![[upside-down book!]](upside.gif)
1/31/04
I had a dude show up at the customer service desk holding a tape recorder. Okay. He asked me if we carried New York Times Magazine, and then proceeded to play me a recording of a clip from a radio show, where they said some article was in "The Sunday New York Times Magazine." Well, I went ahead and humored him and did a magazine search, but when it came up with nothing, I told him my suspicion: "I think that must not be an actual separate magazine. It's probably an insert in the actual paper The New York Times." Failing to respond to my question about whether he'd checked if there was such a magazine, he rewound his tape and proceeded to play the announcement again, and repeated, "See, New York Times Magazine." Yes, dude, I heard. I told him I wasn't getting anything in my database for that title, and if it WAS a separate magazine then we didn't carry it, which seems unlikely since we carry the most magazines of any major bookstore (being that we started as a newsstand, we remember our roots). He asked me if I can find out or if there's only access to stuff we carry, and I told him the case was the latter. In the meantime, a little crowd of about three people was waiting for assistance at the other side of the desk, and the woman at the head of the crowd called over to us trying to help, "Have you checked in the Sunday Times?" He gave her his attention, and she apologized for eavesdropping but suggested that maybe it was an insert in the paper. The guy seemed pleased and surprised by the suggestion, which is odd since THAT'S WHAT I SAID--TWICE--but he thanked her and told her he would check on that. I reminded him that that was what I'd been saying all along. He ignored me, thanked the woman for her help, and left the desk. Hmm . . . I guess I'm not qualified to help even though I'm the one behind the counter. Go fig.
Some woman called one of my coworkers today, and he described her as "you could tell she wasn't all there." Anyway, what she wanted was information on how to contact some publishers of out-of-print books. She kept giving him titles and insisting that he had access "in the database" of publishers' contact information. He told her (truthfully) that all he could do was get her names of publishers and publication dates, but we didn't have any contact info for how to get in touch with any of them. She replied that he DID have such information because she'd gotten it from us before. Well, I have to admit that when I first started at this job (THREE AND A HALF YEARS AGO), we had a CD-ROM program called "books in print" that could sometimes rustle up phone numbers and ordering addresses for publishers, but that was before we had a computer system that could contact the middleman directly to try to get difficult titles, we used to have to do it ourselves and cut a deal with each publisher on the phone. But we no longer need that info, so we haven't had it available for, oh, the last three years.
Well, the woman said that it had been "a while ago" that she'd gotten said information from us, but kept asking my coworker to "check in the database." He explained he had no such database, but it didn't seem to make it into her brain because she KEPT ASKING. He asked her if she had Internet access so maybe she could just look up contact info for these publishers herself once she had the names, but she said, "I don't have the Internet. I can't type." Then one of her book titles happened to be a book we actually had in the store, and he went and grabbed it and had it IN HIS HAND, and she asked him for information on how she could contact the publisher so she could order it. He explained to her that he HAD the book and she could get it from us, but she ignored that and asked him to tell her the info she wanted because she wanted to see if she could get it from them or the library or something. Well, obviously she was either fucking with him or completely batshit, so he just got rid of her the quickest way he could and hung up. In five minutes she was calling back again asking US if we had Internet access. Thankfully we don't (except for our own intranet and e-mail system), or else I'm sure she would have been demanding information until doomsday. I have often wished we had 'Net access in the store, but that is the second time we've been saved from having demanding customers try to take advantage of us by not having the resources they'd need. Now if only we could make them stop asking us if we have a copy machine. . . .
1/28/04
A girl came to the desk and wanted to pick up a book she'd ordered. Get this. She told me the book was ordered last week "for Christina?" (yes, she said it with a question mark at the end), and told me the book's name AND the book's author. Guess what is the ONLY piece of information I need to know in order to deliver customers their books? You got it! LAST NAME! (How weird of us, huh?) I just found it ironic that she gave me every last piece of information about this book that she could think of as well as her FIRST name, but did not come up with last name until I prompted her. Hehe.
Some crappy people were looking at our display of books from A Series of Unfortunate Events. I heard the two women puzzling over which book was the first in the series. They could not figure it out. I am baffled. First off, on the front of each book, the cover says "Book the First" or "Book the Second" or whatever volume it is. Secondly, on the side, each book has a NUMBER. And lastly, the first book in the series is entitled The Bad Beginning. I just don't see how two people, both of whom are scouring the book display to figure out which one is number one, can possibly miss ALL of this. It's like they thought it was a pop quiz or something. It just isn't difficult! None of those things are hidden or even particularly small or hard to see! I DON'T GET how people who are specifically looking for something can overlook it when it's shoved in their faces!!!
A book called No More Dead Dogs has recently been getting a lot of attention. I usually only carry two copies, and I had to order the book for a woman at the desk. I kid you not, AS SOON AS she left the desk, another woman came up to the desk, and abruptly said, "No More Dead Dogs." I told her that was kinda funny since the lady right before her had ordered it, and told her we were out. This lady's jaw dropped. "You're OUT? But the newspaper just reviewed it!" Oh, well maybe that has something to do with WHY WE'RE OUT!! It's not like an article comes out one day and our company mobilizes with crates of No More Dead Dogs and emergency helicopters! Anyway. So she said, "Well, you need to GET some!" and I told her I could order HER one but I can't just order copies for the store, it doesn't work that way because what we carry in the stores is not determined at store level. Her jaw dropped again and she said, "That's BIZARRE!" Umm . . . well, it's not really that bizarre to think that a company that is NOT Florida-based would maybe be a bit slow on the uptake regarding "Sunshine State Readers" (which is what I think this book is part of), and would probably be reluctant to ship large quantities to all stores when only Florida stores have the demand. I explained that to her, that I couldn't just "get a crate of them" (as she suggested), and I suggested ordering one for her (again), but she refused, and told me it was "poor customer service" that they don't empower us to just order things like that. Well, I wish it worked that way too, but being that at this point I'm used to being a cog in a corporate machine, I understand now that empowering lowly employees to just order "crates" of things they think will sell with NO guarantee from the company's intelligence people that they will could possibly set the company up for a fair amount of loss. And such things are not put onto the shoulders of low-level associates like myself. I explained to the lady that we can sometimes "tip" the corporate office, but if they haven't decided to carry more copies of it and no teacher has ordered a class set for your kids or something, there is nothing I can do except order one for you. Which is, of course, just this huge travesty and beyond rational belief that anyone should be expected to ORDER a book we're out of. Anyway. I'll shut up now.
1/27/04
I didn't think this lady was a jerk or anything, but I wondered about her thought process. She noticed a larger-than-normal space on a shelf of paperbacks right by one of her favorite authors, and asked me if that was a sign that she was going to be coming out with a new book. You know, because maybe we cleared out space for it. Heh . . . seriously, lady, you overestimate us. We don't anticipate the arrivals of books by clearing a space to welcome them. Usually books will show up in ridiculous quantities and we'll go, "Aww FUCK, where are we gonna put this??" Um. Short answer: No. No new book.
A guy in the store asked me to do a return for him, so I took him to the register. While I was doing the return, a bunch of people joined the line, and the guy behind the returning customer in line barked at us, "Is there anywhere ELSE in the store we can check OUT?" The register associate explained that if he was in a hurry he was welcome to check out in the café. But you know what this assmunch decided to do instead? That's right. He opted instead to make rude "oh my God why's it taking so long" noises by blowing his breath out exaggeratedly, looking at his watch, rolling his eyes, and eventually throwing his purchases down on the counter when it was his turn, after which he pointedly looked at his watch again. This whole time the café associate was sitting there with no customers reading a magazine. Dude, you asked if there was another place you could check out and WE GAVE YOU ONE and you didn't use it. Why? Oh right. You just got more pleasure out of making it obvious that we'd inconvenienced you. Well I hope that made your day. Putting you on my Assholes page doesn't make mine, but it probably at least makes other people laugh. (Remember, they're laughing AT you, not with you.)
1/26/04
I was trying to print a confirmation for a lady at the desk today, and the computer wasn't cooperating, so I asked the other computer to print it since I knew THAT one was working. In the meantime, my customer asked me if I'd tried turning the printer on. Hehe. Gee, I didn't think of THAT. (Our printer turns on automatically if someone uses it, but even that was moot because I'd turned it on just in case when it wouldn't work before.) Heh, I love when people think the answer is something simple like "you forgot to turn it on."
My manager let a customer use the phone, and she said before offering it to her, "Just pick it up and dial right out." She proceeded to dial the number with a 9 first (why do people ALWAYS do that??), and then asked me, "Do you dial 9?" I told her no and she goes, "OH" and retries it. I think "don't dial 9" is covered under "dial right out."
Had an annoying lady walk up to Customer Service and yell "HELLO??" as a prompt in my direction. I yelled "HELLO??" back at her in the same annoying voice. Then I went to help her. I'm a tool.
Grr, someone who ordered a book a few weeks ago came up to me and said, "I want to check on that book." I asked for clarification and he said, "You know, the one I ordered three weeks ago." Okay, first of all, yes I remember you, but I don't know what your name is or what you ordered--OR, furthermore, what the hell you mean by "I want to check on that book." What are you checking on? Did you order it and they never called you? I don't know. It's just annoying.
Some guy ordered a book and it arrived shrink-wrapped. He asked me if he was allowed to open the wrapping and look at it. I said of course. Then he asked, "Can I sit down and look at it?" YES, dude. I told him if he didn't like it we could send it back. And then he asked again, "And it's okay if I just go over and sit down and take a look at it now?" Argh. I guess he looked, put it on hold, went to get money or something, and came back, because he came back to Customer Service and picked up the book, but before that it turned out he was like third in a line that had formed at Customer Service. I had been trying to go on break for about fifteen minutes, but I stopped to help the crowd, and that guy kept raising his hand (with one finger raised like the "I need service" gesture in like a restaurant), trying to signal to me that I should help him. Wait your turn, buddy!
Hah! Some lady wanted books by a Helen Gibbs, and I couldn't find her in the computer, so she started describing the type of stuff Gibbs wrote, and I decided it'd be best to just take her to the section where we keep books like that. But before we left to go browse, she asked me how many Gibbses there were in the computer. I made an "oh my God" face and she goes, "Don't you smirk at me!" She said it jokingly, though, not meanly--it was funny. I told her there were 148 Gibbses in my computer, and she agreed with me that that would not help. We went to the section and one of her friends arrived, and she told the friend about the trouble we were having locating the Gibbs books, and she sort of elbowed me and said, "And THIS one SMIRKED at me when I suggested just looking it up by Gibbs!" I laughed. In any case it turned out we found the book and the computer was just being picky like usual; the author was Helen Gibb, no S. She was a fun customer. :)
I found a random Godvertisement in the bathroom today. It was a leaflet (not a Chick Tract or anything) that said "The Look of Today" on the front with a picture of a woman looking primped up. You open it and it says "The Look of Tomorrow" and shows a skull (with accompanying Bible verses reminding us of our mortality), and then the next page says "The Look of the Future," where the woman is being judged for "rejecting God's only begotten son." And then the last page is this scary picture of the woman being consumed by flames, and the caption says "The Look of Eternity," with accompanying Bible verses talking about the lake of fire. The tract then just goes on to tell you you should accept Jesus. I found it inappropriate reading material for our bathroom, and took it for my own reading pleasure. Yup.
1/25/04
Some woman went off her rocker today. Our check machine was malfunctioning and eventually it just rejected her check as declined. She got really mad at my manager and tossed her books sort of at her, and yelled, "THIS IS SUCH CRAP!" and stormed out. She made a big show of it and then came back and grabbed something she'd forgotten and did it all again. (She neglected to grab her pen, though--that one I stole.) Apparently, according to my manager, the lady then called the store ten minutes later and asked for the manager, and when she said "this is she" the lady gave her an earful about how she was a shitty manager and a bitch and how she would never come back here. I think the proper response to that is, "Good, we try to keep adults with the temperaments of two-year-olds out of our store." So there.
Some lady asked my coworker, "Do you have anything that's NOT magazines on 'how to'?" Of course, my coworker asked if she meant "books" by "anything not magazines," and then tried to get her to explain "how to" what. (It was for home decorating or something, but it's just so funny how people will ask for "how to" books. How to WHAT? Tell me what you want to do and I'll get you a nice simple book!)
I had a lady at the customer service desk just come up and stand there, so I asked her, "Can I help you with anything?" She was just silent for a moment, then said, "Well, YES--unless you're doing something else?" I decided that if she was being snotty I didn't really care, so I genially told her I could of course help her, and she told me she wanted to research into the matter of her discount card. "I think they were supposed to mail it to me," she said, and I told her that wasn't the case; we don't mail out discount cards, we give them to you right when you sign up. She said she couldn't find hers, and it was this big deal to her that we hadn't given it to her and she just couldn't find it and am I SURE we wouldn't have said we'd send it to her? Argh. Then she opened her wallet to get a piece of paper out that had the title of the book she wanted to ask me about next, and there in her wallet on the top was her discount card, so I pointed it out. How the hell do you lose a card in your own wallet? I mean, I can see not knowing where it is, but after going through this huge process trying to ascertain whether we'd even given it to her, I would have thought she'd, oh, open her wallet and look for it before resorting to this.
I had to go up to the register to do a return for the cashier, and I was in the process of doing so when a woman in the line stepped out and called out to us, "Is there anywhere ELSE in the store I can check out?" I told her the café can take people, and she said, "Well you could have told me that back there at the other desk!" I recognized her as a person I'd helped at Customer Service, and I replied, "Well, I didn't know you had that question until you just asked it," and she said I should have known to inform her of that back at the desk because I knew she would come to the checkout to buy the book I'd helped her get. Yeah, lady, I inform every customer I help in the store that if there happens to be a long line at the cash register the café can also check customers out. I just knew you'd want to know that. Whatever.
One of my coworkers had to help one of those assholes who just comes up and says one word. In this case it was an author's name. When someone just comes up to you and says an author's last name, what are you supposed to do? How do you know that's not your customer's name and they're there to pick up their book? (I've heard people do this too.) And beyond that would it cost them anything to, oh, ask a question in a polite, complete sentence? Grr. My coworker asked the man if he was looking for any of this author's books in particular, and the guy said no, but when they got back to the section and found several books by the author, the guy grumbled that we didn't have the one he was looking for, and he guessed that was why Amazon.com was so popular, because they can find things. Dude, Amazon.com is a huge warehouse, not a retail bookstore. They're unlikely to be out of anything unless it is between printings or out of print. Bookstores are a totally different animal, asshole.
1/24/04
Well, this morning we were two hours late opening because some wires were crossed about which manager was supposed to open the store, so I sat in a car with my friend Phil for two hours waiting. In that time I got to see all manner of jerkass people coming up to try to get in the building. They'd walk up, completely oblivious of the darkness inside, tug on the door, tug on the other door, stare blankly at the posted hours, look at their watches, tug again maybe, walk forlornly around the front of the store, peer inside as if they're going to find someone to flag down to let them in. . . . And all of this is stuff they would do AFTER being told that the manager wasn't there yet. Some of my coworkers were outside shooing would-be customers away, explaining the situation and lying that it was a "computer problem" (that seems to make people go away more willingly than "our manager isn't here"). Still, more than half of them felt compelled to do one or more of the above actions, most notably looking at their watches, pointing out the hours, and ARGUING with whoever was informing them of the situation. Yes, we KNOW "it says they open at nine!" Yes, we KNOW it is ten thirty. Yes, the store is locked and dark and no one is in there, and we, the employees, are sitting around outside locked out, but for some reason it is going to help you to tug on the door. One of my coworkers informed someone of the situation and they still went over to pull on the door, and as they were going over to do so she said to them, "You can check the door if you want, but it's locked." They still had to try it themselves. Wow, I have to wonder, did they think it'd open and they'd be like, "Oh, it's open, everyone come on in!" Dude. Come back later!
My Asshole of the day was just this lady. She asked me, "Do you have tapes?" Well, there's a kind of tape we have (audio books) and many kinds of tapes we don't have (music and movies), so I simply asked the lady, "What kind?" She said, "Kind? Oh, just cassettes." Lady, anything that can be described as a "tape" is also a "cassette," so you have clarified absolutely NOTHING. I asked her again, "Yes, but what KIND?" She didn't seem to know what to make of it, and said, "What kind? Um, well . . . what kind?" So I said, "We don't carry music or movies, we have audio books on tape though," and she's like, "Oh. Well, I was looking for music." Bingo.
1/21/04
Grr. I was called to the customer service desk and someone was already standing there, but I had already been up to the desk and seen that that lady was just filling out an application, so I knew she didn't need my help. But when I arrived at the desk, another lady was standing behind the application-filling-out lady, and when I asked if I could help her, she just pointed at the application-filling-out lady like, "No, she was first, help her." Umm. I dunno why that bugged me, but it did--it just made me think, what, does this lady think I don't see the other person standing there? I already took care of what she needed, believe me--I'm doing my job and I don't need extra help to do it right. In any case I thought it was amusing that the lady turning in the application wrote that she wanted ten bucks an hour as her starting salary. Keep dreaming, lady . . . I still don't even make seven, and I've been here for more than three years. Oh wait. That makes ME a tool, doesn't it? Damn.
I had a lady asking me for a book and I couldn't understand one of the words in the title she was asking for, so she handed me the paper it was written on. She was asking for Interpreter of Maladies. But she was pronouncing "maladies" like "muh-LAY-dees." Guess she just thought it was some nonsense word. I'm glad I was able to correct her on her pronunciation before she said that in front of the book club for which she was purchasing this book. ::sigh::
Some lady came up to me in Kids' and said, "Excuse me, I'm trying to find a book, are these books organized by. . . . " Then she didn't finish the sentence, I guess I was supposed to jump in with an explanation, but I just looked at her and waited for her to finish her sentence. She opted not to, and instead just asked me if I could tell her where a certain author's books would be: "Well, I'm looking for books by Henkes, where would those be, just scattered about?" Yeah lady. Just "scattered about," if "alphabetical by author's last name" is "scattered about." I showed her where the books were by that author, and then asked her if she'd encountered a bunch of out of order books or something. (That's my way of saying, "So my section's out of order, eh? SHOW ME.") She just said that she only took a quick glance at the books and couldn't figure out if they were organized by title or subject matter or what. ::sigh:: WHATEVER.
A lady called and asked for "Correctional study guides." I wrestled with her verbally for a few exchanges and managed to extract the information that she wanted books on taking an exam for being a Corrections Officer. Well, I told her I'd see what we had, and we only had one book on that particular test. I told her what it was, but she was interested in getting a certain book apparently, and asked me to describe the book to her. It didn't match her description, so she wanted me to look for more. I reminded her that that was the only one in my store, but I could look and see what else there was to order. She accepted that, but then for some reason every time I came up with a book in my computer, she said indignantly, "And y'all don't HAVE that? You don't have ANY copies in your possession?" (She kept saying that, "In your possession." Yes, you'll make a great corrections officer--but you can hold off on accusing me of possession until you pass the test.) Yeah lady, I have a few copies but I figured it wasn't worth mentioning, you haven't made it clear that you REALLY want this book. Before the conversation was over she had asked me what other bookstores were in town, asked me if I could give her their phone numbers, and gotten me to order a book. I had to tell her several times when she could expect a phone call and tell her that yes, indeed, we would call her. She seemed to think she had to make it obvious that she wanted to be called--as if we wouldn't call unless she told us to. Lady, we can handle doing our jobs, so if you'd let me get off the damn phone I'd like to get back to it, thank you.
I also had a woman from a school call and try to find out if her copies of her school's books were in yet. Turned out she'd called the day before, and didn't know who she'd talked to or quite what he'd told her, but she wanted to know if they were in yet. Ugh. She said something about how "the guy" told her that the order had been placed but not filled yet, and she wanted to know if the warehouse got more yet, and when they'd be there, but . . . she just didn't have any specific information and when I asked her for more info so I could even FIND her order, she just kept saying stuff like, "Well, I don't know. But it's in the computer, you could look in the computer." Yes, "in the computer," that's perfect. In any case, we haven't had any shipments between today and yesterday, so if they weren't here yesterday, you do the math.
1/20/04
Some lady was returning a book and buying another to replace it. It turned out she was returning the paperback version and purchasing a hardback copy she'd ordered for herself. I asked her for the reason for the return (because that goes on my return form), and she explained that she'd bought the paperback and it wasn't "the real one." She explained further that she'd remembered the book being a certain way, though now that she was glancing through she realized that the only difference between the paperback and the hardback was that the cover on one of them was hard. She said that she had thought this paperback was a different version with the wrong illustrations and whatever. But she decided then that she would buy the hardback anyway, because "that's how I remember it." Yeah, everyone knows that the paperback isn't a "real" version of the book, but what you purchase is your prerogative.
1/18/04
Some lady and a kid were standing near the Customer Service desk but not at the part where people usually stand to be helped, so I didn't notice them at first, but then I heard the lady whining loudly about wanting customer service, so I went over to ask her what she needed. She said, "I need someone in Customer Service!" so I told her anyone she asked could help her and offered my assistance. She said, "I just need to know where I'd find the books on this list." She waved a piece of paper around. I asked her for titles. "Any one of them," she said, waving the paper again and looking at me expectantly. Okay lady. Have you stopped to think about the fact that you have not SHOWN ME THE SHEET? I told her I needed titles and finally she let me see her paper, and reiterated that she wanted me to show her where they were. Oh no really? I thought you'd want me to grin and drool on myself. So I showed her a couple and she said she only needed one, but then she kept asking me to show her the next one. Finally she decided on one and asked the little girl with her to "put that one back." The little girl hadn't seen where I'd gotten it, so I was like, "Oh no." Why did she ask the girl to put it back? Why not just give it to me? I watched as she just walked over to a shelf, looked for a second (it seemed she was looking right AT where it went, but obviously not), and unashamedly put it faced out right in front of a non-matching book. ::sigh:: I picked it up and put it where it went right in front of them. I don't care.
I was putting away a CD some guy had just returned, and a dude looking at the CDs asked me, "Do you work here?" I turned to him so he could see my apron better and said, "Oh, you found out my secret identity." He didn't smile and just said, "What?" Dammit, it doesn't work if you don't get my joke. I told him I could help him. "Is everything in the store on sale?" he asked, confusing me. I told him everything in the store wasn't on sale and asked why he was asking that. He ignored the question and said, "Well, what about the Valentine's stuff? Isn't that on sale?" I told him it wasn't; that everything in the store is 10% off with a discount card but there wasn't any store-wide sale or specific Valentine's sale. "But isn't it tomorrow?" he asked, and I asked wasn't WHAT tomorrow. "Valentine's Day," he said, and at my blank look (as it is frigging JANUARY right now), he suddenly realized that was a silly question and corrected himself, "OH, no, it's Martin Luther King Day that's tomorrow. So are you doing anything for that?" I told him there wasn't any sale for MLK Day, and he looked taken aback and said, "Oh, well I hope you don't get in TROUBLE." Entirely confused now, I said, "In trouble with WHO??" "The black people," he said quietly, without smiling. I told him I somehow doubted anyone was going to give us trouble over not changing our prices for MLK Day, but he then revealed that he had been kidding about that and left me alone. Uh-huh.
Then we had two very weird people . . . I have never seen Deliverance, but my coworker said that these people seemed to be something out of that. Okay. Anyway, the guy wanted this strange religion book, but we were out of it. So then they came back and they were grilling us about some romance books for the woman, and none of them were books we carried, but then she wanted some other book and insisted it wasn't there when she looked, but my coworker went back there and found it instantly, it was right where it was supposed to be and furthermore it was TOUCHING a book that she'd picked up before. Meanwhile, the guy told me I needed to stop chewing my fingernails--he'd noticed they were bitten off--and I told him I wasn't going to stop because it was very nutritious. Later in the interaction I purposely bit my nails and he reprimanded me again, and I told him they tasted good and that I liked to decorate them with different toppings sometimes. I think he thought I was weird. Then he told me he wanted to order "that book." Okay, you've just had us look up over twenty titles; which "that book" do you mean? He seemed exasperated when he explained he wanted the first weird religion book ordered, as if that was the only one that mattered and I should know. So yeah. Weirdoes.
1/17/04
Yes, I worked on my birthday. Pathetic? No, this is!
Some guy stopped me when I was already on my way to help someone else, but I tolerated it. He asked me if we had any book lights, the kind that clip on, so I told him we had run out. See, we had a coupon the last couple months that allowed you to get a free one with a fifty-dollar purchase, and people banged the hell out of that one because everyone and their momma spent more than fifty bucks at our store during Christmastime. But I got as far as saying, "We had a coupon--" before he cut me off with "YEAH, okay . . . now shouldn't a VIDEO be playing?" gesturing at the little entertainment center we have for the kids. I told him we could try to put something on but I didn't know what was available; most of the videos are broken. He just turned away from me and called to his kids, "OKAY, kids, let's go." They were all, "WHYYY, Daddy, whyyy?" and he answered, "Because this bookstore is pathetic." (Obviously that was meant for my ears, since I can't imagine someone would honestly give their child the answer "this place is pathetic" as a reason to leave.) Yeah, we're pathetic because our business has been so good that we ran out of a product you want, and because bratty children have ruined many of our videos because they haven't been taught not to touch what isn't theirs. I rather think it's pathetic to expect to come to a bookstore and watch a damn movie. How about you?
Yes, there's more. Yesterday apparently some woman wanted to put a whole shopping cart full of books on hold, because she didn't have time to go through them at the moment and couldn't decide what she wanted. As the customer service person was stacking them onto the counter to put them on hold, my manager walked up and said, bewildered, "WHAT IN THE NAME OF GOD IS THIS???" It made everyone laugh.
My other manager had to deal with an annoying receipt-reader. She did a return for this guy, and he was exchanging the book for something else. My manager took the return, charged him for the book he was leaving with, and gave him the change in cash. He started nitpicking the receipt insisting he should have gotten more money back, even though he couldn't pinpoint anything on the receipt that was actually wrong. When he pointed out that his original receipt from the purchase indicated a different amount, our cashier reminded him that the total was different because he'd also purchased a newspaper. He CUT HER OFF and said, "DON'T try to explain it to me." In other words, I know I'm right and I'm tired of you trying to explain logical things to me; I want more money. So, he made our manager void out the return, and do his return and his exchange in separate transactions. I somehow doubt he walked out with any more money, but this time he was satisfied. Or something.
I got a funny comment from one of my coworkers regarding my birthday: "We're working on a cake for you in the back. Actually it's not really a cake. It's extra pieces of everyone's lunch all kinda mushed together." I suggested he sit on the top to make it flat. Hah.
I had some lady at checkout who was dissing Barnes & Noble because she said their employees were illiterate. She claimed that she'd asked for Cliff's Notes (well, really she was calling them "Cliff Notes") and that the employee over there asked her who the author was. When she reiterated that they were just "Cliff Notes" and that they were black and yellow booklets, the employee asked if they were short stories or what. Well, I think it's goofy not to know what Cliff's Notes are too, especially if you work in a bookstore, but it doesn't mean you're illiterate, and it doesn't mean that all of Barnes & Noble has illiterate employees just because, say, you happened to get the incompetent one.
I heard an announcement over the intercom that I was to come to the register, and that usually means I'm needed to do a return or some managerial thing. But when I arrived at the checkout, the cashier was not there, just a customer standing there with a purchase, and I didn't know why I'd been called. I kind of talked out loud to myself, "Hmm, I wonder why she called me up here," and the customer answered in a snippy voice, "Um, to check me OUT?" Uh-huh. Lady, if you don't understand what's going on, don't you dare criticize me. Anyway I told her I'm not a cashier and usually only assist on the register for managerial tasks, and I got the girl to call me and tell me what she needed. Just turned out she was helping café people because the café girl went to get supplies, so she in turn left HER register unattended. She just wanted me to help customers until she got back. No problem. So I checked the lady out once it was straight, no problem. But then the next man was annoying too, it's seriously my day. We have this crappy thermal paper that is sometimes tough to write on, and the guy tried to sign his name and his pressure and angle were wrong for the paper, so he just threw the pen down and said, "How about if you give me a pen that WORKS?" I told him the pen worked fine, put a magazine under the paper (because for some reason that helps it work), and requested he try again. This time, no problem. But what a jerkoff.
In other news I said "Damn" in front of a customer today without meaning to. She didn't seem to notice or care but I've never been one to say, "Oh damn, we don't have it" even if I'm thinking it. Heh. Let's just be glad I didn't say "Oh fuck." Because I say that kind of shit too.
1/14/04
This story came from a coworker. Apparently last night, some guy called and claimed to have food poisoning from our café. Now I'm not sure what he could have possibly eaten that could have given him food poisoning since we sell pastries and coffee, and generally speaking I just don't see it happening. But that aside, he was acting real weird on the phone. He described to my coworker in intimate detail exactly what his symptoms were (i.e., puking in a bucket and "squirting shit" on the toilet!!), and since she has worked in restaurants she has dealt with food poisoning before and told him he should probably call the hospital. "I can't go to the hospital, I have no money," he said, and she told him to go and claim indigence. He replied that he didn't have "indigence" or he'd just take some Pepto-Bismol. Yeah. She explained that "indigence" was not "indigestion." They argued about this for a while and he kept calling her "baby." She said if he wasn't going to go to the hospital then what did he want her to do? He told her he wanted her to come over and clean the shit off his toilet. Uh-huh.
In any case she got off the phone with him and he called right back, and after a few more exchanges about the hospital he told her again that he wanted her to come over and clean the shit off of his toilet, but this time, he told her he wanted her to get in her "little Swedish whore outfit" and come clean up his bathroom. She said, "I don't have an outfit like that" and hung up. Then my manager got on the phone when he called back, and just kind of calmly said, "Uh-huh. Uh-huh," over and over again, and then she told him there was nothing she could do for him, but when he requested that SHE come over and clean up his toilet, she replied, "Okay, great. I'll be right over." Then she hung up. That was the end of that. We think it was a prank call, but who the hell knows?
Anyway, on to MY Assholes. This is a funny one. See, this girl came up and she asked for Where the Domino Fell. Problem is, she pronounced "domino" like "duh-MEE-no." I didn't recognize the word but tried to sound it out, and I came up with "domino," so I looked at her and said, "You mean 'domino'?" Considering that made sense in the context of the title as well, I figured I had the mystery solved. But she shook her head. "No, no, duh-MEE-no," she replied, then helpfully added, "D-O-M-I-N-O." Yeah. I didn't say anything else, but in explaining this amusing interaction to one of my other coworkers, we came out of it wondering if she calls Duh-MEE-No's Pizza. (There was some more minor stuff with this interaction, like since we didn't have the book she told me I should "order some" because a bunch of people were going to be looking for it, but I don't expect non-employees to understand why we can't just decide to order a large quantity of books without a purchase order for which we can bill a teacher or just a request from a teacher to order some copies with an assurance that they will send people specifically to our store to buy them.)
Also, I was running a break at the checkout, and some woman said, "Now, I don't know if I have my discount card. . . . " Then she broke off and laughed, and chastised herself suddenly for looking for our card. She rolled her eyes and kept digging. I figured out a way to ask her what that had been all about, and she explained that she was looking for OUR card when she was at a different store and should be looking for their card. Nope. You were right the first time. Hah.
1/13/04
Some lady came up and wanted "books about babysitters." Well, I asked for clarification since she could mean fiction (e.g., The Baby-Sitters' Club) or she could mean books on babysitting. I ascertained that she did want fiction and just didn't remember what the hell the series name was (I took her to it), but then she told me her granddaughter was in second grade but reads on a THIRD grade level (wow, special!!!) and that she KNEW she would like these other books she'd picked out because "they say third grade on them." Well. I looked at the books, and they did not say "third grade" on them. They said "level 3." And they were First Reader books, you know, those books that are graded by difficulty for kids who are just learning to read, and each series decides on its own what difficulty their "levels" are. Oh boy. Yeah, I can just see this third-grade-level-reading girl being given baby books by Grandma, and thinking, "What the hell is up with THIS?" I explained to Grandma that these were not third grade, they were third LEVEL, which is a big difference, and that no one in their right mind puts "third grade" on a book unless it is a basal reader for on-level or something; everyone knows that kids read on a bajillion different levels regardless of their grade level. When informed of this, the woman just said, "Oh," and handed me the books. No, that's okay, lady, I'll put them back for you. ::Ahem::
1/12/04
OH MY GOD! I had a revelation today . . . I had slightly suspected that perhaps my all-time most annoying fucking phone customer might be the #1 worst customer on my worst customers list, but today it was confirmed. My guy who complains that he doesn't understand what I'm saying but asks us what store we are called, and then identified himself as Mr. Wise! He wasn't that much of a jerk this time, but he was still an ass at one point. He asked how long his books would be held, and I said they're usually held for two weeks from the time they came in, and he goes, "Well how am I supposed to know when they came in?" How about the date we fucking called you, assmunch? The day we left a message on your machine (as the log says), which you apparently ignored since now you're calling me to ask if your books are there? Jerk. Anyway, so now I know he's the dickhead who gave my manager Scott such trouble way back when, and he's the jerk that raised a scene when he went to the checkout to pick up a book and then refused to go to the desk where they were holding it, and he's the fuckstick who keeps HANGING UP ON ME!!! (I was looking for a good excuse to hang up on him, but he didn't give me one. I did hang up without saying goodbye, but I think he did too, so I don't know. What a jerk!)
A lady called and asked what our hours are. I told her we had opened at nine o'clock and that we'd be open until eleven. Pause. Then, "Tonight?" she asked. "Yes, tonight," I said, and she reiterated, "Eleven? Eleven at NIGHT?" I wanted to say, well what the fuck do you think asshole? That we're going to open at nine and stay open for two frigging hours? Yes eleven at night! Why don't people think before they talk?
A guy stopped me and asked if I work there--hmm, what gave it away, the apron and the name tag and the stack of books I'm carrying??--and then asked me where "the schoolbooks" are. I asked him to clarify what he meant by "schoolbooks," and he said, "You know, like I go to Santa Fe, where are the books at?" I told him we don't have a "schoolbooks" section and that we don't carry textbooks. That was all he needed to hear. It boggles my mind sometimes that people think a corporate chain bookstore would be affiliated with a local university and carry the textbooks--I mean they have entire stores for that, there are a billion books for classes--but I suppose not everything is as common knowledge as I think. Sadly.
A lady called me and wanted some book whose title was not coming up in the computer, so I asked if she had any more info on it. She started telling me what it was about--apparently it's sort of a fashion-oriented sketchbook of faeries--but I told her what I really needed to find it was either title information or author information, or something that would ping one of the two. She said, "Well could you look under maybe faerie fashion?" Uh-huh. I explained how I didn't really have a reliable subject search, and she started suggesting--you guessed it--other SUBJECTS I could look under. "Did you try under coffee table books? Maybe faeries? Fashion?" I can't "look under" these categories with any success, dammit. But she just didn't get it. Eventually she decided she'd look around when she came in. I want to clarify that she isn't a jerk or anything--it was just a miscommunication and neither of us could figure out what the other wanted--but it was really frustrating, so I wrote it in. :)
1/11/04
I had a mom and her daughter come in looking for a book that's apparently in short supply because of being on a school reading list. I asked if they wanted a particular version (because I knew there were like 18 versions of it), and the girl was like, "No . . . just . . . you know, the one that's BY the guy who wrote it." Um . . . well I'll TRY to get you a book by the person who wrote it, but it might be tough. Anyway. It turned out there was only one copy in the store of some version that for some reason the girl rejected (on account of her teacher not liking that one or something), and then the mom was like, "Well, we CALLED before and you guys SAID you had it!" I asked her if she put something on hold and she said no, she just asked if we had it and we said we did. (Grr. I hate it when people do that. If you don't put it on hold, we take no responsibility for the book being GONE when you get here, if it's popular put it on freaking hold!) Anyway, it turned out that whoever she spoke to put the book at the counter with a sign on it saying "customer wanted to hold this book but did not leave a name," and so I gave her that one but she needed more copies, and so I called the other store looking for it. The girl began discussing with her mom what the plot of the book might be, and exclaimed that she'd seen that same plot acted out on a popular children's show. "Not that I actually WATCH that," she hastened to add. For my benefit? Maybe. I'm so sure you happen to know they did that plot on a kids' show but you don't really watch that, that's for babies. ::snicker::
Up at the register I got called for a return and my coworkers explained to me that the customer had the receipt but she didn't want the credit for the book put on the same credit card that it had been bought with because it had been a gift. The lady was just tapping her foot and snapping at us all, saying stuff like, "I don't CARE, just give me store credit, just something, I don't CARE what you do, I just don't want the book!" OhKAY lady, get a fucking grip! No one is giving you ANY opposition, we're going to handle it! My coworkers said she barked at them too when she came up and wanted to do the return. It's not our goddamn fault you got a book you didn't want for Christmas, lady, so be civil, and take that diaper off.
I did a return for another lady and told her I needed a signature on the return form. I gave her the slip and she looked all surprised and said, "I have to sign ALL of them?" What? There were three lines there, and one was labeled "Customer signature." The other two are for the manager and the associate. Yeah, lady, you just sign where it says "customer." But why--seriously, why in God's name--would anyone think you have to sign all three lines? When do you ever just have to sign three times on the same piece of paper one under the other? WHAT kind of sense would that make? Do you think you have to sign three times to make it official or something? Oh wait . . . or you could read the slip and figure it out yourself. . . .
1/10/04
Here's one from a coworker: On the register, she asked the customer if he would be interested in a discount card, but she didn't hear him respond and was momentarily distracted by some other commotion around the register. When she turned back to him and repeated her question, the guy burst out with, "Do you KNOW what NO means?" She said she hadn't heard what he'd said the first time, and he said, "I WENT like this," and shook his head. Uh-huh. Know what? Get over yourself. Or I will. There is no reason to treat other people like that.
1/8/04
I didn't work today, but one of my coworkers who did gave me this story.
Apparently some woman couldn't remember the name of her author, giving the author's first name as "Diane." Later my coworker discovered that the author's first name was "Diana," which of course messed up our picky little keyword search. Bad thing is, my coworker revealed to the customer that THAT was why it wasn't coming up before, and the lady said, "Well, you didn't even TRY it with an A?" Lady, you said "Diane," not "Diana." It is NOT common sense to try alternate names unless maybe they're alternate spellings or something, but Diane vs. Diana, that's different. Anyway, then the lady got her panties in a bundle because this author was shelved in Kids' Fiction, but it was a book she considered on her own reading level. She protested to my coworker that it was a HIGHER reading level and that we should NOT be shelving it there. Well . . . I know what she's talking about, I have actually read these books and there's not much about them that really makes me think, gee, these are KIDS' books, but if you want to go there we'll have to take Harry Potter and Philip Pullman and all kinds of other borderline books out of the kids' section too. Books with children as their protagonists tend to end up in the kids' section for better or for worse. Quit whining.
1/5/04
I witnessed another asshole customer attitude on the bus this morning; again, not technically a work story, but a jerk nonetheless.
A girl got on the bus, didn't put money in the slot, and didn't show any ID. When the bus driver questioned her as to how she was excusing herself for the ride, she replied, "Oh, I have a Gator 1." ("Gator 1" is the student ID card that UF students get; it means you ride the bus free.) The bus driver asked to see the card, and she replied in this sort of "what do you expect?" voice, "Well I don't have it ON me!" So the bus driver--rather calmly in my opinion--explained to her that you can't just get on and say, "Well I have one but I don't got it on me," if you want to ride the bus you have to either bring it or put two quarters in the slot. She put two quarters in the slot. But damn that pisses me off that people just think they're the exception to everything.
Another thing annoyed me that more or less has nothing to do with me. One of our employees who didn't even work today (and wasn't in work-ish clothes, and of course didn't have an apron on) was standing at the Customer Service desk for some reason; she could have easily been just any customer. Then a customer came up to her and just said, "Excuse me, do you work here?" I often complain about customers who ask me if I work there when I'm doing something obviously work-related and wearing an apron with the store's name on it, but having it work the other way? Just walking up to people and asking if they work there? Why did the lady think she worked there? She answered, as I came up to the desk, "Well, yeah, actually, but not right now." I would have just said no, I think, if it was me. Luckily I came up to help the lady or else I betcha she would have started asking questions and my coworker would have been nice enough to help.
Today I was looking at the customer service computer and someone had looked up a book whose cover was scanned into the system upside-down. I've never seen that before. Hehe, dorks!
1/4/04
A guy and his wife were walking around and the husband said to a couple of us associates, "Hey, do you guys sell pencils?" My coworker replied, "Well, we sell pens," and the guy's like, "NO, I need PENCILS." After being told we don't sell pencils, he replied, "How can you not sell pencils??" I replied that we weren't an office supply store. His wife added to that, "Yeah, honey, this is a BOOKSTORE, we can go to the office supply store for that," and they went away. Funny how people just expect us to have all kinds of shit like that. I've even been berated for not carrying science fair display boards. What the hell do you think this place is?
A lady came up to me and asked if she could pick up her book, because "I went to the desk, and there's nobody there!" I told her that was okay, she can always ask anyone, I would help her. She seemed confused by my statement, I don't know why, and she reiterated that she had been to the desk and no one was there. Well, I responded again that I would be glad to help her, and we were on the way the desk. I asked her for her name, and she gave it to me. But then she started volunteering information about the book, giving me its title too. Well I didn't ask for that. But then she kept going on about how it was a children's book and telling me what it was about. If we hadn't gotten to the desk then and I hadn't halted her words by handing her the book, I probably would have received a detailed description of the book's cover and a in-depth analyzation of the plot of the book or something. Seriously, you guys . . . all I need's your name. Your first clue is that I didn't ask you for anything else. I know this isn't some big offense or anything, but it just gets old to ask someone for the pertinent information and they respond by adding, "Yes, it's a little inspirational book, about this big, I think it's white and has apples on the cover . . . can't remember who wrote it . . . I think it has gold lettering? Yeah it's about this big. . . . "
1/3/04
Some dick was wandering around the store yelling, "HEY, anyone work here??" Obviously people work here, and if you don't happen to see someone wherever you're standing it's not suddenly acceptable to just start yelling your fool head off to make someone come to you. BABIES make noise when they need Mommy. Grown-ups don't. Try walking around and looking so you don't disturb other customers, or--gasp!--actually go to the Customer Service desk so that we can see you need help.
Grr! A lady didn't understand how another cashier had rung her up, and thought she'd been cheated out of three bucks, so I tried to explain it to her. She had just bought a discount card, being told it would cost her only seven dollars instead of the usual ten because of a coupon that the cashier was giving her. (We often use the coupons as a selling point; if the card costs ten bucks but the coupons that come with it are used on books in the same transaction, we can lessen the total then and there, counteracting partially or completely the price of the card.) But for some reason this lady thought she was being shorted, and after I explained to her that she only got the coupons BECAUSE she bought a discount card (it wasn't just an automatic coupon or something), she just kept on saying, "I understand that. But I don't think you're understanding what I'm saying." Then she'd proceed to give me her screwed up logic again, about why she had been charged three bucks more than she should have been. I think the main problem that we were having here was that she didn't get that the card COST ten dollars and became SEVEN only because of a coupon discount on a book. It wasn't automatically seven dollars PLUS the discount on the book. So I called my manager to explain it to her, because I could not have my line backed up with someone who would not accept my explanation no matter what I did.
So. Manager arrives. They went to another counter and began bickering over the prices, and I just cringed every time I heard the customer come back with, "I understand that. But you're not understanding what I'm saying," and then she'd go into her tirade again about how the card was seven dollars and then blah blah blah, she's owed three bucks. They went around and around, and pencils and paper came out to calculate discounts (the lady said she'd already added it up and it came out wrong), and then no matter how the MANAGER explained it to her, she kept coming back saying that still leaves her three dollars short of what she should have gotten. Finally my manager said, "Okay, listen, WHAT do you WANT?? Tell me what you want and I'll just give it to you. I can't explain this to you anymore." (This particular manager has a bit of a short fuse, I must say.) But the lady didn't want to just be given her imaginary three bucks. She WANTED to understand, and she WANTED my manager to understand where she was screwed over. So they went through it again. And again. I don't know what ended up happening finally, but my manager did calm down and did explain to the lady that it was aggravating that the receipt didn't spell everything out. After the whole thing was over, my manager ran out and had a cigarette. I'm glad she did, because otherwise I think she would have blown up the store.
You'd think that would have been the main drama of the day, but no; we also had to have one of our employees taken out of the store in handcuffs because of freaking stealing a bunch of books. Go fig.
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