8/31/05
Got a customer who needed to be taken to Self-Help, and so when we got there I started doing that out loud "Okay, here's the H section, let's see, I, J, K . . . " while I'm looking for the Ls so that she knows it's in order, and then AS I'm doing that she goes, "Now will this be by the title of the book or by her name?" Good God. Is that a serious question?
I've said this before but I'll say it again: WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND ORGANIZES A BOOKSTORE BY TITLE?
Anyway.
A parent looking to buy an audio book for her kid who doesn't want to do his assignment asked me for several of his required reading books in audio versions. I could only order the ones she needed, we had none in the store, so she finally decided to get one on order and I had to narrow it down to what version she wanted. I came up with an abridged CD and an unabridged tape, which is kinda inconvenient since you'd think they'd have both unabridged and abridged of both formats, but hey, if you don't wanna do your school reading you gotta deal with what they got. So anyway I asked which she wanted and she goes, "What's the difference between ABRIDGED and UNABRIDGED?"
I think we've found out why this child has no value of literature. His parents are nincompoops.
A woman came up and asked for Cliff's Notes, and I directed her to them instead of taking her there because I was with a customer. Later she was back and she said, "I couldn't find them." To clarify, I asked if she hadn't found the Cliff's Notes section at all or if she just couldn't find the one she wanted, and she said, "I just didn't find it at all." So I went to go take her there and after I'm already walking she goes, "I think you're all out." So again I tried to figure out if she'd found Cliff's Notes but not the one she wanted, or never made it to the section. And again she was totally unclear. I couldn't get her to say yes or no, she just kept saying vague stuff like "Well I didn't see it." Finally I figured out that YES she had found the section but NO she had not found the guides for The Three Musketeers, so then she's wanting to know if we "have it" and I just said, "No, if it's not there we don't have it." I offered to order it for her and then she's like, "Well do you have it on audio?" I began to look and she advised me, "You know, like on CD or tape?" Yup, I know what "audio" means. We didn't have it and she was trying to hint at ordering that, but I knew by the way she was talking that she was trying to do it this way because her kid hadn't bothered to read the book and was now in a time crunch, so I had the pleasure of telling her that if she ordered it today it'd be about ten days before we got it. She looked all shocked and agreed with me that that wouldn't do and then said, "I wonder why THAT is??" Like this is something ridiculous, ya know, like ten days is way too long. I told her exactly why that is: You already missed the date to get it this weekend and we only get shipments once a week, so you're bumped to next week. Sorry, you're fucked!
A dude wandered up to me clutching a sale Bible and he said, "Do you have any more Bibles?" ::choke:: DO WE HAVE MORE BIBLES?? I asked him incredulously if he meant just like that one, or just on sale or what, but then he repeated that he wanted to know if we had more Bibles in the store, because he only found one or two. Confused, I took him to the HUGE BIBLE SECTION which probably has like two thousand Bibles in it, and he goes, "Oh, thanks, I never made it up this far." Obviously. Don't bother to look up and notice the "BIBLES & INSPIRATION" sign on the wall in letters that are each quite a bit larger than your head.
Now we come to my favorite of the day: Thesaurus lady.
This lady was standing in front of the thesaurus section browsing confusedly. I asked if I could help her and she said, "I'm looking for a book of synonyms." I told her you can get all the synonyms you can eat from a thesaurus, and she began to explain to me in this annoyed voice that a thesaurus was not what she wanted; she wanted a BOOK OF SYNONYMS. Further explaining that she HAD one and it's OLD and she wants a NEW one, the woman continued to browse, and I told her again that thesauruses ARE books of synonyms but she stood firm. I found a small paperback that said "Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms" and handed it to her, and she complained, "No, I want just the synonyms." Oh my shit. Lady? Will it make you happy if I take out a Sharpie™ and scratch out the word "Antonyms"? Or do I need to go through and scratch out all the actual antonyms for her? Okay, and what could she possibly think is in a thesaurus besides a bunch of synonyms??
For your amusement:
thesaurus: (noun) 1 : TREASURY , STOREHOUSE ; 2 a : a book of words or of information about a particular field or set of concepts; especially : a book of words and their synonyms; b : a list of subject headings or descriptors usually with a cross-reference system for use in the organization of a collection of documents for reference and retrieval.
I rest my case.
8/30/05
Oh, fun with the associate-summoning bell!
First, two customers standing together at the desk pushed the bell and up I came. I asked if they needed help and the woman, giving me a sour look, pushed her books at me and said she was ready to buy them, while her daughter stood there glaring at me as she filled out a COMMENT CARD. Uh-huh. I told them this wasn't where you go to check out and sent them to the proper place, but I do have to wonder if that whiny note--I mean, comment card--was a bunch of junk about how no one was waiting for them when they wanted to give us their money. Well, actually the company FORBIDS us to stand at the desk waiting for customers (though we're supposed to make sure we keep an eye on the desk), so get over it if you have to use the bell sometimes to get our attention.
The other fun with the bell involved a man who pushed it while I was stocking in the kids' section. I started walking toward the desk and when the man spotted me, he gave me this "hello!!!" look and started sarcastically pounding the bell as he looked at me walking toward him! Guess what, dude? Not only does the bell not make me walk faster, but it DOES make you look like a DICKHEAD and it WILL make me less inclined to serve you nicely. Which is what happened when the guy snipped his shitty attitude at me while trying to find a particular Bible-oriented study thing. As I was searching for it he kept on repeating bits of the information he'd given me already, as if I was forgetting them or didn't understand that it was by Nelson and that was the problem. I didn't find the book in the system but I told him we might have some luck just looking in the section where books on how to interpret the Bible are, and he snapped and sniped and snipped some more the whole way, badgering me by giving me the same information and snottishly informing me that what HE wanted was PAPERBACK when I pointed out that there was something similar in the section. And then all of a sudden the dude said, "Well, they stopped printing it in 1986." Okay, well considering it's been out of print twenty years now I think that's a safe bet that we won't have it. When I said so, the dude said, "But they started printing it again in a new version recently!" Then it's not OUT OF PRINT is it?? Then they didn't stop printing it twenty years ago now DID THEY?? I just told him a Christian bookstore would have better luck with something so specialized and by the end of the conversation he actually seemed to have calmed down somewhat and thanked me--maybe he just needed to see evidence that I was actually trying and not attempting to be lazy or brush him off--but the ending of the interaction was uneventful.
Okay, so today was Tuesday and that's kind of a toss-up day for whether a book ordered will come this weekend or next. I tell this to anyone who orders a book on Tuesday. So this woman came in looking for a book we usually carry but were out of, and after I called the other store for the book and they didn't have it either, the lady started asking about ordering. I told her the deal and she said, "Oh, but I have to have it by Wednesday." Boo, there's a good possibility it won't be here by then. So then she wanted to know if it'd be possible to call Ocala, see if they had it, and then have it sent to her by mail. Umkay . . . no. Best I can do to have it ordered is get it from the warehouse delivered straight to her house. Still looking at four, five days. But then it turned out SHE MEANT THIS WEDNESDAY. As in TOMORROW. And she was expecting that Ocala could, like, overnight it to her. Hey lady? This is why you don't go shopping for the book for your class THE DAY BEFORE.
My manager had an Asshole too. A woman called and her opening line was "I was wondering if you had a website where you can see. . . . " My manager waited for her to finish the thought, but then the girl made an impatient noise like, hey, why aren't you answering me. Um, see WHAT? It became apparent she was hoping the website would tell her remotely what is on our shelves. Sorry, honey, our computers in the store with us can't even do that.
8/29/05
A brisk-speaking woman called in the morning informing me that she was a publicist for some local author who'd be doing a book tour in our area, and she wanted to call and see if we had his book in stock . . . and that if we did not, she wanted to "short-list" it.
"If we don't have it you want to order it?" I asked, not sure I understood, and she snapped back, "NO, I want you to SHORT-LIST it!"
Just to put things in perspective, I guess if "short-list" was a commonly used non-jargon term I probably would have heard it at least once after working in a bookstore for FIVE YEARS, but apparently I'm incompetent for not knowing what "short-listing" a book involves.
I gave her to my manager, but to tell you the truth I don't see what else she could have wanted me to do besides either find the book if we had it or order it if we did not. We have no way of, like, ordering a book but not actually receiving it, or putting a book on a quicker-access status or whatever. I just don't know what she wanted us to do.
And in other news, a woman wanting "Civil War fiction" was annoyed at my claim that we don't have a section for that and claimed, "Well you USED to." I guess it was more than five years ago, because we've never had a Civil War fiction section while I've been here. . . .
And a non-asshole but funny moment in Personal Growth with an older woman looking for books on sociopaths. The woman was browsing the books looking for her topic and picked one up from the bottom shelf, showing it to me. "Oh, this is something I've always wanted to see," she said sarcastically, and the title of the book was The Clitoral Handbook. She seemed disturbed but not embarrassed, so I pointed out that the Wellness books were right next to the sexuality section and that sometimes those books wander. She understood. Hehehe.
8/28/05
Someone called on the phone and after I finished my spiel I heard, "Uhhhh. . . . Hello?" I replied, "Hello," and the person goes, "Uh, hello??" again. I was like, how many times do I have to prove to you that you have reached a living person? Anyway, then the caller proceeded to ask me for a book that turned out to be a textbook and acted all confused when I informed them that we don't really do textbooks and they are going to have to go to the college bookstore. Urgh.
Another phone call had a man asking me, "Do you guys have the latest Harry Potter?" All right, what kind of loser bookstore would not have that? But I answered nicely and informed the guy that yes indeed we had the new HP. The dude went on to ask how much it was and I told him, and then after I was finished he said, "Okay, and . . . and you DO have it?" Is your short-term memory really that bad or are you just not listening to yourself?
8/27/05
This week I hate frickin' people I put on hold who do this particular prompting thing. See, our mobile phone at the store sucks. It does not properly transfer calls or do anything really except let us answer the phone remotely and take people with us on the search to find books. Now, that means that in order for me to page someone to take a phone call or to transfer a call to another store phone, I have to get the call OFF the mobile phone onto the regular customer service phone which DOES have powers. And in order to do that I take the call OFF hold, pick it up on the customer service phone, and hang up the mobile phone, and finally click the person back onto hold. This registers to them as a temporary click out of hold music and then back.
There is a small population of them who feel it necessary to respond to the short silence with "Hello? HELLO???"
Just shut up and let me take care of you, okay? No one is going to pick up the phone and then just be silent waiting for YOU to say hello. You're going to hear a click. Deal with it. Don't try to prompt the person on the other side to help you.
Just two main Assholes today, and they happened within three minutes of each other.
One was at the register, where I (surprisingly) had a drawer today. I had to ring up ONE customer before I went on break and she was buying a $25 book without a discount card. I told her that the card usually costs ten bucks but if she got it today she could pay $7.50 for it, and she seemed sort of waffly but when I alerted her to the coupons and the breadth of the discount (other stores use it too, and it works for a year and online and in the café too), she decided to get it. She dutifully gave her info and as I was writing her name on her new card she said, "And this is all free for me, huh?"
Yeah, except for the part where you pay $7.50 for the card like I said.
Wait, what?
So I explained that I had said it was $7.50, usually ten bucks but she was saving $2.50 and paying the rest for the card. She started waffling back the other way and I apologized for not making it clear (yeah right!), and she said that famous "Well I don't know if I want to spend SEVEN-FIFTY to save TWO BUCKS," but then she decided finally she might buy another book and she would keep it. Otherwise she was cool but I guess she just wasn't paying attention when I told her what it cost. Grr.
Then right after that I went to go on break and this woman picked up CDs she ordered, and then she goes, "I gave my credit card number when I ordered this, so this has already been paid for." Oh, like hell it has! I said a big NOOOOOOO and explained that if we ordered to the STORE we would not and could not take payment, the only time we would take a credit card number is if we were delivering a book to your house and then only for that particular order. She accepted that and walked away, but I do wonder if that was just confusion or attempted trickery. If it was trickery, I can imagine her just walking out the door waving it at the cashier and saying, "I paid for this back there," or maybe extreme confusion could have caused her to just leave anyway.
This isn't really an Asshole because it's a small child, but this fucking kid was annoying me. He was repeatedly asking his mom for a particular Thomas toy and she was saying no, no, no and his response was always "Please? PLEASE???" And he was saying it in this horrible "NOWNOWNOW" kind of spoiled voice, like, "Hey, why isn't the 'make Mommy do what I want' magic word working??" Kid, I hate to break it to you, but "please" is a begging word, a polite word. It is not a means by which you bully your parent into obeying you!
The Thomas war ended in "NO, I TOLD you I would not be buying that for you!" "Unh! Unh! Wahhhhhhhhhh!"
Gee, I can't wait to have kids!
8/24/05
A woman came up and told me she wanted a book called "Kiss Goodnight Sam." I tried that search and hit nothing with a capital N. I told her so and she responded with that weird superior look customers get when they've reached the conclusion that they are dealing with an incompetent employee because they cannot get what they want. I told her I got absolutely nothing and did she know the author, but of course she didn't. "Are you sure that's the exact title?" I asked, and predictably, her answer was, "I am absolutely POSITIVE." As I tried a search for "Kiss Good Night Sam" (separating the "good" and "night" in case the computer was being crappy), she continued by telling me she'd had no trouble pulling it up on Amazon last night. My results with this new broader search gave me Kiss Goodnight and Good Night Sam. As she had a vague idea what the author's name sounded like we were able to ascertain that it was the first one she wanted. And of course I got no acknowledgment that the impediment to our progress had been that her being "absolutely POSITIVE" about the title translated to "absolutely WRONG." What was worse is that after that she wanted help finding a book with a particular name in it and hoped I could find that for her too. Sadly that isn't the first time this has happened, people think it'd be cute to get a kid a book where the character has their name and think it's something I can actually find. She became very nice and understanding after I helped her find the first one though.
So I came up to Customer Service and started writing down the little reminders to myself on that particular Asshole, and up walked a guy who was really tall with a fat ass belt buckle. As soon as he came to the desk I stopped writing and looked up at him and smiled, and he answered me with a REALLY pricky, pointed "I'LL WAIT." Probably you have to have worked in retail to know the type I'm talking about--they come up, make it obvious that they want service right now, but make a sneering comment about how you're obviously too busy to help them despite the fact that you haven't done a damn thing to convey that. I had to prompt him to go ahead and ask his question.
Another jackass phone call. A woman called and the first problem with this is that her phone was coming across very muddy because it sounded like it was a speaker phone being used in a room where very loud thumping music was playing. (Note to viewers at home: THAT DOESN'T WORK.) So I answered the phone with my usual spiel and the lady goes, "Uh, hello?" ::sigh:: I responded, "Hello," and she goes, "I wanna know if you have pbbbbbs?" The last word was totally unintelligible and interspersed with *thump* *thump* *thump* from the background, and I told her I didn't understand her. So she repeated it: "Do you have pbbbbbs?" Again I told her I didn't understand, and finally the third time she said it it became clear that the last word was "powers."
Do I have "powers"?
Well, yes I do, how did you know? I'm on a little-known superhero team.
Wait, what the fuck are you talking about, lady?
Turns out "Powers" is the title of a book, or so this lady thought. She had the author and managed through much jackassery to convey that author's name to me too, but all I got was religious books that sometimes mentioned the "power of God" but not a one was just called "Powers." She thanked me and went back to her rock concert or whatever, but I have to wonder, I mean "powers" could have been anything, a software, a bunch of other stuff I don't carry--if you're going to call about a book and it has a title like that, just be frickin' specific, okay? I don't call restaurants and ask if they have "noodles."
A woman called and asked for a book to be put on hold. We had one copy left so I put it on hold for her. Later she came in to pick it up and I was the one to give it to her too, and as she took it she said, "Awww, it's not paperback." This is not an unusual complaint; sometimes people REALLY want the paperback and are unaware that it hasn't come out in paper yet or whatever. The problem was that the book I was handing her WAS PAPERBACK. So I did a double take and said, "Yes, it is, it's paperback." At that point she was like, "OH," and said, "No, I mean aww, it isn't HARDback." She wanted a hardback. I looked in the system and there WAS no hardback available, probably because it's been in paperback for more than five years and probably they don't make the hardback anymore. It turned out she was replacing someone's copy and HAD to have a hardback and kept on going as if there was something more I could do for her. Come on lady. I'm speaking the same language as you and my cute little mouth is saying, "I don't have it and I can't get it," so I would appreciate it if your annoying brain would stop countering with "Well, can I get it in hardback?" Trying ten different times increases your chances of getting what you want if you're playing the lottery, but not if you're trying to buy a book I don't frigging have.
8/23/05
By far the weirdest customer today was Bible Guy's Wife, or so I will call her. First off, a cowboy-looking Bible-thumper dude walked up and asked for a particular version of the Bible, which I looked up as a woman who was apparently his wife crept up behind him. I asked the dude if he wanted his Bible in a particular version, and he started blathering in such a way that made it obvious he didn't really understand that Bibles have different versions. I think he told me it was hardcover or something. All of a sudden the woman behind him started making insane frantic gestures aimed at me. She was standing just behind him waving her arms above her head in an obvious "NO, STOP!" gesture, with a near-terrified look on her face to the point that cords were standing out on her neck, mouthing something unintelligible and occasionally pointing at the husband. I looked at her and was like, "UHHHH???" I had no idea what she wanted or what she was trying to warn me against, but I just told the dude I saw what he wanted in the 'puter but it wasn't in the store, and apparently it only came in King James anyway. After ascertaining that he didn't want to order it, I excused myself and walked away. I think Bible Wife was trying to catch my eye to mouth something else but this time I wouldn't look at her and escaped. I wonder what the fuck that was about?
My first phone customer this morning called and wanted the Direct TV book, which no stores seem to be carrying now. When I told him that he started spewing junk about how he's checked "all over north Florida" and can't find it, and then he started to ramble about why he wanted it, something about the football lineup. Then he said he was going to get a subscription, get the issue he wanted, and then cancel. Okay dude. Your business. BUT SHUT UP!
A dude called and told me his wife had ordered a book and it was supposed to be in today. Well, today was Tuesday. We get shipments Saturday. No one ever tells people that their books will be in on Tuesday. I ignored that and told him okay, and he replied, "So what, do I just give you the bar code?"
Dude. What do you want?
You are not in my store. You cannot pick up this book right now. So what do you want me to do? And what frickin' bar code could you possibly mean?
It turned out his wife had pre-purchased Eldest for their kid and he had the voucher. Now what he thought I was going to do about it over the phone is beyond me, but I said, "Well what you do is you bring that piece of paper to us, and we'll trade you for a copy of the book. Okay?" He replied, "Okay . . . so do you have it?" Yeah, because I frequently suggest trading the voucher in when we're out of the book. We only got sixteen frickin' boxes of that drivel printed on sheaves of dead tree.
Also, just one annoying lady pressed our new "come here wench!" bell and as I was walking over she got in front of me and yelled, "Helloooo!" Bugger off, asswipe. I heard the bell and that's why I came, so you don't need to snip at me to get my ass over here too.
8/22/05
Jesus McChrist, we now have BELLS at our customer service desk for people to ring for our service. So far I've only heard one obnoxious thing and it was this man. I was back in the kids' section putting away some books and I heard a single ding, so I put the book I was holding on the shelf and started coming out. Not five seconds after the first ding the man dinged again. Hey buddy? That bell is not the "magical make someone appear button." We still have to travel.
A lady who was picking up a book she'd ordered saw the ordering sticker with her name on it planted in the middle of the spine--these things are bigger than most people's HANDS--and she goes, "Does this come offa here?" as she starts picking at it. I explained that it wouldn't make any sense for us to EMBLAZON HER NAME AND PHONE NUMBER AND A BIG ORDERING BAR CODE ONTO HER BOOK FOR ALL TIME. That's right lady, it doesn't come off, sorry we forgot to mention that.
A dude came up to the desk and just kind of stood there looking at me and another associate, and since he wasn't doing anything we asked if he needed something. "Oh--are you busy?" he asked. Dude. You know what, I'm not even going to elaborate on that one. So my coworker asked, "What's your question?" and he's like, "Well . . . can I ask about a book?" SORRY THIS DESK ONLY HANDLES QUESTIONS ABOUT VOLCANOES AND SHEEP. Buddy, this is Customer Service. Tell us what you want! Turned out he wanted some book that didn't come up in the computer (which usually means the customer has his information wrong) and then he goes, "Well . . . where would I find books like that?" And it's some obscure subject like what to do if you find out your church is corrupt. I told him we don't have a "bad churches" section. Give me a fucking break. . . .
In other news, I got to talk to two mentally not-all-there folks today; one argued with me about how there aren't any blonde fairies because they come from "another realm," and one told me that he wanted this book he'd seen on how to use black magic with your ninjitsu study, but then told me he wasn't "into Satanism" anymore. (That last was--you guessed it--Wiccan Boy.)
8/21/05
A woman and her teenage daughter came to my desk and the first thing they wanted was for me to tell them if I had a very specific learning aid. They wanted one of those kits where you put atoms together with beads or whatever. I knew what she was talking about but was a little confused as to why she'd expect a bookstore to have it, and I told her we didn't carry that. She moved on to her next question: Where's the price of this block set? She handed me this heavy wooden box she'd gotten off the games table, and I turned it over and immediately found a tag that said $34.95. When I pointed it out she said she'd seen that but wanted to know the SALE price. I explained that there wasn't a "sale price," that this wasn't on sale, and she argued that it had been on a "clearance table," which we don't have. Some of our games are on sale and the sign says so and the individual games that are on sale have discount stickers on them. I explained that not everything on any table equals "on sale" (I think people have trouble with this concept that we're allowed to use our tables for things other than sales), and she seemed polite and all as she thanked me and went away. But then I heard her say to her daughter, "Well, THEY were a lot of help."
Guess I should have been a better help to them. I should have made that game be on sale and pulled an atom kit out of my ass.
I was in a big rush toward the end of the day 'cause I'd been given a new guy to train and we were nearing the end of our shift with still a lot to cover in a tour I was doing. So this was especially annoying to me: The PCAT guy. He came up wanting PCAT books for his son in medical school. I told him we usually have them in the medical section, and while I was over there finding him one he argued with me that when he'd gotten MCAT books they'd been in a different section. I told him we did indeed have a test prep section and that we could look there too, but generally all books on medical tests were in Health. I found him ONE PCAT book but he wanted a different one--the son preferred Kaplan to Barron's--so off we went to Test Prep. There I immediately found the place in the alphabet that the PCAT test books would have been and ascertained that there were none there.
I told the guy that none were there and that I could order it if he wanted. Now this is the annoying bit: He decided to start wandering around looking at other test books as if he was still looking for the one he wanted after I'd told him it wasn't here. And he began making annoying comments about it. "Ahh, the SAT. I remember he took that. There are so many! Oh look, a plumber's test. I didn't know there's a test you take to be a plumber!" Every time I told him in an extremely polite way to shut up and tell me what we should do next because it's not here, he just ignored me and kept looking at the test books and making completely inconsequential comments about them! FINALLY I got him to understand that IT WAS NOT THERE and that he was NOT GOING TO FIND IT BY WANDERING INTO THE F SHELF, so he followed me back to Customer Service, saying that when we got back to "the register" he'd order the Kaplan and buy the Barron's. I told him he could not buy the Barron's at my desk but that I could handle the ordering of the Kaplan. Anyway, of course I ordered it and he pushed the other book at me and said, "And I'll take this too," because I hadn't just told him he can't buy it from me or anything, and I had to remind him again. This dude was totally in his own little world. Dammit.
A dude stumbled up to Customer Service and demanded to know how he could get a taxi. I just kind of looked at him and said he could use our phone book and our phone if he wanted. He didn't seem to know what to make of that and he was like, "But I just want a taxi. Aren't there some just circling the shopping center?" I looked at him like he had two heads and said, "NO. . . . " He looked at ME like I was KIDDING and said, "There ISN'T? You don't have taxis just roaming around this shopping center?" I said indeed we did NOT and that is not the case in any place in this town. Guess he's from another planet (or perhaps New York). I gave him the phone book and phone, and he proceeded to have difficulty navigating this too. A coworker found him taxi numbers and then he could not get the phone to work. He'd dial the number and then hang up. Dial and hang up. And finally he said, "Is there another number I'm supposed to press or something? It keeps not working." Is the dude so ignorant that he can't dial a phone number? Finally someone noticed that he was pressing too many numbers and told him not to dial the frickin' area code. I really think he was from Mars. Perhaps he should have brought his spaceship.
"I'm calling to see if you have a book?" Followed by silence. "Umkay, WHICH ONE?" I asked, and the girl wanted Eldest. I flinched. "I don't know who it's by," she added. "It's not out for a few more days," I said, and told her it was out on Tuesday. She thanked me and hung up, and I had this distinct impression that she was going to call more bookstores to try to get a different answer. Don't know why. I also don't know why so many people who want that book don't have the information--they either don't know the title or don't know the author or don't know either one but know it's the sequel to Eragon. I'm seriously gonna puke. Oh God, the sequel's longer than the first one. . . .
Oh yeah, and now that school's starting, I'm getting lectured by parents who didn't get their kid's school reading fast enough. "Well, EVERYONE is going to be asking for it, so you'd better GET SOME!" If that was in my power I'd do so, lady. We can't just decide to carry more of a book if we don't have a pretty good idea that people are going to buy it, in the form of a school telling us that they are going to be using this book and telling their kids to get it from us. Also, one of the two people who said this kinda shit to me today acted like she didn't believe me and her book was first asked for in our store two weeks ago, which means they've had this information for a while to be able to get it ahead of time and to order it in. Sorry! Not my problem if you decide everything can be left 'til the last minute and then you try to blame everyone else for being out!
8/20/05
My only Asshole today was a woman who needed a book immediately. It was a book that had a volume one and a volume two and she wanted the first one, but we didn't carry either one. When I told her she could order it she made it very clear that it was a birthday gift she needed FOR TODAY so ordering it would do no good. She continued to stand there as if remaining in my presence would cause more options to show up, so I just kind of said something meaningless about "Yeah, well, we can order either one, first OR second, but they're not something we ever carry on the shelves."
Her response?
"Well do you have the first one?"
I don't know what I said that made her think I'd changed the situation, but . . . AM I MISTAKEN OR DIDN'T WE JUST HAVE A DISCUSSION ABOUT HOW ORDERING IT WILL HELP YOU NOT AT ALL BECAUSE YOU NEED IT TODAY? We were discussing ORDERING because THAT IS THE ONLY WAY I CAN GET IT. Something wrong with your listening skills? Of course there is.
8/17/05
Some older guy came up to my desk and told me he wanted a book called "Owling With Pa." I was like, WHAT with Pa? He spelled "owling" for me and I searched for it but there was nothing. He told me he'd bought it ten years ago and sounded sorta indignant, and I informed him that it wasn't even coming up in the out-of-print search. He shuffled away grumpily. Soon enough, I was baby-sitting the games fixture trying to make sure everything on it was in the right spot, and up walks an older woman asking me if I work here. Even though I told her I did, she looked around all confused as if I'd said "No," and then started shuffling away from me, confusedly whining, "Well there WAS someone at this desk just a MINUTE ago . . . I don't know WHERE he went. . . . " Okay lady. You're obviously batshit. Let me see if I can help you anyway.
So I get her attention, convince her that I do indeed work in the store, and tell her to give me the information to help her. She tells me she's looking for a Jane Yolen book that won the Caldecott Award. Hmm. I know of a couple books of that description, so I abandoned the keyboard of the computer and started to go to Kids' to see if there was anything there that floated her boat, but she barked at me that she'd already CHECKED there and it WASN'T THERE. ::sigh:: I asked her if she knew what it was called and she didn't, so I told her it was gonna be tough to find if she didn't know what it was but it was by such a popular author. Well, I started doing my search, and asked her if she had any inkling at all what its title was or what it was about because now I had a listing of 126 Jane Yolen books and nowhere to go from there. (It doesn't tell me "this won an award!" or anything, I can't filter it that way.)
So then she starts stammering about how she thinks it's something about owls, and I notice the same older man from before is now next to her wearing his grump face. She kinda turns to him and starts asking him whether she's correct in remembering that it's about owls, something with "owl" in the title. "YEAH," he said indignantly. "OWLING WITH PA." Because ya know we're gonna find it now that you've informed me of the wrong title in a slightly ruder tone of voice.
Now that I had some direction, it was easy to narrow down the choices and I found a Jane Yolen Caldecott winner named Owl Moon. Which we had. Two copies. (It has two figures running in the darkness under a big moon. I guess that kid is owling with Pa there.) The woman picked up both of them and then did one of those other things I hate: She pointed at a nursery rhyme book behind us in Baby and said, "And that's the ONLY nursery rhyme book you HAVE!" Okay . . . is this a statement of fact, or is this a request for more help? Sounds like the former to me. But I told her she was mistaken and took her to our two and a half shelves' worth of Mother Goose books, and told her if she didn't want any of those I had a list a mile long of other nursery rhyme collections (though I would have had to find them for her individually since we don't have a "nursery rhyme" section unless Mother Goose counts). She ended up not being particularly picky and choosing two of the ones on the Mother Goose shelf and then I was rid of her, though she did make sure to do one more thing on my pet peeve list and that was to ask me how much something is while holding it where I cannot see it or touch it, like I have a price list in my ass. Give it to me and I'll tell you, lady, since you're too frickin' oblivious to turn it over and look for a price yourself.
I think I wanna go owling now.
Oh, this lady should win a prize . . . I was helping her with two books, and after finding one of them she wanted the Magic Tree House series. Before we'd gotten to Chapter Books to look at them, she said, "And how much are the bbbbbbbbbbbb?" I was like huh? She just kind of made a weird sound and didn't clarify. I asked her how much is the WHAT? and she said, "You know, how much is the? Um, the stuff?" What the hell does that mean? Turned out she wanted to know how much the Magic Tree House books were. Well, look on them and figure it out, lady--some are $3.99, some are $4.99 if they're research guides, and the hardbacks are like twelve bucks. What a weirdo.
A woman looking for the book Having Our Say called it "Having Our Way" today, and since I had heard of the book vaguely but didn't really remember what it was called, I typed "Having Our Way" like she said and got nothing. (God our computer's picky.) We knew it was by the Delany sisters so I looked for them and found it, and informed her that since it was actually called Having Our Say that was why the computer went ape on us. "Having Our Say? Well that's what I SAID," she told me with an air of "what did YOU think I said?" I figured I could have made a mistake or she could have made a slip of the tongue and both were forgivable, but it turned out we didn't have either of the books she was looking for and I had to call the other store about them, and she was one of those people who has to prompt me on everything I say so when I said the other title first she jumped in and reminded me to ask the other store for "Having Our Way." I think it's settled whether she misspoke or I misunderstood. BUT THAT'S WHAT I SAID, REALLY! And people wonder why I have so little faith in my fellow man. . . .
8/16/05
I had a woman call and ask for a book with a strange title. To make sure I had it right I repeated it back to her and she replied by spelling every word in the title in this exaggeratedly condescending way and then laughing in a sort of exasperated, mocking way after she was done, like she thought she was talking to someone who was incompetent. (To help you understand why it was difficult to be sure what she was saying at first, one of the words in the title was "FUNtastic.") Anyway, after I found that the book was not in our system, she said it was about polymer clay and wanted to know if we carried anything on that subject. I found a few in the 'puter and said we had some in our craft section, and then she asked me, "Well where is your craft section?" What do you mean where is it? You're on the phone! Do you want me to say "Aisle 14"? What do you say to that? I told her if she came in someone would be glad to show her where it is, otherwise I don't know what she wanted.
This wasn't really an Asshole, but I was at Customer Service and these two people who obviously hadn't seen each other in a long time met up and were very surprised and excited to see each other. In situations like this, both parties become a lot louder, and at every pause in the conversation one of them has to say, "SO HOW HAVE YOU BEEN??" I swear the two of them asked each other how they'd been about ten times. Urgh.
8/15/05
A dude came in having heard Dr. Laura on the radio for the first time and was all wanting her latest book. Of course, he had no idea what that book was, but it was "something about men." Well, all her books for women are about men, and all her books for men are about women, so I didn't know which he wanted and of course neither did he. So I started telling him which books she had and he seemed most interested in the relationship ones. She had a bunch of titles in there and finally he goes, "Well which one's the best?" Dude, they're all on different subjects, so there isn't a "the best," there's only a "the most appropriate for your situation." Come on now. Not to mention I don't think any of Dr. Laura's books are good, so don't ask me!
Heh . . . I managed to help a dude who had very little information. His book had the word "fighting" in the title and was about the Celts. It turned out to be something about the Scots called Born Fighting, and I was just lucky to find it. We went to the History section to get it and the dude said he'd already BEEN back there but didn't see it. "Are they arranged by alphabet? I thought it was by subject." Er . . . actually, it's by alphabetical order within each subject. I found it right quick and he's like, "Wow, you found that quick!" Well . . . it helps to know what the hell you're doing and to know the author. I'm good at finding books when I know where they are.
Someone else needed help in Fiction even though they knew the author's last name. I figured out who it was for the guy and told him it was supposed to be in regular fiction. "Well, I guess maybe I just can't SEE," he said doubtfully, which translates to "you silly bookstore bitch, I already looked there and it wasn't there." I ignored the guy and took him over there, and as we were walking he said, "Does it start at one place and go through the whole alphabet, or does it start over on every bookshelf?" I have no idea what the hell that meant, because it could not make any possible sense to go through the alphabet indiscriminately from A to Z on each four-foot section, but I could not think of a possible sane way that this second option could be the case, so I just told him it starts at one point and goes through the WHOLE ALPHABET. Immediately I found his books and he bought them all. ::sigh::
A woman on the phone wanted a certain medical book and I couldn't find it in my 'puter but we had a similar one that she wanted to see. She told me to hold it, and I said, "We'll be glad to hold it at the customer service desk if you'll just give me a last name to hold it under." "Thank you so much, I'll be in in a couple days," she said, "thanks honey." Sounded like she was about to hang up to me. "ARGH ARGH ARGH I NEED YOUR EFFIN' NAME!!!" (Well no I didn't say that. I just quickly asked for her name again and this time she finally gave it to me.)
A woman called and asked for a book to be held. I found we did indeed carry it and I did indeed have one copy. After I told her I did, and asked if she wanted me to hold it, she replied, "Well, I'm not sure what day I'll get in, maybe you shouldn't," blah blah. Okay. Best case scenario: You call the bookstore and DING DING DING THEY HAVE IT! So . . . why would you start waffling at that point about whether you want it? Look, until you've decided that you actually want to hold it if we've got it, don't frickin' call me. Make up your mind before you waste my time.
8/14/05
I was drafted to help a lady find shit on Disney cruises and we were back in Travel, which is adjacent to Kids'. I was talking to her about the book we found because it seemed to be what she wanted but it was smaller than she remembered having seen at someone else's house or something, and so I wanted her to know that she could return it if she needed to. But in the middle of a sentence, she interrupted me to suddenly let out an ear-splitting call of her children's names. I just stopped talking and looked at her. She called for her children again and said something to them and got an answer, reassuring herself that they were where they were supposed to be. I was immediately put off by that and decided I wasn't going to be very social here, and finished up what I'd been saying in one sentence. I started to walk away after that and she did it again, hollered at the top of her lungs for her frickin' kids. And then she kind of hastily thanked me in a dismissing sort of way and went on her way. Later I found the book I'd helped her find propped sideways on one of my feature displays. You're welcome.
A somewhat foreign-sounding woman approached me, stood too close to me, and said, "I am looking for . . . INCREDIBALL." I wasn't sure if she was saying like "Incredible" wanting stuff from the Incredibles movie or something, but then she began to describe what she wanted and it sounded like it was a toy. "It is . . . baseball," she said, "in a box." She began explaining that it did something--sounded like a puzzle or an electronic game, I don't know, and I began to tell her that I had never seen such a thing and we didn't specialize in toys, but she interrupted me to say, "It is baseball! In a box!" "It's a TOY, right?" I repeated, and again I was trying to say that we don't really do toys when someone who might have been her grown son walked up and inserted himself into the conversation.
They did this back and forth yammering at me these same useless phrases and kind of making gestures mimicking holding a small ball of some kind. It was really, really weird! They were literally jumping on the end of each other's sentences to tell me the same shit over and over. I would swear I was on Candid Camera. I said again we don't do toys and told them they could look on our game table if they wanted but I'd never seen such a thing, and then I escaped very narrowly with my life.
8/13/05
Okay, so some lady wanted to look for a book and didn't know its author and was stumbling over its title, with some vague idea of its subject matter and knowing it had something to do with "sisters." Then she said, "Okay, well YOU look, and I'll go out to my car and get the title. STAY RIGHT THERE!" And she ran away.
Now. Okay, first off why the fuck didn't she bring the paper in? I can understand forgetting your card or your book list if you don't know you're going to the bookstore, but just forgetting it in the car? C'mon. Secondly . . . how am I supposed to "look" for you if I don't have any information except you know it's something about sisters? And hey, lastly, don't frickin' tell me to "stay," I'm not a damn dog!
I overheard a disturbing thing today. I was walking by the games rack and this boy-girl couple was sitting on the ground on the other side. Just as I went by them I heard the boy say, "When I go down on you you're scared to death." All righty then.
Café had a hell of a time today. Some annoying lady who had decided everyone needed to have a bad day because she was in a mood came in. She wanted dark chocolate and we didn't have any, so she was throwing a pissy little fit. Finally she settled for some Lindt Balls and our café manager was ringing her up, and she was all whiny about the discount card too, acting like it was too much trouble for her to pull it out and get herself a discount. Now, earlier before the transaction started, the café girl had tossed a penny at her tip jar and just missed, and the penny was on a napkin near the tip jar. It was at this point that the lady went and tried to pick up the penny and put it in her own wallet for no apparent reason. Because the lady was being such a jackass already, the café chick decided to call her on it, and said, "Oh, you found my penny!" The lady responded by handing it to her and saying, "Well, how about you take it and give me a NICKEL back?" (Ya know, it made her change even, so she was basically saying, "I dare you to NOT give me this penny, I claim at as my own, yawwwp!") Being that IT'S A PENNY and the café girl is NOT AN ASS, she just gave the lady her damn piece of silver and got the freaking transaction over with. I wish people like that irritating woman would get over themselves.
I saw a couple people at Customer Service so I went over to help them even though I wasn't the primary desk-guarder today. When I appeared I asked who was next and one of the two women pointed at the other one. "Can I help you?" I said, and she replied in the most sarcastic tone possible, "Uh, YEAH, I've been STANDING here for the last FIVE MINUTES!" Oh yes I'm sure a dickhead like you stands anywhere for five minutes and just waits patiently for help. Yes, I know it sucks when you are not served immediately. I also know it sucks to be the one coming up to help you and to get cranked on for it. Keep your frickin' crank to yourself, it's moist and unpleasant.
8/10/05
The store was full of DICKS today. Here is my selection of DICKS.
Some dude apparently has managed to speak English very well without understanding it at all. He was telling me to look for books by a certain author and said that his books were funny, but when I typed the author in I got three unavailable fiction books and two books that looked like they were medical or something. So I asked if he could give me a title, so I could see if this was the right guy. He responded by telling me, "Well they're humor." I told him to give me a title. He told me the guy's name again and that they were funny. I asked. Again. For. A. Title. "Yeah they're about ten years old . . . oh, no I don't know any titles." Shit. Well I explained to him what my situation was but that nothing by the author was in the store anyway, so then he decided to ask me where "humor fiction" was. We don't have a "humor fiction" section. I told him we don't have a section separated out where the books are funny if they are not, like, joke books or books by comedians. He asked me again where books that were fictional funny books would be. I told him they're not in just one section but if he wanted to he could go to Fiction/Literature and just look for certain authors. I apologized because it seemed like he was dismayed--though honestly I have yet to see a "humorous fiction" section in ANY bookstore--and then he just kinda started walking away in a happy-go-lucky way. I told him if he knew any authors I should look up he could tell me and he was like, "No, no, I don't know any," and so I suggested Carl Hiaasen 'cause he's funny. "Carl Hiaasen's a little too LIBERAL for ME," the guy said, finally starting to sound a little shirty. I told him I thought the guy was funny and then left him alone. See, Carl Hiaasen sometimes writes books with little environmental messages in them, or where somebody who screws with nature gets it in the end. I guess that's DIRTY LIBERAL TALK.
Oh yeah, and speaking of which, everyone wants that "Fair Tax" book thing, and we're out. Which makes sense because a) It's popular; b) It apparently was a small print run; and c) THE AUTHOR IS DOING A SIGNING DOWN THE STREET. Yeah. So we've been out of it for days and every once in a while you get a prick who looks at you with beady eyes and questions you in an unpleasant manner as to why your store dares to not have this book. As if we don't have it because we have something against Neal Boortz, or because we don't want YOU to know stuff about fair taxes or whatever.
So anyway, I was shelving kids' books and I looked up and there was a dude standing at Customer Service, and I inwardly rolled my eyes and said to myself, "Great, now I have to go over there and tell him we don't have the fair tax book." Indeed, that's what the dude wanted, and I said, "Nope, we're out." C'mon, now, gimme the beady-eyed look--YUP! Beady eyes! He shined his little eyes at me and demanded to know WHY NOT and informed me that the AUTHOR is doing a SIGNING down the STREET--"That's funny, because the author is going to be at Borders at 7 PM tonight." Good for his ass! Tell him to bring some!
The same dude came and found me again after he'd given up trying to get me to pull the fair tax book out of my ass, and he asked me for "music." I asked for clarification and he said, "Well, MUSIC." Because suddenly "music" makes sense now when it didn't a second ago. Buddy, I'm asking if you want music BOOKS or like music RECORDINGS, because we don't carry the latter. I don't know what it is that makes people just repeat themselves when I indicate that they haven't given me enough information. It's like those people who speak louder instead of more simply when they're talking to people who don't speak English. They're foreign, not deaf.
Oh, and speaking of the fair tax book, another dude who wanted it came to my desk and when I told him we were out he said, "You know, I HATE buying Amazon books." I replied, "Then don't." Ass.
A lady was ordering some books and when I asked for her information she said, "Well, I've got this gift card. . . . " I figured she thought I could scan the card and get her name and phone number or something, so I said, "Nope, that won't help me," and she said, "Well . . . I guess I could write you a CHECK. . . . " I explained that I was not going to take her money yet, that she would pay for the books when they arrived, and finally she consented to, ya know, tell me who to order it for and how to get in touch with her. Then she had other books that she'd found in the store today to buy and tried to pay me again. ::sigh::
A girl approached the desk and told me she'd ordered a book. "And it should be in by now," she said. And then didn't say anything. I asked if she'd gotten a call and she didn't answer and said, "Um, well I think it's called. . . . " And couldn't remember the title. Then she just kind of held her hands out like oh-my-God-why-aren't-you-helping-me-right? I told her to tell me HER FRICKIN' NAME. Yeah.
I helped a family with their book needs today. They were all jackasses. First off the girl wanted a school reading book (which means she's doing it at the last minute and that annoys me), and then one of the boys handed me the frickin' cell phone after telling me his dad wanted to relay to me what book I was supposed to help find. The dad told me it was a book called The Four Agreements. I said, "Oh, yeah, I'm familiar with that" and started walking to go get it. He replied, "It's by . . . Don . . . Miguel . . . Ruiz?" Dude. I said I was familiar with it. "I know, I'm familiar with that book," I repeated, and the dude's like, "Oh, well that tells ME something about YOU. That tells me YOU'RE looking for a HIGHER LIFE." Actually all it tells you is that's a popular book and I've worked in this store for five years. Well, actually I've read it, but I hated it. While I was on the phone with Dad, up comes the younger brother . . . with a sex book about the kama sutra. He showed it to the older brother and said, "LOOK AT THIS, HAW HAW HAW," and they started looking at the naked pictures. Then the phone randomly went dead and I gave it back to the boy, and got him the damn book. He was back on the phone again by that time and when I asked him if he wanted anything else he just turned away on purpose and ignored me. So I walked away. Thanks for brightening my day, Family of Jackasses.
Ahh, here's another asshole who left school reading 'til the last minute. They wanted The Red Badge of Courage . . . on AUDIO. I looked it up and we don't even carry it, and the lady was like, "What, is it too short?" What kind of sense does that make? No, it's just not exactly likely to be a giant seller except with you last minute jackasses. When I told her we'd have to order it and it'd be a week and a half (thereby defeating the purpose of rescuing her kid from the fate of having to read a book before summer's over), she asked me if I had a VHS. Yeah, because watching a movie is okay to do instead of reading it. Er . . . sorry, we don't carry movies. . . .
A woman on the phone decided it was necessary to tell me her frickin' life story. She had lost her Harry Potter voucher and was in the hospital or some such, and she's getting released today so she wants to know if there's any way to get her book without the voucher. I happily told her we can actually look her voucher up by phone number and redeem it, but even though that was simple and should have been over in a minute, she decided to go on about her hospitalization and how she wasn't exactly gonna tell the people loading her into the ambulance to go find her HP voucher, et cetera. I had someone standing there waiting to use the Cute Bookstore Girl service, and she just kept yammering. I thought she'd never shut up.
Here's a run-of-the-mill mistake: A dude came to our store, wanted a book we'd supposedly put on hold for him this morning, and turned out to have called the other store. No big deal. But he didn't even seem to know there was more than one store, and when I told him the book wasn't on the shelf he had this weird tone of voice halfway between indignant and hurt. Like he didn't understand why he would talk to someone just this morning and then they would go and DO THIS TO HIM. It's because you went to the wrong store, dummy.
A woman had promised her granddaughter a certain book and though I could find others of the series this particular one was not in my computer. I told her I couldn't find it even to order it; the computer had no clue about it just as if it didn't exist. "Well I KNOW it EXISTS," she said indignantly, "because I SAW it on AMAZON.COM for $6.95!" Guess what? I'm not saying it doesn't exist, lady. I'm saying it's not in my database. So happens we found the ad for it in the book her granddaughter already had, complete with ISBN, and I typed it in and it damn well was NOT in the system. I explained that it's possible they either stopped producing it or maybe it's only available from their website and select stores. I liked it that it wasn't just me being a jackass unable to find it or something. ISBNs don't lie.
8/9/05
Some lady wanted to know where the "good reading material" was for a second grader. When I told her "second graders" wasn't a particular section she still wanted to know where the good material was. Yeah because we have the "good" section. Some people just amaze me. DEFINE "GOOD," WOULDJA???
I helped a nice young man who wanted Tarot cards and books on being psychic or something. He asked me if I could find out the popularity of one book he'd picked out and claimed that he didn't know what to read now because Sylvia Browne had not been much help to him. After a sigh and an eyeroll, he added, "I fuckin' HATE that bitch." Heh.
I was helping a woman in a wheelchair who was being pushed around by a young man who was probably her grandson or something. Anyway, she wanted that horrid book Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You To Know or whatever the hell it's called, and I asked if they wanted me to go get it or if they wanted to follow me. Ya know, mobility issues and whatnot call for special treatment. Ignoring me completely (both of them!), they just started following me, so I ignored them and let them follow. The woman said loudly to the grandson, "I don't understand a WORD she's saying." Umkay. Yeah. I found the book and then the woman started blabbing about how she wanted this one AND "the other one." I kinda looked at the grandson and he shrugged like "hey, she's your problem now." It came clear that she'd been watching a program on TV that mentioned two books and this was the only one she remembered, but she wanted "the other one too, the one they mentioned before this one." Because I can call up a record of what the fuck you were watching on TV and find out what they talked about before this book. Yeah. She seemed to forget that she wanted anything else after she saw the price of this book and then asked where the Bibles were. I pointed and got the hell out of there.
A woman asked me for help finding a book she didn't remember the name of and thought the author was "Thomson." ("With no 'p,'" she advised me.) I told her if I had it it'd be right there in the alphabetically arranged section, but she wanted me to "look it up," the book by Thomson that she didn't remember the name of. Well, it was a kids' book and it was something like "a wonderful day" or something, she thought, so she wanted me to try to "look under Thomson." I told her if she didn't know a first name I'd get like three thousand titles but I could still try. This seemed reasonable to her (ack!) so I did. I got 1,136 authors named Thomson, but I was able to narrow it down to show me just the kids' fiction titles, and weirdly enough a Sarah Thomson emerged who'd written a book called Imagine a Day. For once the computer actually came through in filling in the gaps.
Here's my favorite today: A phone conversation.
Me: [Ordinary spiel about what store has been reached and who I am, ending with "how can I help you?"]
So . . . why do I even have a spiel again?
8/3/05
Oh lord, the last-minute school reading shoppers are here dammit! Some woman came in wanting a book that we didn't order any of for some school. I told her that according to my computer we don't carry it and according to my list log we didn't get a quantity of them special for the school, so we didn't have it. She gave me THE EYE and informed me that "they SAID" that we would HAVE it--"They told us you were all supposed to have it!" Well guess what? I don't think a one of these supposed "they" actually called us, ya know? 'Cause otherwise there'd be a different answer, no? I mean, unless I'm lying because I'm just that determined to make sure you can't be satisfied and our store can't make money. When I told her no one told US we were "supposed to have it," thanks a bunch, she gave me THE EYE again and said, "It's AWFULLY close to the beginning of the school year!" Well whose fault is that? It's not my fault that you decided to search for your kid's school reading books when they barely have time to read them now, is it? Guess what? Lack of planning on your part does not constitute emergency on my part! Sorry sucker!
And in other news, some kid wanting Eragon today couldn't pronounce it. "Ee-reagan? Uh-RAY-gun?" Oh, so you have bad taste in books AND you can't read. Great combination. :)
8/1/05
Some woman asked for help looking for a book on a diet that her doctor had recommended. I looked it up and told her it was in the diet section, and she said, "Well I LOOKED there!" I took her over to the section I meant and she said she hadn't been looking THERE, but in the DIABETES section. I was like, okay . . . well it's a weight loss diet book so we put it in the weight loss section . . . and she was like, "Yeah but I looked in the diabetes section because that's what my doctor recommended it for." Uh-huh. Guess that makes sense in your little world. . . .
A dude was asking me for materials on some mysterious examination called "The BAT test." He said that the B.A.T. stood for "Basic Assessment Test." Neither of those things, acronym or spelled out, pinged anything. I took him to the test prep section just because he seemed to want something more, and it was there that he started rambling about how the people who administer the test TOLD him to go to our store and we would "have it" and all this junk. Well, I told him he could find me a title, author, or ISBN then. He just kept going on about how he wanted me to "do a search" or something--he didn't seem to understand that I hadn't stopped where I stopped because I just got lazy or something. I was out of ideas, because he didn't have all the information apparently. When I mentioned it to my manager later in a fit of frustration, he told me that the guy probably meant the TABE anyway. I guess it would probably help if he asked for the right test.
A dude wanted books on "project management." When I tried to clarify and asked him if he was talking about business books, he said actually he wanted books on like construction project management. Whole different story. I did a search and got nothing in the store except BUSINESS type books and he wanted to see them anyway, so I took him there, warning him again that they really didn't seem to be what he was asking for. And as I suspected, they weren't; just stuff on management sort of in general, and managing stuff in the workplace. It was then that he became truly obnoxious and began to explain to me how when he went to BORDERS they had THREE books on the subject and he wanted me to show him where my section would be that would have books like that. Oh why didn't I think of that, take you to a SECTION with the BOOKS you want, imagine that. Instead of saying anything incredibly threatening, I instead went the bratty route and said something like "OH, so you've actually FOUND books on the subject, what are some of their titles?" Back at ya, buddy--you've found these mythical books and you didn't bother to get the information? D'oh on you! Of course he fumbled around and didn't know their names, claiming "It was three DAYS ago!" as if that's some excuse, and then he repeated that THEY had these books and finally he asked me if I could reach Barnes & Noble for him. Again I sort of pretended to be oblivious--because come on, you don't badger people by saying OTHER people have these books and then try to make them call their competition--and said, "Oh, well if you want I can give you their number, if you want to contact THEM. . . . " In other words, you want them, YOU call them! I did that and he mosied along, but I did have to wonder . . . if he found THREE satisfactory books at Borders, why is he still shopping?
A random customer pointed out to me that someone was waiting for me at the desk. I looked over and saw no one, so I looked back at the customer and asked for clarification. Turned out the woman had wandered out into the aisle not near the desk at all and was standing there waiting to be helped, and he pointed her out to me. I approached as she called, "CAN I GET SOME HELP?" Sure lady. "Sure, what's your question?" I asked. "Well . . . I need to get some help?" she said. "OKAY, what's your question?" I repeated, and she goes, "I need to ask about a book." "OKAY. What is your QUESTION?" I asked, and she said, "Well I need to ASK about a BOOK!" Did anyone but me notice that I ended up prompting her four times to ask me and she just kept telling me that she wished to ask? I guess she figured that since I wasn't physically at the desk yet I was incapable of having any book knowledge when in fact I can answer at least half of people's questions without looking anything up. Whatever.
Here's my favorite. A dude wanted help finding books on fasting. It was kind of annoying me because he wasn't being very specific about whether he wanted it to be sort of a spiritual slant on fasting or the sort of health slant. He claimed to want a health-oriented one, but when I read him a spiritual title he wanted to see that. Anyway, I ended up in Health with him and all I found was The Complete Idiot's Guide to Fasting. I pulled it out and complained that it was the only one, and he said, "That's okay, I am an idiot." HAHAHAHAHAH! Okay.
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Lady: Baseball. It is baseball. . . .
Man: In a box. It is in a box.
Lady: Baseball!
Man: Baseball in a box, a box.
Caller: HI, um, is this Crystal?
Me: What?
Caller: Is this Crystal?
Me: [Telling her who I am]
Caller: Oh. Um, well is this Cuttin' Up?
Me: I'm sorry?
Caller: Is this Cuttin' Up? The hair place?
Me: [Telling her what the bookstore name is]
Caller: This isn't Cuttin' Up?
Me: NO. THIS IS A BOOKSTORE.
Caller: Oh. [Apologies and whatnot, click]
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