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

11/30/04

This lady wanted books by Alexander McCall Smith and then she kept saying, "Do you have any others by her?" I didn't know "her" who so I asked her and she was like "McCall Smith." Uh-huh. So I told her I'd thought that author was a man, and she was like, "Nooo, it's a woman. At least . . . I always thought it was a woman. . . . " I told her I thought "Alexander" was an interesting name for a lady, and she agreed with me. As I was looking for more books in the computer she paged through and read the "about the author" bit and said, "OH, well my heavens, it IS a man! And all this time I thought it was a woman!" Hmm . . . she said it was because he wrote about women and women's lives or whatever. What's especially weird is I went back in the back room and I was talking to my manager about stuff and mentioned this encounter, and my manager replied, "Oh, isn't she the one that died?" I told her Alexander McCall Smith was a man. "Must be someone else then," she said, "but I always thought that author was a woman, the books are all about women." Must be a common misconception, huh? I wonder how that got that way with the author having a name like Alexander?

A lady went to the café and asked where we have "Christmas cards." The new associate told her it was probably best to check the Hallmark section, but the lady couldn't find anything and then came to me and said, "I'm looking for Christmas gift cards!" I asked if she meant like a gift certificate, and she's like YES, so I told her the register is where they have those. She didn't move, looked back at me, and said, "Well, over there they told me it was in Hallmark, but I don't see anything!" Guess what? I'm telling you right now that gift certificates are not in Hallmark. They're at the register. I'm not going to change my mind on this because someone in the café thought you meant paper cards.

A girl complained to my manager that the café girl and her roommates (who'd come to visit her) were talking too loud and that she didn't appreciate it because "this is supposed to be a QUIET place to study." Well, maybe it challenges some people's expectations, but actually a bookstore is a public retail store, not a library, and noise DOES happen. I agree that if they were outright boisterous or saying inappropriate things, it shouldn't have gone on, but they were just chatting. The bookstore café is not "supposed to be a quiet place to study." If you want to study, go to the library or go the hell HOME. Not to mention that she hadn't even bought anything, she just brought her crap and used our space. Screw that.

A guy wanted two books on his son's reading list. We had one and not the other. Since he was carrying the first one when we found out we didn't have the second, he just handed it to me and said, "WELL, I can't make TWO trips," and walked out. Hey buddy, hate to burst your bubble, but regardless of whether you find both books elsewhere YOU HAVE ALREADY MADE TWO TRIPS. The way he said it sounded like he totally believed his statement was perfect common sense. I can't be expected to buy this from YOU if you don't have BOTH, can I? Well . . . that's up to you. But I have to say I hope he can't find that book anywhere else and ends up having to make more than two trips, just 'cause I'm a jerk and I hate when people just hand me shit to put back without even acting apologetic about it.

A guy came up to C/S and wanted "books on horses." I said we had such a section and asked if he wanted a particular one. "Um, a particular book? Oh, no, just horse books in general. It's called Horses in Harness." Yeah, take a quick double-take there. "No. I don't want a certain book, but the title of the certain book that I do want is this." So I replied, "So you DO want a particular book?" He kind of acted confused and I repeated back to him what he'd said and he clarified that yes he wanted a book and he thought it was Horses in Harness. Whatever. Confused me too.

11/29/04

I had a guy ask me for the newest Donald Trump book and he said he'd already checked where it should be. I took him back there to double-check and indeed we had all his books but that one. I told him there was a possibility it'd be on a display up front, and he agreed with me that that was why he'd asked; he thought maybe I knew something he didn't. As we were walking he goes, "Oh, there it is," and walks over to an endcap and picks it up. And then underneath that book are just other random books, and the endcap is about holiday thriller movies. It just happened to be the book he wanted abandoned by some unknown shitty customer. I told him, "Obviously you were MEANT to have this book." Heh.

A guy asked me, "Where's the Westerns?" and I confirmed that he did indeed want FICTION. He looked at me like I had just proved I was Martian when I asked him--like I don't know what Western fiction is, "well, WESTERNS," he said--but I took him over there and looked behind me and he was really far behind. When he arrived he said, "It looks like you've got ROLLER SKATES on, kid!" Heh.

Some lady went away from our interaction obviously thinking me incompetent today. She wanted the newest Zane book I guess, and when I looked it up it said it was only available if you place the order from the publisher. Usually that's for older books that are out of print and the only chance you have of getting a hold of them is to see if the people who made the damn thing even have their own book anymore. The lady gave me a sideways look when I explained this and she said, "But it was SUPPOSED to be out this month!" I scrolled down and indeed saw a November 2004 release date. I explained that in that case they probably haven't done their distribution to the big warehouses yet if they were still only offering it ordered straight from them. She just gave me this look and said, "Okay, thank you," with this extremely doubtful tone of voice and walked away. Maybe my assumed incompetence will be vindicated when she checks every other store in town and hears the same thing.

Someone at the Ocala store had an associate call our store to see if we had a book. We did. Then the guy over there asked him if he wanted it held and he said no. Brilliant. You want a book so you ask someone to call his branch in ANOTHER TOWN and see if it's on the shelf. Best case scenario: Yes, they have it, they'll hold it. And best case scenario comes TRUE. "No, never mind, I don't really want you to hold it or anything. In other words, I just wanted to waste your time and the girl at the Gainesville store's time, not to mention my own--I didn't bother to think about whether making this phone call had any point at all."

And in other news, a screencap of our employee website from today:

What's a "disocunt" anyway?

11/28/04

I had a lady call about a book about house concoctions and the title wasn't in our database, so I had her tell me the author. I had already typed it in--correctly--when she started spelling it. I just put up with it and then said, "Oh good, that's how I spelled it in the first place." She replied, "Can you spell 'concoctions'?" Excuse me? Oh, so that's what this is about? You think I didn't find the title because I can't spell "concoctions"? I told her I was actually an editor as well as a retail book slave and I did in fact know how to spell "concoctions." Then I read her the results of her search, which showed that despite other concoction-related books by the author, there was none with her title. I wonder if the original information mighta been wrong? Hrmmm.

A teacher came in and kept wanting weird quantities of kids' titles. "I don't suppose you have thirteen copies, do you?" Ahem. NO. Anyway, I found some of her books for her and some of them were Newbery Award winners and others were just the usual kids' fiction books. I took her back and forth to the two places a couple times and then she goes, "I didn't know they'd be in SO MANY PLACES!" Urgh, I hate that--it's this silly insinuation that I've got some kooky system that no regular person can figure out. It's not common sense to assume that there'd be a separated-out Newbery section, of course, but beyond that it's not rocket science. I explained we hadn't been to "so many places," just Kids' Fiction and Newbery. Finally she had one title I didn't recognize, and she didn't know the author. I offered to go look it up on the computer, but she said, "No, I'm sure I can find it if I just look for it in here." Umm, but you DON'T HAVE THE AUTHOR. And you DON'T KNOW IF WE CARRY IT. She started looking for it in the B's of Kids' Fiction, which gave me a little tummy ache because the title of the book started with B. "You'll need to know the author," I suggested weakly, and she replied, "OH, so are they in order by TITLE, or by AUTHOR?" "They are in order by the last name of the author," I said. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. This lady is a teacher. Help me. Help me.

11/27/04

People who point. At Customer Service sometimes people come up and they say, "Oh, I see my book, it's right THERE." And they're twelve, fourteen feet away. "Right THERE, right THERE," sometimes they squint their eye and line up their finger exactly. Guess what? I don't see what you see. I would like please for you to tell me your name. Because it is filed under your name. You pointing vaguely to the shelves behind me does not show me jack. Thank you!

A lady came up to C/S and asked where a certain author's books would be. I had heard of her and said she was a Christian Fiction author, and at that point she decided she had enough information to find a specific book of that author's. She started walking toward Bibles and Inspiration claiming she could find it now, and as I informed her that asking me to look up a title to see if we even had it would be advisable, she just kept walking away. Oh well. Guess what? She came back, completely lost and confused, and begged help from another associate, saying she just couldn't find a thing back there. Well. Don't walk away from me when I'm offering to help you next time and everything will be all better.

Ugh. Another associate and I were running the register together--I was her backup and we kept getting slammed so I just stayed up there with her until the person SHE was backing up came back. So we're two young girls standing there at the computers and this man comes up with an armful of wrapping paper and bows.

"Uh-oh, looks like somebody's having a birthday," the other associate said, and the guy launched into a story about how there was a birthday and a wedding and all these December events that his family has every year. From there they went on chatting about obligations for gifts and how you try to be smart and buy gifts ahead of time but then you forget you did that or you buy something and the person might not want it by the time the event comes around, blah-de-blah. Then he paid with a hundred and not many people had used that register yet so there were only fives to give him change with.

"I sure coulda used those LAST NIGHT," he said, with this air like we knew what he was talking about, and then he started launching into the history of "Well, the BACHELOR PARTY was last night."

He gave details.

We were kind of just standing there going okay, uh-huh, as he described how his friend got hauled up on the stage "and the girls were all rubbing up on him," he said that like four times, and he explained how they'd stripped off the guy's shirt and replaced it with a Café Risque shirt, and rubbed up on him, and how he yelled out, "Hey, I'm getting married tomorrow too, har har," and the girls, like, rubbed all over him and stuff. What the hell was he telling us that for. I kept kind of being like "ALLLL righty then" to try to cut him off because he was just not entertaining, but he kept going. Finally he left. YEAH.

I had a rude lady at the register. She bought a dictionary and I asked her if she had a discount card. She said she didn't and I asked her if she wanted one and for how much. She said "no" in a really rude way like what the FUCK do you think you're doing talking to me? Well, since I'm required to explain the card and because I don't really give a shit if some asshole is going to whine, I went ahead and told her the minimal pitch about how if she ever wanted one she could get one for ten bucks and save ten percent on everything in the store. She didn't reply (I didn't expect her to), but then I went on to give her her total, and I guess she was tuning me out and assuming I was still talking about the discount card because she said, "I KNOW, I don't WANT one, THANK YOU." So, undaunted, I completed the sale and asked her if she wanted a bag. "For the BOOK? YEAH . . . " she said. Okay, sweetie, I'm sorry your life is shitty or whatever, but that's no reason to be a jackass to me. I smiled and gave her the piece of paper to sign. She took one look at it and barked that this dictionary was supposed to be $6.97. Well, news to me--it rang up for like twenty-five bucks. As if I wouldn't believe her and was trying to cheat her, she started ranting about how there was a stack "this high" of dictionaries labeled $6.97, and told her daughter to go run and get one for me. I told her she didn't need to do that but the girl went running anyway. I explained that if she got it off a table I was sure she was right, it was a sale book, but since I had had nothing on the book (no sticker) to indicate it, I had had no way to tell where she'd gotten it. (That's a mistake on whoever put it out's part--they're supposed to make sure sale books are labeled as such.) I explained that I would take this credit card transaction out of the computer, find a sale book version of it in the inventory, and ring her up for that. She just was quiet while I did that, for some reason she didn't seem as mad as she had been earlier, so it was tolerable. Then her daughter came back with a book and she was like, "Mom, none of them had stickers on them." Why'd you bring me another frickin' useless one, then, genius? Eh whatever. I had already taken care of the thing and found a number to use in the computer, and she was like, "Okay, honey, just put that aside," and reached over and threw it on my counter. No, don't bother putting it back or anything, but that didn't bother me that much. Just the whole interaction overall was a pile of crap I did not need to kick off my holiday season.

Some lady on the phone called for a book and we had it and I offered to hold it. She kept cutting me off every time I tried to ask her information by telling me shit I didn't need, like that she had a discount card, when she would be over, where will the book be, blah blah. Know what? If you shut up and let me deal with this in the way of the pizza gods, I'd rapid-fire questions at YOU and find out only the shit I need to know to hold this book for you, and to hell with everything else that wastes my time. Damn!

A girl called and asked if the book she'd ordered was here yet. Since Saturday's our shipment day and a truck was due to arrive in the afternoon, I told her if she ordered it this last week her book would be on this truck but it wasn't here yet. "Okay, when will it be there?" she asked, and I said late afternoon like 4 or 5. She replied, "Okay, well I'll call back after like 12, thank you bye." Brilliant. You can call us when we STILL don't have our truck. Why do they call for specific information and then NOT LISTEN TO IT WHEN I GIVE IT TO THEM??

And the last fun one. We have Yu-Gi-Oh! League kids scattered all over the frickin' store on Saturdays. It doesn't ever surprise me when they come up to the desk and ask to use the phone and all sorts of other crap. So when this threesome of kids came up and asked me to hold their cards, folders, and jackets for them, I agreed. "When are you coming back to get them?" I asked, and the kid said, "Just in a little while." As soon as they were unburdened, one of them grinned at another one, and said, "OKAY!" and took off running, and then another one protested that someone else was "it." They went tearing off into THE HALLMARK SECTION, land of glass and gifts. Oh fuck no I'm not holding your shit so you can play tag in the store!

So, in a reaction very unlike me, I yelled at them. "EXCUSE ME, you're playing TAG in the store? No, I don't think so!" They stopped and one of them kinda looked at me. "Stuff can get broken like that. You're not running in the store." I didn't see them running again and one of them said to the other in my hearing distance, "No, we're not allowed to play in here."

Maybe I could have made it as an elementary school teacher after all.

NOT.

11/25/04

Thanksgiving! Yup. I worked Thanksgiving, and though I don't get time and a half I at least got a ten-dollar gift card for working. Exciting. We got a nice Thanksgiving dinner cooked by one of my managers--yay!--and we all got to sit around and talk and do nothin'. I did a lot of drawings today. And this one girl who works at the store called and specifically asked to come in for a while. "I'm bored," she explained. "I'm just sitting at home staring at my cat. I wanna come in." HAHA! Well, if you insist. . . .

11/24/04

I helped a man on the phone--he wanted a new edition of a book he already had. I found a 2000 edition and a 2002 edition that were both newer than the one he had, so I put the newest on hold and he came in to get it. But when he got to the store, the book wasn't really what he'd expected--it was thinner and looked like it didn't contain as much information. After some research, I managed to find out that the books were coded with the same title in the computer, but sort of had different subtitles--one was more an appendix for something else. We went to the section to see if the 2000 edition was available, and it was there, much to our delight. We noticed that that edition had been written by a woman AND a man who both had the last name "Balch." But the newer book, the one he didn't want, only had the woman's name on it. "I wonder if they got divorced," he pondered jokingly. Then he happened to turn around and spot an alternative health book with a similar title that was by one of the same authors, this time it was the GUY and his co-writer was another man. "Hmm, looks like Mr. Balch is writing books with someone new now," I said, and the guy replied, "Yeah, maybe this is his way of coming out of the closet!" We had a laugh on that one. I thought it was amusing. Especially since this guy was not like a hip young college student, he was definitely an older man and he was saying those kinds of things, it kind of made it funnier for some reason.

Hmm, another run-of-the-mill lady who came to Customer Service and put her books down and looked at me expectantly, and answered the question of "Do you have a question for me?" with "NO, I wanna BUY these." Boring. I probably shouldn't even mention these people anymore.

Ahh yes, this guy. A dude called and told me he wanted a book on the program Pinnacle Studio 8 or something. I looked it up and the computer showed a title in the Web Graphics section, so I checked the shelf. Those books are supposed to be in order by what program they apply to, so after checking after the Photoshop books and seeing no Pinnacles, I asked the guy if Pinnacle was like a sub-group of a larger company of software, maybe the way Acrobat is actually Adobe Acrobat or whatever. He told me he didn't know and kinda seemed confused as to why I'd ask that, so I explained that in order to avoid looking through the whole section book by book I had been hoping to find some other section it'd be filed under. "Well I guess you'd look in the COMPUTER section," he informed me. I couldn't disguise my laughter, so I treated him to a short chuckle and then tried to explain my position further. We didn't have the book, though, even after I went through the section in the dreaded book by book search. So I told him he could check with our other store or order it. He said he'd check, but then said, "Tell you what, I'm gonna leave you my number. If you do find it, give me a call." I agreed but just kinda shrugged, because . . . like, does he think that I'm gonna continue looking after digging through the whole section already? Maybe he was under the impression that since my computer said we carry it it means it IS in the store and my not coming up with it means it's in the store but I can't *find* it. Sorry, we also might be out! I'm not lookin' anymore!

And also this girl called and asked for a book, and though the computer said we carried it it wasn't on the shelf. I told her so and she said, "You're SURE it isn't in the store?" I told her "No." She said, confused, "You mean--you're saying you're NOT sure it's not in the store?" I said--and yes I actually said this--that I didn't have a button to push on the computer that makes the book light up wherever it is in the store or anything, so if someone picked it up and dropped it in Pets or whatever I don't have any way to tell, but we have no running inventory so there's no way to tell if a book we carry is 1) out of stock, 2) misplaced or 3) stolen. All we know is if we carry it or not. Hehehe.

There was a cute little boy today who came in the women's restroom. "My mommy told me to go in the ladies' room," he informed me on my way out. I told him that was fine--that happens all the time, though usually the mom is WITH them when they do that--and then he goes, "I'm getting bigger," with that little kid pride. Later I helped him and his mom with something and that kid was like a bundle of energy; he ran around and told me about how fast he can run. Cute.

11/23/04

A guy asked me for a nursery rhyme book with "all the nursery rhymes" in it. I showed him my Mother Goose section and he immediately--as in, without even so much as GLANCING at everything--said, "NO, not junk like THIS, I want a real book, like THIS BIG," and he held his fingers like two inches apart like he wanted an encyclopedia. I didn't much appreciate being told that this section was "junk" and being talked to like I'm incompetent for offering him THIS, so I didn't feel very inclined to, say, dig through sale tables or look up books to order like I would have with a nice person. I told him the Mother Goose section was really the only section I had that was nursery rhymes, and he goes, "NO, I want a REAL book please." I just told him I didn't have anything, and added that I was the children's expert so if there was anything else here I'd know. (And that's true--I don't know of any huge encyclopedic nursery rhyme book.) But I just foisted him off on the sale table and that was it. As I was walking away I heard him say, "These are NOTHING." ::sigh::

I got roped into watching the register while the register gal cleaned the bathrooms. While I was wandering around waiting for her, someone came up and asked me a question, but sort of in an indirect way. "You'd THINK books on BUDDHISM would be in RELIGION," she said, in a tone like I'm supposed to agree and roll my eyes since they aren't. I told her actually they're philosophy, and took her to that section. Then she asked for a specific book and I told her I didn't know that one but she could go to Customer Service and get the girl to look it up. "Yeah right," the lady said, confusing me. "No one's at that desk--no one's EVER at that desk." I told her I knew there was someone there because I just saw her over there helping someone else. "I went there and no one was there," she said, "and I waited like a WEEK." Another classic case of people who wait for a minute and leave in a huff or else hang around the desk watching to see if anyone shows up in such a way that we can't tell anyone NEEDS help (because they don't STAY there). Sigh. . . .

11/22/04

Some lady asked me for books on gun safety and I told her I didn't think there'd be any in the store but since it was in reference to hunting I took her to the hunting section. When we found nothing there I told her the only other options were Antiques, which deals with gun collection and values, and Magazines, which probably just has articles about hunting, collecting, or whatever. She wasn't satisfied. Then she said, "Well, nothing on GUN SAFETY? You'd think there'd be thousands. Would you check your computer for 'gun safety' and see what comes up?" I agreed to do that, but warned her that we'd already checked everywhere in the store that had anything to do with guns and that if I found anything it'd be something I'd have to order. Well, that turned out to be the case. And only one of the seven titles was available at all, and it was for little kids about how guns, like drugs, are baaaad. Or something. This lady went away thinking I just don't know how to do my job, because, well, you'd think there'd be thousands. I have a feeling she thinks they're out there and I just can't find them. ::sigh:: Sorry no one's written one. . . .

Someone on the phone was reading me titles and one title had the word "than" in it. And she spelled it for me. "T-H-A-N." As if I can't tell whether it's comparative or whatever. "I'd better tell the girl which 'than' to use--she works in retail, I'm sure she doesn't know her fourth grade grammar." Screw you pal.

I was ordering books for a lady and the easiest way to look someone up in the system is by their phone number, since those don't repeat while names kinda do. When I asked for the lady's phone number she was like, "Well it could be under MY name, which is such and such, but my husband orders books too, so it could be under such and such." I replied that I just wanted the phone number she wanted me to use. She responded by spelling her name. What is this about phone numbers that you cannot understand??

And I had another fun time with our favorite Harry Potter freak today. She accosted me in the café and told me three or four times that she was a writer. That's nice. I told her I was a writer too, and she kinda stopped like she hadn't expected to hear that, and then said, "Yeah, but how fast can you write?" I asked her what she meant, and she said, "I mean, how fast can you . . . CREATE??" I told her I didn't think there was a solid answer I could give to that question. At that point she produced a poem she'd written "just this morning" and made me read it. It was all about the strength of the heart and the meaning of friends. I told her it was sweet. Then my phone rang and I answered it. She kept talking for some reason. It was my district manager on the phone. I had to go to Customer Service after that and later she came back up and said accusingly, "WHY did you CUT ME OFF?" I told her I'd had to answer the phone and it had been my BOSS'S BOSS. I think my job kinda is more important than your philosophizing about your poem, and when I answered the phone I thought you were done.

With that she came over and gave me a stuffed animal of Happy from Snow White. She wouldn't give me a straight answer about why she was giving it to me or where she'd gotten it or whatever--just "at Disney." She said she was giving it to me because I was sweet. Umm sure I am. Then later she told me that the Series of Unfortunate Events books were ripping off Harry Potter. I asked her to explain that and she just pointed out as evidence that the drawing of Klaus looked like Harry Potter. Umm, well, a little, I guess:

I told her I didn't think having glasses on a dark-haired character meant it was a rip-off of Harry Potter. "I'm an expert," she said importantly, "and I'm fifty-two years old. I should know."

"Yeah, you should know," I replied, and that was the end of that.

11/20/04

Meeting day, what fun. Donuts = yay.

I had a nice customer this morning, and we were looking for a travel book, so while we were in there he saw a book on a country he used to live in and told me I should go there sometime. "That's right, you should travel," he said, "so study hard, get through school, and see the world." Uh-huh. I informed him that I was actually more than four years out of school and had already gotten a degree. "What are you doing workin'?" he asked in surprise, and I kinda told him my whole philosophy thing (i.e., that I don't want a career because I need something that puts food on my table while not taking up too much of my time while I pursue my writing career, et cetera). We had a nice talk and that was it. Heh. I find it amusing that people always assume I'm a college student.

I helped a guy find a book only to lead him to the section and find his family had beaten him there, having already asked for help at the desk. (This guy had just wandered up to me in the store somewhere and drafted me.) As I was walking away the guy was saying to his wife or whatever, "And you'd already found it, after I looked ALL over this store to find somebody--" The woman cut him off with a loud "SHHH!" They lowered their voices. Heh. I guess he was complaining that he couldn't find anyone and they must be whining about bad service and unavailability of helpers, but they didn't want me to hear it, ya know. Guess the guy didn't realize sound travels.

A parent and a kid approached the service desk and the kid (maybe twelve-ish) plopped down his stack of books and looked at me expectantly. "Can I help y'all with something?" I asked, and the kid just kinda gestured at his books and looked at me like I was incompetent. "OHHH, you want to BUY those. Okay, register's over THERE, I'm sorry, they don't give me a cash register here." Moral of the story: If the employee doesn't seem to know why you're there, chances are you're in the wrong place. I venture to say that if I could check people out and you came up with a stack of books, I'd probably commence ringing stuff up, huh? Don't look at me like I'm freakin' incompetent, okay?

11/17/04

A lady came in asking for the books we'd called her about and kinda drove one of our managers up the wall looking for them. (She just became a store manager after being in charge of the café, so bookstore stuff that's above and beyond the call of duty like finding a mysteriously missing order is bound to confound her.) I came in and tried to settle it, and the lady was kinda covering her mouth and saying she was now wondering if she made the order with Barnes & Noble. That would explain it. With the manager watching so she could do it next time, I told the lady I could look in the computer to see if she'd ever made an order with us. The lady responded by telling me her name. ::sigh:: I don't need your name, 'kay? I went to the screen I needed and punched up her phone number. No orders found. She asked if I would mind calling B&N and seeing if her order was there. I didn't mind and did so. While I was on the phone the B&N employee asked me for the lady's phone number and I stretched across to the other computer to read her the number on the screen. I read the area code and then the customer tried to butt in with the first three digits of her phone number, but I beat her to it as I was already telling the B&N person. Then I went to the next four digits of the phone number and the lady did it AGAIN, tried to prompt me with the numbers when I didn't ask her and didn't need them. That weirded me out . . . seriously, I can handle this even though I'm sure it's very confusing to you. So I was on hold and the lady was like apologizing and saying, "I NEVER go to that store, I don't know WHY I placed the order there, I WISH it was you guys 'cause I have your card," blah blah. Then she asked if she could pay for her other purchases at my desk, and I said we didn't have a register, but Café and Checkout do. "Who's Cathy?" she asked, perplexed. "No, no, café," I explained, and she goes, "OH." Then makes a confused face. "Can they check me out over there in the café?" Well what would give you THAT idea? The fact that I mentioned them when I was offering a sentence containing the information of where you could check out? Jeez. She just was a ball of mess, wasn't she? (And yes, B&N had her books.)

A lady came up to me while I was fixing a messed-up bit of Kids' Education, and said, "I need some help and there's no one at Customer Service." I replied, "Okay, what's your question?" Her answer: "Customer Service." That's not a fucking question. I understand that you want customer service help, possibly at Customer Service. But about half the time I know the answer to questions off the top of my head, so humor me here. ::sigh:: That's it.

Some dude called for a video game strategy guide for a certain game. I found it on the shelf and came back to the desk with a copy of it, and informed the dude that we had it. "What's inside it?" he asked, and he sounded kind of unnaturally excited. "What do you mean?" I asked, and he asked me if there were pictures. I told him there were some pictures. "Of what?" he asked, and I said it was some girl in a battle suit of some kind. He started giggling. (It is very disturbing to hear deep-voiced males giggle.) Then he said, "Does it have like cheat codes and stuff?" I flipped again and said, "It looks like it. Do you want me to hold it?" "It does, it has the cheat codes and stuff?" "It's a video game strategy guide. Do you want me to hold it or not?" He beat around the bush about how he lives down the street or something. "Listen, if you want me to hold it just give me a last name and I'll hold it at the Customer Service desk." Finally he consented to give me a name, an assurance that he was coming, and another disturbing giggle. I'm glad I wasn't there to see him come get it.

A lady asked me if she could rest her large pile of purchases at the desk while she shopped for one more thing, and I agreed. When she came back to collect her pile I asked if she needed any help up to Checkout. "Yes, do you have a small boy?" she said, and I was like HUH? "You know, a small boy to carry my packages. Haha, I'm just kidding." Ohhhkay. She went up to the checkout unassisted and I just shook my head.

Some lady wanted the Spanish version of an English title, and I told her I'd better search by the Spanish title because searching by English title usually doesn't get the Spanish results. She gave me the title and I asked if she knew the author and the English title for my reference, and she was kind of acting like "Oh you didn't understand me" because she wanted to write the title down for me. I can understand what you're saying and I didn't give any indication that I didn't, if I have a problem I can ask you for help, honestly. I searched by the author and found it, and even after I'd found it on the screen she told me again she wanted a piece of paper so she could write the title down for me. "I found it already, it's right here," I had to explain. She calmed down and let me do my job after that. I offered to print her out a copy of what I'd ordered just in case she was suspicious that I'd ordered the wrong thing. Truly, guys, just because I have light skin and blonde hair does not mean I can't understand Spanish. (I probably won't know what the hell you're talking about, but I can spell what you're saying.) This lady also had one of those Spanish names that could end in S or Z depending on where you're from, and when I asked her which it was she looked all blank and then realized I was talking about her LAST name. She said, "I was gonna say, there's no Z in my name!" You have more than one. Most of us do unless we are Madonna or Prince. Or Lassie.

11/16/04

Today a guy was completely flummoxed by the fact that my computer wasn't giving any information about his book. He'd given me the author and the title, and neither one was in the computer at all, so I told him that and he responded in the normal fashion: Repeating the information, spelling choice parts of it, and repeating again. I replied that I'd put in what he was saying already and there was no trace of this book. He paused, then said, "But how can that be??" Well, it can be because the book isn't distributed through the corporate retail chain for whatever reason, be it for local interest, special interest, or out of print or foreign, whatever . . . there are lots of reasons why my computer might not have access to that book. I told him so, and asked him where he heard about the book. "On the Internet," he said. Well, that means probably someone's got a book they can't get published but they're selling it through their website anyway.

A lady came in with a newspaper article about a book and according to my computer I can't get it except to order to an individual's home. The lady read me the part in the article that says "Available on Amazon.com and bookstores all over the country," and then gave me the whole "It says that and YOU DON'T HAVE IT???" speech. Well, it wasn't like we guaranteed that. They said it, not us. "It says 'bookstores all over the country' and you don't have it," she said again, "every time I come in here you don't have what I want." Yeah, well I'm sure that's indicative of us just sucking, huh? Ever thought maybe you want weird stuff?

Another lady wanted a book that wasn't coming up in my system; the author was in there, but none of the books attributed to her were available to me or even listed as existing. "Where did you hear about it?" I asked--this is usually a good question to ask because the answer usually gives me something to go on to justify why we don't have what they're looking for. Usually they say they found it on the 'Net or it's in a catalog or through their school or something. This lady replied, "It's a Disney book." Well that doesn't answer where you heard about it. I repeated my question and she said she's just seen it around at the toy store or whatever. Guess what? I think you're gonna have go to get it there, then, 'cause it was obviously some limited-run crap book that they distribute at places like that. Disney has done that a lot actually.

Some lady came in asking for "the CHRISTIAN Christmas books." I told her we didn't really have a section for what she was looking for, but showed her a few places she could shop, and as I led her around she kept making these prissy self-righteous statements like "Oh it's all about SANTA CLAUS nowadays" and "People forget that we're celebrating HIS BIRTHDAY." Well. I didn't say anything and just kind of foisted her off on a display to browse, but I can get self-righteous too. Actually, the Christmas season doesn't celebrate "His birthday." I suppose they had to pick sometime to celebrate it if they wanted to celebrate it, but plenty of stuff in the Bible points to the fact that the actual date could not have been in the winter, and celebrating it in spring would probably get it all muddled up with Easter. The reason it's celebrated in December? Winter Solstice. What the Pagans use as symbolism during that time? Birth of the Sun God, child of the Goddess. Sound about right? Yeah, it made conversion a little easier back in the day. Christmas trees? Yule logs? What do those have to do with Jesus? About as much as colored eggs and chickens--fertility symbols of the Pagan festival of Ostara--have to do with Easter, guys. It's a bunch of Pagan stuff. So if you're going to get whiny about how no one knows "the reason for the season" anymore, think about why YOU celebrate Christmas when you do, huh?

End rant mode.

A lady asking me for the book she had on hold spelled her last name for me and then added, "It starts with S." Well, I kinda already knew that since the first letter you said was S and when you said your name it made the "S" sound. I can understand giving me some clarification if I come up with nothing and you think I might've misheard you saying "F," but c'mon. Gimme a little credit, I'd rather be assumed competent before you treat me like I'm incompetent.

Yeah that one was petty. Sorry.

And a funny one: This lady was wandering around and finally came to me claiming she'd JUST seen a book with a pink cover that had something to do with ten rules for losing a man or something. She said she saw it walking from the café to the back of the store and now that she's looking for it again she CAN'T FIND IT. After assuring her we didn't move anything in the last ten minutes, she asked if I could show her where "books like that" would be, and since I wasn't incredibly clear on what the book WAS about (and she couldn't tell me), I did some keyword searching. Came up with nothing. "This is ridiculous," she kept saying, and I'm *hoping* she was talking about her own goofiness in not picking it up when she should've--probably if she meant my inability to help her was ridiculous then she would have been rude about it and she wasn't. I suggested maybe it was somewhere else she'd walked and seen it, but she insisted she didn't GO to the other side of the store at all. Finally after her saying "This is ridiculous" a few more times, she hopefully asked if there was a way I could search books with pink covers (yes, because that'd go over well--a system indexing every book under a finite and small grouping of cover colors). Finally I turned her loose, unsuccessful. Before she left, she came back and told me she had found it and it was actually on that other side of the store she said she hadn't been to: "I forgot I went over there to go to the RESTROOM!" she said. I agreed with her that it was great to have that mystery solved, and then off I went with the rest of my day.

11/15/04

A lady came up and asked my manager for a magazine that doesn't arrive in our store until tomorrow. She told the lady so, to which the lady replied, "Would it be possible to get a copy out of the back today even though it's a day early?" My manager kinda blew a gasket and barked at her that SHE WOULDN'T GET IT UNTIL TOMORROW. I hate when people don't listen, but my manager hates it even more. She calmed down and explained a little more that they overnight them in a special drop shipment for Tuesday dropoffs, we aren't sitting on them in the back. I think everyone who doesn't work in retail thinks we just hide things in the back all the time, and that they never have an actual arrival time; they're just created and born out of air in the back room and sit there.

And speaking of which, a woman wanted to know if the new Harry Potter is out yet. New? Well, the last one came out in June of LAST YEAR, so I assumed she wasn't talking about that. I informed her that there wasn't even a release date on the horizon, and she looked at me like I was being cruel. Heh. Then she wanted to know if James Patterson had "anything new." Considering "new" was a wild card in her world, I asked her what the latest thing was by him that she'd read, and she looked completely befuckled and said, "I don't know what I read last!" I replied, "Well, then I don't know what's new to you," and she goes, "You tell me!" Ohhhkay. (I read off the most recent one, and she hadn't heard of it, so I sent her away to go get it and didn't hear from her again.)

A lady called for one of our managers, mispronouncing her name and getting upset when I said she wasn't here. "She told me to call today," she protested, and I informed her that that manager would be here later today, just she wasn't there yet. "Well it IS the day!" she barked back, and I think she must've misheard me and thought I said that manager works during the day or something. Then she wanted me to give the manager a message saying she called, but when I asked if she wanted to be called back she went, "NO, I'm calling from WORK, that's why I called because she said she'd be there TODAY." So . . . what am I saying in this message again? The lady told me her name and her situation but still gave me no information about what she wanted me to do with it since she didn't want to be called back. I hung up with her still unsure of what she thought I was gonna do.

11/14/04

So this lady called and asked for a book, and I put her on hold and searched for it. Armed with a verdict, I returned to the phone but . . . no one was there. What it sounded like was that either someone had put the phone down or someone had put it on speakerphone, because I could hear someone talking about recipes in the background but no one was responding when I said "hello?" a few times. So I hung up. Then not too long afterwards the lady called back and claimed that we'd gotten "cut off." Well, I went and told her that I'd come back and no one was there--that doesn't constitute getting cut off--but she just repeated, "Well I guess we got cut off or something, so did you have it?" No, what actually happened is you didn't feel like waiting or maybe you had a little mini-emergency and couldn't wait for me to come back and left me talking to the air, then you figured you'd blame it on getting cut off. C'mon. Own up. I hate that.

My manager and I were talking about annoying Christmas songs and I mentioned a really awful one that was on our loop last year called "Santa Baby." He didn't remember it so I started like acting it out and singing it, and this guy walked by and kind of grouchily informed me that "Santa Baby" was by Eartha Kitt. So? I told him that actually there had been two different versions of it on our loop last year and I didn't know whether either of them was by Eartha Kitt, but then he started kind of gruffly informing me again that "Santa Baby" was by "a black lady" named Eartha Kitt, Eartha Kitt, that's her name, that song's by a black lady named Eartha Kitt. Um? I'm not sure what was going on there but I got the sense that he was all proud of the fact that he knew this bit of culture and figured I was so ignorant not to know it and probably didn't even know who Eartha Kitt was, oh horrors. As he was walking away I called, "Eartha Kitt played CatWoman." I know who friggin' Eartha Kitt is. But it wouldn't have mattered if I didn't. Bleh. Can you tell I'm irritable? I'm taking everything in the worst light.

A lady came in with a piece of paper sporting what seemed to be a title or a partial title. As I was typing it in she said, "But I don't know if that's what it's called." I replied, "Well, what is this that you're giving me, if it's not the title?" "I don't know," she said. Nothing with that title came up so I asked her if she had, ya know, any information about the book. She didn't. I still don't know what that bit of information was supposed to be or why she presented it to me if it wasn't a useful part of what she was looking for.

A girl came in saying she wanted a book called The Code. My manager was helping her and found several books entitled "The Code," but none of them sounded like it because "It's sort of like a game book." After none of them sounded right and she was getting books that weren't just called "The Code," she asked my manager where "books like that" would be in the store if we had them. "Well what kind of 'game book' are you saying it is?" she asked, and the girl just kind of vaguely blathered about how it was like this game book, and it was really old, and you, like, play games out of it. "I don't see anything that's just called 'The Code' that's like that," my manager said, and the girl replied, "Well it might not be called that, I don't know. Where would books like that BE in the store?" So, back to square one. My manager suggested, at a loss for anything else to do, that it would be in Games and Puzzles, to which the girl replied, "Well it's not really a game, I'm not really sure what you'd call it. But where would books like that be?" So, here's the information we have so far: It might NOT be called "The Code," and it's sort of a game type book but it isn't a game book. Where is that, please? After the girl went away, my manager asked me, "Is it just me or did she REEK of booze?" I tried not to get that close, so I didn't notice.

11/13/04

Some guy came up and told me he wanted a certain book on tape. When I found entries for audio versions of the book in the computer and confirmed with him that he only wanted tape, not CD, he replied, "Yeah, only tape, I'm not that high-tech yet." I kinda laughed, but then he told me his wife had a tape player and then asked me whether tapes were those little round things. WHAT?? I told him that tapes were not round but it sounded like he meant CDs. "No, CDs are square, right?" I assured him that CDs were round. Jeez.

And another fun audio book bungle today. A couple ladies wanted "Dr. Phil's book on tape." I asked WHICH Dr. Phil book and they wanted "the latest," so I went over to show them and we determined that they were talking about Family First. So I grabbed the audio tape version and handed it to one of the ladies, and one of them replied, "Well no, I want the other kind . . . the one you LISTEN to." I assured her that that was a tape. "No, this is a video, isn't it?" I told her again that it was an audio tape. Then she apologized and told me it looked just like a videotape. It was about the same size as a videotape box, sure, but I thought it was odd that in a bookstore she specifically asked for a book on tape and then that was exactly what I gave her and she thought it was something else.

11/10/04

The roofers are working on our crappy roof again and the tar smell was kinda strong today. Some lady came up to me to inform me that "a vehicle" was out back pumping in diesel smoke or something. I told her actually it was the roofers with their tar, and she replied that it was VERY strong toward the back of the store and that it was making it hard to breathe. (Of course this was followed by a look like I was supposed to do something about this . . . like because she complained I should run up there brandishing a broom and start screaming, "Shoo, shoo dirty roofers! One of our customers doesn't like the way you smell!") Guess what? I don't like the smell either but at least you can leave. :( I on the other hand have been dealing with this for a month or something. Yup, it stinks. Sorry!

I was going into the café to wash my cup from my coffee. As I did so I saw someone approach the café counter and figured maybe the girl who works in the café would of course be nearby to help her, but when I just went over to the sink like I always do and started washing my cup I saw the customer was standing there at the counter, having followed me along the counter until she could not go any farther, apparently forlornly hoping that trailing me would cause me to take her order. When I turned around and noticed she was there she just had this perfect "OhIWantSomethingShe'sNotTakingMyOrderWHY?????" expression on her face. I belatedly realized that most people would of course assume that anyone who walked behind the counter was there to take coffee orders; she wouldn't understand that I'm from the bookstore (different apron, ya know) because why would she look at that? I stepped back out to tell her that oh I didn't work there but the café girl would be back in just a sec, then I went back to work. I don't know why I wrote this in here because there was nothing particularly amazing about it. I think I just liked that look on her face, it was so transparently "OhMyGodMyWorldIsTurnedOnItsEarBecauseIDon'tKnowHowComeSheIsn'tAskingMeWhatIWant!" And I didn't even realize she was thinking I was supposed to because I don't ever, ya know, help people from behind there.

Jeez, this one lady I've helped with stuff before came in again and started being really irritating to talk to. She told me she knew I work in the kids' section and she's asked me for help with kids' books before, but she wondered if I could help her with a (gasp) NON-KIDS' question. And then before I could really get in a word to assure her that I was rest-of-the-store competent, she began filling in all these reasons for why she would understand if I couldn't--explaining to me (like I don't know) that I am the kids' specialist and that if I can't help her she will go to Customer Service but there's no one there and could I get someone if that is I could not help but maybe I can because she doesn't really know but maybe do I know about anything other than Kids'? Um, if you'd stop filling in the space between us with reasons why I can't help you, we'll be able to get started on me helping you.

So then she told me her predicament and it was just that her hubby isn't a big reader but likes stories and drives a lot so she was thinking audio books but did we even HAVE those because she isn't sure and she didn't know if maybe we could order those and maybe he would like them and well she would understand that maybe we don't have those because this is a BOOKstore and not a TAPE store but-- "YES, we have a whole AUDIO SECTION, let me show you."

We start talking about what to get. Bottom line is, she has no frigging Earthly idea what her husband would like and despite the fact that I made a few suggestions based on his previous preferences she wants me to make the decision for her so she can hem and haw about whether he will like it. I suggested John Grisham at one point and she began with "I've heard of him but never read him, what are his books about?" I opened my mouth to tell her that they were basically lawyer drama thingies. But then before a word got out she said, "Like are they more adVENture, or is it kind of an action or a mystery, I wasn't sure, I mean I have never read anything by him, but do you know what kind of books they are? Because I've heard they're GOOD but no idea if, well, do you know? Because he likes adventure and maybe he might. . . . " I just kind of stood there with my mouth open, just absolutely waiting for her to stop talking for A SECOND so I could ANSWER THE QUESTION. I looked right at her as she kept talking and talking. Finally she stopped on something like "so do you know what kind of books they are?" I replied, "I CAN TELL YOU." That just so should not have been a multiple choice question. Especially since the answer was E. None of the above, which is not useful in this situation! Lord.

Today one of our newer associates told me the story of meeting Mr. Wise. She had heard my horror stories and the horror stories of others, and then she got this dickwad at the register. He was saying he wanted a discount card and she said she'd put it on the end of his sale but he insisted he wanted to get the card first and THEN purchase his book because then he'd get the discount. She explained to him that getting the book at the same time as the discount card was the same thing and she could do it more easily with one transaction, but he just leaned down on her and barked out his usual stream of horseshit: "This isn't such a difficult thing. If you can't figure out how to do it I'll just leave." She just shrugged and rang him up the way his stubborn ass insisted, and was wondering all the while whether this was the jackass she'd heard about; after all, he was just such a jackass and he fit the description and he was exhibiting the usual behavior that is just about too rude to be true. Finally for the card information she had to ask for his name and he replied, "The name's WISE." Bingo! Jackass jackpot! We all knew there could only be one. . . .

11/9/04

Ohboy! Assholes! First off someone left me part of a sandwich. On the bench of our train display. Just, ya know, a piece of bagel or something, with something as unidentifiable as it was disgusting smeared on it, just slobbed onto the bench and left there. I would not expect such behavior at a RESTAURANT and those places SERVE food. Good lord.

I had a lady ask for help finding books on bottles. She wanted some kind of pricing guide for soda bottles and couldn't find the kind of information she wanted in the few books we did have in the store on the subject. I did a broad search of every book containing the word "bottles" and only came up with two books in the store and more books I could order (and she wasn't interested in doing that). Then she started doing that thing I really hate: Trying to help me with useless suggestions and then not understanding when I explain why that doesn't help. "Try putting in 'beverage bottles,' does that help?" It does not help to further narrow a search when a BROAD search on ALL THINGS BOTTLE does not come up with a damn thing you haven't already looked at. And then this: "Well what about 'soda bottles'? S-O-D-A." Guess what? First off, that's useless for the SAME REASON that I just explained for the previous suggestion. And secondly, I know how to spell "soda." When I came up with some books that looked like they might have her information but unfortunately would have to be ordered, she replied, "Well, I didn't see them BACK there." Well, that's why I said, "They would have to be ordered," and furthermore if you had seen them back there why would you be at this desk asking? Obviously you didn't see them back there. ::sigh::

11/3/04

Some lady wanted Rush Limbaugh's books. I went ahead and assumed he'd written any (seems like he should have or would have) and took her to Politics, but all I found there was David Limbaugh. I told her I'd check the computer to find out if there were any we were supposed to have and nothing really came up except something that's not available and something that isn't out yet and he's only one of three authors listed on it, which probably means he wrote the forward or something. I went back and asked her if there was a certain title she wanted, and she replied, "No, not really--just anything good, where he says a lot of stuff." I don't think I can deal with something so specific. . . .

Had a lady who frustrated me. She came up with this box set of rock-n-roll CDs, some like classics package, and asked me if I could find out for her what other styles of music this company makes these box sets for and how she can get one. I noted that it had a ten-digit number on it, so I tried it as an ISBN search but nothing was in the computer, which didn't really surprise me because as a general rule we don't CARRY music. I glanced at the tag and it said "Key 58," which for our inventory is the code for music, and in other words it doesn't come in with our regular shipments and was acquired simply because someone at home office or in the buyers' club decided they were going to let this vendor send some of their crap to each store on a one-shot deal. I explained this to the lady, and she replied, "Now there MUST be some way you can find out more than that." I assured her that since as far as the computer was concerned this product didn't exist, I knew no more than she did. "We don't normally get this kind of product, it's some special deal and at the store level we can't request more." She then pressed me to tell her whether I was the only person who would know, and at that point I decided she probably just thought I was telling her lies to make her go away, and so I dropped the bomb that I'd been with the store four and a half years and had never had any way to order things like this, and that I would be glad to call my maanager to tell her the same thing if that was what she wanted me to do. She said that she WOULD like me to do that because maybe there was something I just didn't happen to know. Heh--when my manager came up she was even more vague than I was, saying stuff like "I have NO idea, sorry," not even attempting to explain the "why" of it to her. I suggested she check out the name of the company on the Internet and/or deal with a retail store that CARRIES music. The lady didn't act rude to me, but I definitely got the feeling that she is used to dealing with incompetent people, thinks herself competent in "handling" them or making them perform, and thought I fell into that category. ::sigh::

I was on the phone with a customer when I heard this lady chasing me down calling, "Excuse me!" I turned and pointed to the phone so she could see I was not rude but already engaged, and she responsed by calling, "EXCUSE ME!" again more insistently. I turned around and pointed to the phone again, and her yelling had caused me to miss what the lady on the phone was saying and I had to ask her to repeat herself. As I was doing that some other employee came out of an aisle and the lady practically attacked him, yelling, "SIR!!" I didn't stay to find out and continued helping the lady. When I was off the phone I asked that associate what the evil lady had wanted and he said, "Oh, she just wanted to know where's the bańo." Jeez! Well, it does suck that she was gonna have to wait for the end of my phone call to ask me that, but last time I checked we are either adults who can take care of our bodily needs before they become emergencies or else we are adults in diapers. There was no reason to interrupt me; you aren't just being rude to ME, you're being rude to MY customer, and, well, she happens to have been first in line. Tough on you!

11/2/04

Today before work . . .

A guy called and said he was looking for a newspaper called The Weekly Standard. I told him I'd never heard of it and we'd never carried it, and asked if it was by any chance a magazine. He said it wasn't, then grilled me about where he could get it. Finally he hung up and soon enough he CALLED BACK with the SAME QUESTION, but strangely enough it was different in one important way: "I was calling to see if you have a magazine called The Weekly Standard." No, I didn't notice that you'd changed your tune. . . . Hehe. :)

Someone had a question about the American Girls contest, about which I know nothing. Another associate yelled over to me and asked me, while I was on my way helping another customer, whether I knew anything about if we had more entry forms to win the dolls. I called back that I knew about the contest but no, nothing about where to get more forms. Then I realized that despite the fact that I was not in any way able to help her and despite the fact that no one had told her I was going to help her, the lady started following me. And she was talking about how there was one order form for a contest already over and none for the contest that was still going on. I told her I had no idea about any of it and continued helping the person I was with, and she walked past me and went up to go out the door by the cashier. Obviously she'd asked the cashier about the contest first, because the girl behind the register said, "Any luck?" "No," she replied, "because they keep on just sending me to different people." Then she walked out. Well, I don't know what happened before, but nobody "sent" your butt to me! I think it's unprofessional of us not to know anything about our own contest and stuff, but that's why you ask for a manager and the manager either knows or offers to find out; you don't just start following associates around when they already said they have nothing to do with that. Sorry!

I helped a lady find a book today and after I put it in her hand she asked if we had a "library discount." I told her what discounts we did have but that none of them fell under the title of "library discount." Then she gave me the book back and told me that she would get it at Barnes & Noble. I find this very tacky. You don't have to announce that you are going to the competition--I really can't think of a constructive way to do that. You are talking to someone who has no control over the policies of the store, and you know that, so there's no reason to tell them you're going somewhere else, as if THEY personally haven't done enough to satisfy you. Telling someone that low on the totem pole that you are going to the competition is not going to help change anything, so sorry if that was your intent . . . and if it wasn't, then I don't know what your intent could possibly be. . . .

So one lady came up to the customer service desk and gave me an author's name. She didn't know the name of the book she was looking for, though. When I read off what was likely to be the right title, she called over to some companion of hers in the faraway Christian Living section: "What was that book called?" The companion called back the same title I'd just read off, so since it matched I said, "Yeah, that's the one." Well, imagine my surprise when the lady at the desk hollered back to the lady in Christian Living: "She says she's got it!" Wait, I missed the part where I said that. I actually broke in and said, "I didn't say we have it." And as a matter of fact we didn't! I found one at the other store for her though. Beh, don't put words in my mouth dammit!

Two people complimented me on my voice today. One said I was singing the Christmas carols really pretty and one told me he'd heard me singing a while back and thought it was the radio. Whee!

A guy came up claiming we didn't have any of the Left Behind audio books. I took him right to them and he pointed to the last ones on the shelf and asked, "This is all you have?" I had to bewilderedly show him that that was just the last few, there were like tons, right in front of his face, and I don't know what made it so tough to move his eyes. I pointed out that they weren't in the right order of the series; instead of ordering them by the order they come in sequentially, someone had put them in alphabetical order by title, which is not so surprising because there are no numbers on the sides of the books. Then the guy said that he hadn't been able to find it because "This is out of order but everything ELSE is in alphabetical order." I didn't know what he meant by that and informed him that yes, everything was in alphabetical order, and that these books were no exception. So he pointed out the authors' names to me. Which also didn't make sense because IT WAS RIGHT. I think he realized that when I told him it was right where it was supposed to be, just not in the series order like 1-2-3. I don't know what made this so difficult but he was just lost.

A woman came up and asked for my help, saying the register guy had referred her to me. "I thought he was kidding," she explained, "but he wasn't at all. You really DO have pigtails. And you really ARE very little." Guess I got referred to as "that little girl with the pigtails" again. Oh fun.

The end (for today)!

11/1/04

In light of the political bullshit going down in the United States of America, people have decided to voice their votes by subversively about-facing books they don't agree with. They come in and walk around the store turning books that are faced out so that their backs are showing or turning books that are spined so their pages face out, so that the titles cannot be seen, if they are political books written by the other side. We keep finding books by Michael Moore and Rush Limbaugh and all the political people turned around. Know what? I don't like certain writers either, but I am not going to try to hide the product because I think someone else might read things I don't agree with. You have to respect the other side, dammit--don't play games. Not to mention that you're not doing anything but making more work for bookstore employees who don't give a shit what you believe. And you're not damaging Ann Coulter's sales either.

Today I was on break and some woman wandered into our back room and yelled, "Where's the bathroom?!" I had my face full of apple (as it was, ya know, my LUNCH break), and so it took me a moment to chew and swallow before responding. Before I could do so the lady repeated "BATHROOM???" with a coaxing hand motion. Oh, I'm sorry I didn't just spit out my bite in order to answer you immediately. I swallowed and cleared my throat and said, "ExCUSE me," to show her my mouth had been kind of in the MIDDLE of something, and then told her where the bathroom was. "Where's that?" she demanded, and I gave her a more specific set of directions and she went away. You're welcome!