldn't comprehend that the only thing I had to give her was either a book or a book-and-audio combo. Then she just kept taking things off the shelf and asking how much they were, and asking if I had French for Dummies, and all kinds of other horseshit. It amazed me how often she just kept coming back to asking me if it would play on her computer. To tell you the truth, I think French for Dummies would have been shooting too high. . . .

4/6/04

Had someone at the register today give me a credit card, and when I looked at the back just to make sure it was signed, the guy informed me, "It's American Express." Um. Number one, so? Number two, if I needed to know that, don't you think I could tell that by, like, looking at the card, where it says "American Express"? I wonder why he felt like he had to tell me the name of his credit card.

Had a lady interrupt my putting away of books to say, "Can I ask you a question?" I told her sure she could, and then she looked all weirded out and said, "I just . . . OH, well do you work here?" I said yes, and she goes, "No? You don't?" Okay, so she thinks I work here (rightly so, I'm wearing an apron and am putting away books), and on that assumption asks if she can ask a question. With no confusion, I tell her yes she can ask. And then she begins to doubt that I am an employee against all evidence, and begins to think she has made a mistake AFTER I have TOLD her I am an employee? Weird, I tell you! (And I can't tell you HOW many times "yes" has sounded like "no" to people!) Anyway, I told her I did indeed work here and could help her, and walked up to the counter with her to look up her book. It turned out to be one of those ones that brought up a crapload of hits, so I was surfing through them trying to find if one was "the" one, and she did that thing I hate, she interrupted me to say, "Nothing, huh?" while I was still looking. I don't know what it is about customers, but REALLY often they make the assumption that I am not finding what they want, even if it isn't taking long and I've given no indication that I'm having any trouble. Anyway. So she was like, "Nothing, huh?" and I just held up my finger and said, "Now, the master is working." Hahaha. I'm funny. Anyway nothing else funny happened here. So I'll shut up.

Except for telling you I thought this book was pretty funny when I came across it while shelving in the sexuality section today.

4/5/04

Some dude wanted a book that had been advertised on the radio, but he didn't know the title or author. He came to me with this mystery to solve, and to his credit he didn't seem to be particularly expectant that I'd be able to help him, but he gave me the vague subject of it and set me to the task. What annoyed me was his insinuation that several other bookstores who'd tried and failed were therefore incompetent. Especially since I knew the quest was doomed from the start. Anyway, I didn't find anything, and just suggested that he check the radio station's website, they might mention who'd been on the show and what her book was. "Well, YOU could do that for me, couldn't you?" he asked, and I told him I couldn't. It took a few tries to get him to understand that . . . gasp . . . we don't have Internet access at work. Nope! But boy would it be helpful if we did--we could find stuff like that easily, though I'm sure assholes would find a way to abuse it.

4/4/04

A dude was rude to our cashier today . . . he just walked up and interrupted her interaction with a customer to say, "Where's Customer Service?" She pointed the desk out to him, and he said, "I know where the Customer Service DESK is, but there's no one OVER there, I want to know where Customer Service is!" She said, "Well, you know what, they're probably helping someone." She told him to go to the desk and she'd call someone to meet him, and then she warned me on the phone that I was about to get a really rude jackass. Weirdly he wasn't rude to me at all. Go fig.

Had a couple funny customers too! This really nice jovial guy needed tax guides, and said that other people who were SMART had probably already bought all the books because he couldn't find them. I showed him tax guides and he laughed about it, and then asked me if I had done my taxes yet, throwing in the qualifier, "Or are you on someone else's?" (I haven't been claimed by my parents since I graduated college, but that's another story.) I told him I'd filed my taxes the day my W-2 came in the mail, and he laughed and told me I was a smart young lady and that he could hardly even spell "infernal revenue." We had a laugh over "infernal." Hahaha.

My other funny customer was a young girl who asked me for help finding snake books, and then after we found what she was looking for she couldn't find her mom. I joked that she wasn't in the computer so I couldn't help her with that, and she quipped, "Really? You can't look under 'History' or something?" HAHAHA!

I'm really glad our cashier was on break when these jackasses came up, because they probably would have harassed her a lot more than they harassed me. (She seems to be a jerk magnet because she's usually sweet to everyone even if they're assholes.) Anyway, it was a crowd of like four college guys, and two of them were buying stuff. The first one put his stuff down but wasn't really paying attention to me, so I asked him, "You ready to check out?" He shot back, "NO!" I just rolled my eyes and asked if he had a discount card. He said he didn't but some other dude in the pack yelled out that he did, but then revealed that he was "kidding." So the dude asked me if I go to UF, and I said I didn't, I had graduated four years ago. "From high school?" he asked, as if he knew for sure. I looked him in the eyes and said, "NO, from COLLEGE. I'm twenty-six years old." "Well," he said, "you're very beautiful for a twenty-six-year-old." Okay, what the hell is THAT supposed to mean? Everyone above twenty-two (the obvious "out of college and beyond my frame of reference" age) has to be considered with this qualifier of "you're nice looking . . . FOR YOUR AGE"? That's like saying, "Boy, you sure are smart, for being NOT AT ALL SMART." Yeah, thanks a lot buddy! So I just repeated his statement back to him, "'For a twenty-six-year-old?' Yeah. Thanks." Dude realized his foot was in his mouth and shut up, but then someone grabbed a couple books and held them up at me, and said, "Hey, what would you do if I tried to walk out of here with these?" One of his buddies told him I would call the cops, but I told him I'd bop him on the head with them. His reply: "OH, so you like it ROUGH, huh?" I made a very sarcastic haha laugh. Then his buddies started telling me that he wasn't with them, he was not their friend, he was just some random dude that followed them around. As they pulled him out of the store, he yelled, "I love you!" at me. Whatever. I swear, it's not just little kids who need their mommies to babysit them.

4/3/04

Okay, so, this woman called our manager this morning and told her she'd found someone's discount card and wanted to return it. Our manager said she could look up the customer's information by scanning it in the register, and if the customer had provided a phone number we'd give her a call; if not, we'd mail it to her if she'd provided an address. The lady seemed satisfied and said she was gonna bring the card in. Well, she did so, but she would only speak to the manager. She wouldn't give it to the cashier. Our cashier went ahead and scanned the card and saw who it belonged to, and went as far as to call the lady and tell her the card had been turned in here, but then the lady WOULDN'T GIVE IT TO HER. She said she only wanted to put it in the hands of the manager.

Okay. First off, it's not like this is some huge deal. It's a discount card, not a credit card, and besides that the real owner of the card can have her name looked up in the computer to get her discount. Plus, like, what are WE gonna do with it, go on a shopping spree and get discounts that don't belong to us? Please! We're EMPLOYEES, we get discounts with our FACES. So why was she being so protective of the card?

Finally, because our manager was busy and wouldn't come to the front, the lady stormed out--without giving us the card--and said she was going to the OTHER store. Well, we called the other store and warned them about the weirdo coming their way, but apparently she never went there. A couple hours after the altercation, some lady came to Customer Service and interrupted my interaction with a customer to say, "Excuse me, but I just want to leave this with you--someone lost their discount card, thanks." I was wondering if it was the same lady, so I asked our cashier if she remembered the card owner's name from when she'd scanned it. She did . . . and when I scanned the card again, it WAS that lady's card! So . . . I have NO idea what happened and I have no idea why this lady felt she had to guard the card from our cashier with her LIFE but could just toss it on a counter to give to me. What the hell? We all had a good laugh over that one.

My coworker had a lady go to the café and ask if they could call someone to Customer Service; that they did, and when my coworker showed up to help, the lady said she wanted to get a gift certificate. "That's up at the register," he told her. "It's not here?" she asked, and he reiterated, "No, you do it up at the register." Guess what she said? "Oh, but I can't get it here?" Lady! It costs money, so we do it where we collect all the money. Are you stoned?