On bookstore work.

A number of my friends are jealous that I work in a second hand bookstore. I think some of them have this rose-tinted vision of sitting in an armchair, reading, having intelligent conversations with university profs while drinking coffee, and getting free books. I always hate to disillusion them, but it's got to be done.

Most of the work is your usual sort of shop stuff. Answering phones, restocking, cleaning, helping people find things, filling orders. Not particularly romantic or interesting. But, like with every job, sometimes you get the fun stuff, the interesting people, something to make you giggle. Here are my top picks for the week of August 1-5th.

A gentleman asks for dictionaries. I take him to the reference section and ask if there is anything in particular he's looking for. He says he'd like something that covers more than his current pocket dictionary, possibly "A university type". I suggest the Websters New College Dictionary. Apparently, that one is too "hard". :wtf:

A man phones in and wants to order a book we have about the CCF ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-operative_Commonwealth_Federation ), and we get to talking about socialism, labour history, and the party. All subjects very dear to my heart. So, I offer to go find the book for him, and also hunt up other books on the same subject. He was thrilled, and so was I. I got to spend an hour hunting up old labour pamphlets, social history of western canada books, all that kind of thing. It was absolutely fun. I phoned him back, and we got to talking again. Turns out he was a Trotskyite in his youth, is still a socialist, is interested in Venezuela, reads websites I work on with some of my organizations, and in his 59 years has had a lot of really fascinating experience with this kind of stuff. He gave me his email address and we're going to keep in touch. I'm really looking forward to it, he was GREAT. I love stuff like that.

And finally, yesterday a guy came in and put me in an awkward position. He was looking for middle eastern history books, so I asked him if there was anything in particular (Country, subject, etc) so I could narrow some books down for him. He said "Well, I want to read about the culture and religion and stuff, because I don't really know anything about them, except that they hate everyone else in the world and want to kill them."
I just kind of looked at him for a second, and said "Oook, you really DO need some reading material". I wasn't sure what to say to that. He bought one, anyway, and left. He was right after this conversation: "This book cost $1 originally, why is it $5 now?"
"Sir, that book cost $1 in 1929. Coffee cost $0.15 then, and it doesn't now. We have to keep our prices current enough that we don't go out of business."

I confess I like the dictionary story the best, though.

I remember that I had all sorts of weird ideas about the people who worked at Second Story books in DC. I thought they were all so smart and cool to be working there. I would go down there during my lunch hours just to be with them among the musty stacks. Then of course I got to know some of them and my illusions about them and their day jobs all fell apart.

I harbor no such illusions about the employees at Powell's (all newcomers to this town seem to want to work there for next to nothing), at Looking Glass, or at any of the other independent booksellers in town.

And the poor kids at Borders and Barnes and Noble, oof.

After dictionary guy left, I had a little internal debate with myself, and it went something like this:
Too hard? What does that even mean? Does it mean the covers are too solid? But, he asked for hard cover. Does it mean the definitions are too wordy? But, you have a dictionary in your hands. Does it mean it's too long, and therefore harder to find the word you want? But, he asked for something more detailed. What does too hard mean? Could he possibly be referring to the idea that the dictionary is in fact hard on language? Maybe he wanted something a little softer, less strict?

It got me nowhere.

in a second hand book store, inscribed "To a true believer". I put it back real quick.

I've only sold one. The guy seemed really really embarrassed.

I've been told we get neo-nazis that come in for stuff, I've yet to encounter the worse types

On the theory that it's always best to know your enemy. It amazes me that anyone ever plowed through the whole thing - Hitler was many things but he wasn't much of a writer. My main goal was to try to figure out why people took him and it so seriously - I still don't really get it.

that he was very dynamic in person and knew how to rally a crowd (mob). They say that if you just read the text of most of his most important speeches they'd make about as much sense as one from *

Or perhaps I should say used book stores - the first version sounds like the store itself is secondhand. Which it probably is, come to think of it. Oh, hell.....


Ignore that first bit.


At any rate, I love them. I used to bring books in to sell at one - problem was, as soon as I got the money for them, I'd end up browsing around and spend it all on more used books. Once I even discovered that I bought a book I'd brought in and sold to them myself some weeks before. :rofl:

All shops worth their salt offer more in credit than in cash, more bang for the same book.

you to help them. They say they're looking for a particular book, but no matter where you steer them, it's always the wrong one.

*True story*

Customer: "I'm looking for a book..I think the title is 'Watery chocolate for chocolatey water' or something like that..."

Me: " 'Like Water For Chocolate', by Laura Esquivel?"

Cust: "...No...that's not it...um...it's by this Mexican lady..."

Me: "Laura Esquivel?"

Cust: "...No...um...it has all these recipes at the ends of the chapters..."

Me: " 'Like Water For Chocolate', by Laura Esquivel?"

Cust: "...No...that's not it...um..it has a blue cover..."

Me: " 'Like Water For Chocolate', by Laura Esquivel?"

Cust: "...No...Dang! They just made a movie out of it!..."

Me: " 'Like Water For Chocolate', by Laura Esquivel?"

Cust: "No! That's not it! You...You're just no help at ALL!" *stalks away*


Another true story:

A guy came in one time and wanted to find the unabridged version of "The Princess Bride" by S. Morgenstern, as referred to by William Goldman is his novel of the same name. It took me ten minutes to convince him that S. Morgenstern and his book were fictitious. He couldn't believe it.

(I sell wine - different product but you get the same kind of things)

She - "I'm looking for an Italian wine called Casarra."

Me - "I don't have anything called Casarra - could it be Casarsa?"

She - "No, no, I'm sure it was Casarra. I bought it here."

Me - "Well, let's look at the Casarsa. I think that must be the one."

She (irratably) - "No, no, I know that's not it!"

I go get a bottle of Casarsa. "Is this it?"

She - "Oh, that IS it. They must have changed the name." :eyes:


I also love the customers who want you to help them find something but have no idea what it is.

He - "I'm looking for a wine I had last week."

Me - "Okay, was it a red or a white?"

He - "It was a red. I don't remember the name. It had a white label."

Narrows it down quite a lot. :nuke:

Keeps track of what wine you buy if you decide to start a file. That way, they ALWAYS know what wine you had last week, and they also can look up what you've bought a lot of when you ask for recommendations :)

:) Hard alcohol can only be sold in provincial liquor stores, but wine and beer can be sold in vendors and wine stores.

Is it Cav-VEET or CAV-it? (yes, we do love cheap, low-quality, mass-produced pinot grigot!)

We ordered Cav-VEET in a restaurant, and the waitress said "Okay, and that's two CAV-its." I suspect she is the correct one.

From both my customers and the reps who handle it. And it's not a bad pinot grigio for the cost. I'm no wine snob - you can get a very drinkable bottle of wine for a very reasonable price.

Sort of the equivalent of the customers I used to have come into the record store and ask, "I'm looking for this song...it's got the word 'love' in it...."

:D

Oh.
My.
God.

"you know that song?........by that girl?.........with the hair?......it went dum de dum dum de dee?"

ESPECIALLY with strippers. (and I AM one...but I swear; some of my co-workers....!!!!)

I've worked in three bookstores in my day, and I remember those conversations SO well! My favorite requests were "I'm looking for a book... (always the pregnant pause where I wanted to say "What luck--you're in a bookstore!")...it's got a purple cover." And? "It's about this thick." And? "That's all I know..." Yargh! Fiction? Not? Any subject? Author? Anything? Hello?? What's amazing is we usually managed to find the danged thing!

Second favorite--the high school students who showed up at the end of August, summer reading list in hand. "I need to read three of these, but I don't know which ones to pick." As a high school English teacher who couldn't find a teaching job in the area (that described most of us on staff), I took pride in recommending the most interesting ones on the list. But the response would always be "Ummmm okay. But which ones are the shortest?" So they'd insist on buying the thinnest ones that were, like, philosophy or what have you--just IMPOSSIBLE to get through. I would always try to talk them out of it, but they insisted, so I figured they deserved what they got.

And finally, I worked at Borders (don't hate me--I worked there only after it drove our independent stores out of business) in the early '90s, when (ick) The Bridges of Madison County was HUGE. Every day there'd be tons of tight-jawed, highly coiffed, Mercedes-driving filthy-rich you-know-whats from the snobby suburb just east of us rolling in with "I'm looking for a book..." "Bridges of Madison County?" "HOW did you know? That's amazing!" No, ma'am, just sad.

:rofl:

Every time a movie comes out that's based on a book, the book is re-issued with a "movie tie-in" cover. It's the same book, but with a picture from the movie on the cover so people will associate it with the movie and be able to find it easier (as well as be more likely to buy it).

So one day I overhear a man arguing with his wife about some movie tie-in edition (I forget which one as it's been well over 10 years now). She's insisting it's the regular book and he's telling her that it's the movie screenplay. "See, it's got the picture of the movie characters on it, it's the screenplay I'm telling you!" They went back and forth for a few more rounds before I, after offering them assistance, tried to assure the man that it was indeed the original book and even flipped through to show him. He still wasn't convinced despite the fact that it was obviously not in screenplay format. :banghead:

Can't count the number of times I've had these frustrating encounters in my work as a children's librarian. And I have had to explain about The Princess Bride as well!!

Another favorite is when customers remember "nothing" about the book they are seeking, except that the cover was "blue" (or "yellow" or "red", or whatever.) We librarians do love a challenge, though, so it is always satisfying (and somewhat amazing) when we manage to pry a few more details from their brains, and are able to actually find their book. (And isn't it funny how the cover usually doesn't wind up being the color they claimed it to be!) :-)

2 weeks before Christmas, I ordered about $350 worth of books and calendars - the bulk of my Christmas gift list.

On the day before Christmas Eve (I kid you not) Amazon sent me an email saying that nothing on my order would ship. I printed it out, and brought it to B&N. "Yes, I'm a loser, ordering from Amazon, but I learned my lesson. Can you help me?" The young woman took the list, and marched through the bookstore, collecting the items on my list, and, amazingly, helping other folks without breaking step. March, march, grab book, "Temple Grandin? Right over there in 'Animals'" march, march, grab book, "Something on tennis? On the other side of this rack, in sports, which are listed alphabetically", march, march, add book to pile. Within 5 minutes, I had my ENTIRE Amazon order, and she had helped 3 other people.

I made a point to find out who the manager on duty was that night, and rely my thanks and compliments.

What's sad is that the small local bookstores, which I made a point to patronize, are all gone. There are a few in the city that have survived by specializing in gay & lesbian literature (and by functioning and a GLBT social activism center) but that's about it. There's also a used bookstore that specializes in mysteries, which is nice. But most of the big used bookstores are now gone - probably a victim of ebay, as opposed to the big box bookstores.

apparently, chapters has been having problems on the prairies. Probably because we have a local 'chain' of bookstores (which is where I send everyone if they need to buy new).

http://www.mcnallyrobinson.com/content.php?intFileID=16

On edit:
Glad you had a good experience with them, though. Not trying to disparage that :)

I thought McNally Robinson was just a Calgary phenomenon.

I always find all sorts of interesting Canadiana in there I haven't found anywhere else. I usually try to go there when I'm on Stephen Avenue Walk.

fsc

:D

If you're ever looking for particular Canadiana, I work in a bookstore that specializes in that, let me know :)

We usually just grab whatever looks interesting when we get up there.

I'm especially interested in books about towns where the ancestors settled in Alberta (like High River and Burdett) since I'm writing a gigantic family history. A couple months ago, I paid $60 for a used copy of "Burdett Prairie Trails" (one of those town jubilee books with all the townspeople in it. One of the best investments I ever made!

Ooh...what do you have on the Royal Canadian Air Force? I recently found out one of our guys got shot down the last couple months of the war and is buried in a churchyard in Ireland.

:D We have a HUGE western canada section, too

Fanks! :D

:D

Chapters?

Second only to Powells.

In addition to the amazing restaurants, one of the reasons I always try to weasel work in Toronto when it's available

It's like their Barnes and Noble. I hope their independents can hang in there too.

At least B&N is a BLUE company. I think Amazon is more pink to red, which surprised me when I read that a few years back.

;P

I briefly worked in the rare books department at a large bookstore in NYC. In our collection, we had a bunch of first editions, signed books and that sort of thing along with a few jewels -- namely, a six-figure priced folio of Shakespeare's work dating to the early 1600's.

During training, I was surprised to find that all the main store's math books had been transferred to the Rare Book Room. When I inquired as to the reason, I was told that advanced math treatises and texts were far and away the most frequently stolen books in the main store; we had much better security in rare books.

So now I have this vision of hordes of math geeks run amok about NYC on an academic shoplifting spree.

:rofl:

That's hilarious :D

That's something I'd love to do someday...

that is mostly what I did. Got free books, sat around reading and had a few intelligent conversations. Not very many professors, grad students or even undergrads though, in a village of 5,000.

Of course, the reason I could do that was because I had hardly any customers and was making zero money. So the books were not really free either, although sometimes you could find really cool stuff for a dime.

Very classy place. I mean that. Classical music, nice clean books. It was nice, but the work behind the scenes was BORING and tedious. Plus, I despised Goodwill.

if I may ask?

I assume we're thinking of the same place:
http://www.goodwill.org/page/guest/about

that only cared about sales. They get all their merchandise for nothing, make it known that they hire people who cannot get jobs anywhere else due to mental problems, criminal records, bad attitudes and exploit them. They pay minimum wage, and pay their managers only $9-10 per hour but expect them to handle some extremely difficult, and sometimes dangerous employees.

If you go to their 990 tax returns, you will see that the director makes almost a half million a year, his wife makes 90,000, their son makes 75,000. Most upper management are friends of the director and make between $50 and $90 thousand.

The pressure working there is inhuman. Most stores are filthy, in fact, a health hazard to the workers. No A/C in some stores and loaded with roaches and rats. I worked for them 2 times in a year for 3 months each time. I witnessed theft daily on all levels. They fired women in their 40's and 50's most of the time. God, I could go on and on.


http://goodwillindustries.org

Glad you got out.

I just envision a female Bernard Black.

I simply adore books.

When I think of the slave wages and difficult/nasty customers, however, I get the heeby-jeebies. :scared:

and slam down the phone because he didn't like the price I told him on one book.

I've also had customers yell and storm out of the store because I wouldn't let them walk around with their coffee or GIANT backpack.
"What, you think I'm going to steal?!?!?!?!"
"No, I just know that backpacks tend to knock books off the shelves, get in the way, and can damage stock."
"FACIST!>!@>>@>@!!@#"

In one store we had a stack of jumbo unabridged dictionaries on the floor. Time and time again I had to ask people to please not sit on them. I was amazed at how many people acted like I was being a b*tch for doing so--as if sitting on merchandise was perfectly acceptable. :eyes:

And I lost count of how many people took out on me the fact that the store didn't have in stock whatever it was they wanted, regardless of how obscure it was. For Pete's sake, it was a rather small generic mall Waldenbooks, not a jumbo Borders or B&N.



To this day I treat customer service people very nicely since I know what they go through. If I see someone else being rude to them I'm extra nice to help make up for it.

Taking bets every shift of how many men would order their coffee, grab a top-shelf plastic-wrapped girlie mag, and head to the bathroom for at least 15 minutes or so.

I love used bookstores. Just got a practically brand-new hardcover copy of The Guns of the South for $20.

I head to Powells. It is absolute heaven.