Adventures in Bookselling

As I've mentioned before, I work at the information desk. As the name of the desk implies, the main function of this job is to provide people with information. My days, though peppered with other tasks, are structured around a stream of people that come up to the desk and ask me questions, for which I provide answers to the best of my ability. If you stand at the desk for more than an hour, you realize that people tend to repeat each other. And even though a lot of the customers at my store have high stakes jobs, own a company of some sort, or are minor celebrities, they still don't take the time to ask unique, fresh, or interesting questions like,

Why do so many female mystery writers have series about cats? (Because they are lesbians, and lesbians like cats.)

Or

Why does Dummies have a travel series? (Because people are really, really stupid.)

Or

Why, does Bookmaster refuse to bring up the information on the latest printing of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter when you type it into the title search? (Because you literally have to type in "Oprah's Latest Book Club Selection", since the computer thinks that that is the title. Ego trip much?)

Instead, people ask things like,

Where are the children's books? (Upstairs)

Do you have a bathroom? (Yes)

What's the name of the new Richard Clark book? (Against All Enemies)

Um, yeah. BORING.

The only thing that really breaks the monotony is when people ask me what can only be referred to as, "Questions for Dummies." (I would be happy to write that awkwardly sized yellow tome!) So, without further ado, here are the Stupid Human Questions I've been asked of late. Since I can only assume that my readership (if you can call three of my friends a readership) is made up of people outside the B&N employ, I've decided to provide the answers to the questions. After all, to those of you who are not members of the bookslave fold, they might not seem stupid at all.

THE QUESTIONS:

Where are the non-fiction books?

Answer: The non-fiction books are everywhere except for the finite section of books entitled "Fiction and Literature." Do you really think that me answering this question is going to help you locate a copy of Fly Fishing For Dummies?

Why don't you guys have a copy machine in here?

Answer: We are a bookstore, not a library. Management would prefer if you paid the $12.99 for your book, rather than the 30 cents it would cost to copy the three relevant pages.

Where are the books you can borrow?

Answer: At the library. See above RE: We are not one.

When is the Da Vinci Code coming out in paperback?

Answer: April, 2005. Now, this may not seem like a stupid question, but considering the fact that I've already told everyone in Manhattan, most of the borough folk, half of Long Island, and a smattering of Southern Westchester County, I feel that I've begun to repeat myself and would prefer it if people would work on their listening skills.

Do you sell paper table clothes?

Answer: Um, NO.

I don't know the title or the author, but it was about a woman, and it was red.

Answer: Sorry, our search engine doesn't have a book-jacket color feature.

I don't know the title or the author, but it was a cookbook and the author had an Italian last name.

Answer: Thanks, that's super helpful since there are only a few Italian cooks.

I don't know the title or the author, but it was on that table last July.

Answer: That's not a stupid question at all since my photographic memory of the tables (which, by the way, updates everyday while archiving the previous images) pre-dates my employment at the store. Just hang on while I grab that book for you!


As you can see, people are really very stupid. But it's not their fault. I mean, just because they make $500,000 dollars a year doesn't mean they should be required to use logic. Or write down a defining feature of a book when they look it up on Amazon. Or be nice to the girl who offered to print them a list of all the books with the keyword "investing" that were published this year. Come on! Aren't they working hard enough already? And if they are rude to people who work in bookstores because it took them a few minutes to figure out which "thriller about the FBI that was made into a movie once" they were looking for, it's not their fault. They are busy. And important. And rich. So I try to cut them some slack. They can't help that they are morons.






|

S., the assistant manager at my Barnes and Noble, is truly a citizen of the world. He has lived all over Europe and North America. Spanish is his first language, but he is fluent in English and French, and speaks some Russian and German. He loves food, wine, and women. He drinks almost a full bottle of wine every night. Though he himself is 69, he will not date women who are over forty. He loves to regale the female employees with tales of the seven fur coats he bought his now estranged wife. As he reminds us frequently, they parted on good terms and remain the best of friends. I regularly field calls from her, a sophisticated sounding woman with a French accent. (But doesn't everyone with a French accent sound sophisticated?)

S. has a harem. It is composed of (almost) every woman under the age of 35 who works at his Barnes and Noble. They call him Papi, or Gramps, but flirt with him shamelessly. They squeel over him when he dons a suit jacket at the end of his shift to head out on a date, and gather around him at lunch to listen as he extols the virtues of having an open marriage.

S is by far the most lenient manager. He opens every day, and lets us drink coffee on the floor. (The other managers won't even let us have WATER, so this is epicly kind.) He doesn't mind when we congeal in little blobs to gossip or moan about the early shift. In fact, he usually joins in. Despite the fact that he is easy going, when I first started working at the store, I felt on edge around him. He is a merciless teaser, and I seem to be one of his favorite targets. He play yells at me when he "catches" me upstairs going to the bathroom or to check backstock. He accuses me of lazing about or causing trouble when I'm the only person on the floor who is actually engaged in a work related activity. Before I got used to his style, I took these things to heart. I was convinced that he thought of me as a slacker. As I got to know him better, I started just finding it profoundly irritating. I vowed I would never become one of the harem. This didn't seem like it would be a hard promise to keep, since he didn't seem particularly interested in adding me to the roster.

Then one day everything changed. Lisa and S were gossiping in French, and I turned to them and said, "S'il vous plait, ne parle pas de moi." (My clumsy attempt at "please don't talk about me.") I have a huge fear of people trashing me in French, assuming I won't understand. (I usually don't. But still, it feels like playing with fire not to tell them that I have cracked their secret code.) S. was shocked that I could speak any French, and suddenly found me intriguing. He started coming by the information desk to try out French phrases on me, ask me about my education, and tell me, of course, about how well he treated his ex-wife. The attention was slightly addicative. He almost had me.

And then he clinched it. Someone had started Sophie and I off on a rousing rendition of "So Long, Farewell," from the sound of music. We were riding up the escalator performing it for the folks down below, when out of nowhere, S jumps on at the bottom, and, in a startlingly beautiful falesetto, sings Gretl's finale. (The song... has gone.... to bed and so must I... Goodbye..... Goodbye.... GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODBYE!) Now, anyone who knows me knows I cannot resist a show tune... and what with us all on the escalator, waving dramatically, it almost felt like choreography.

So now, I squeel with the rest of 'em. He may be 69, bald, and self important, but if a man will sing in falsetto in public, he's a keeper.




|

It’s six twenty-eight pm and I am about to fall asleep. This might seem pathetic.. or well... this is pathetic. Still, I do have an excuse(flimsy as it may be): I “opened” this morning. In actuality, all this means is that I was there when the store opened, which happens at seven on the dot with the manager hollering at us through the intercom “Get down here, it’s seven!” (Which by the way, pisses me off, since we are not allowed to punch in until precisely seven, and the 12 or so of us who open cannot a.) punch in our ten digit security codes simultaneously or b.)materialize instantaneously from the break room to the sales floor.) For me, living only 20 blocks from the store, all opening means is I have to get up at 5:30. When I think about it rationally, I realize that this is only an hour and a half earlier that most working guys and gals get up for their nine to fivers. So then I figure, if most people go to bed around eleven, eleven-thirty, then that would mean I should be fine hoping into bed around ten-thirty. Unfortunately, I’m neither rational or most people. On the nights before I open, eight o’clock finds me washed and brushed and tucked into bed with the blanket pulled up to my chin. Sadly, midnight usually finds me wide awake, sweaty, and glaring at the luminous digits on the television clock. I have this phobia about not sleeping which causes me not to sleep. Is that a Catch-22? I think it’s a Catch-22, but don’t quote me on that. I’ve never read any Joseph Heller (Thanks, A.).

Oh, which leads me to this next segment, which I’ve decided to entitle “What I’m Reading.”

I am reading Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynn Truss (It’s about punctuation… but it’s sort of wonderful)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/21/books/21MASL.html (link to the NYTimes review)

and Why I’m Like This by Cynthia Kaplan, which is totally not worth reading. I only picked up because the blurb on the cover compares her to, my idol, David Sedaris. I should have looked at the source. It’s People.





|

Hello... this is just a test run to see if I can add the capacity for comments......





|

Skolnick and I had some very interesting conversations the other day. She came to me, quite frantic, because a book of hers had been taken off hold "early," which in our world means at precisely the correct time. When Joe, one of the cashiers, suggested snippily that she should have just bought the book in the first place, Skolnick took offense. I'm proud to say she turned to me. She told me thought Joe was queer and neurotic. I had to stifle a laugh, because Joe does seem kinda queer, but to the disappointment of some of my friends in the store, he has a girlfriend. (He also has a has a huge tattoo of a cross on his arm, but we won't go there right now.) I guess my sympathy surrounding the Joe situation (I agreed that he seemed pretty imbalanced) earned me some points, because then and there Skolnick decided to open up to me. She told me that she was upset about something, and when I inquired what that something might be, she was happy to tell me. Her unhappiness was really two fold. The first source was that she only ever had one child, "and that one turned out to be a lemon." The second issue was that she had met a man once when she was 18, "maybe a teacher or an engineer, just like I wanted," who could have helped her out in "her career," but alas, she did not accept his invitation for a date.

Now, while Skolnick is telling me this, my stupid co-worker who we'll call Barnie since her intellect is on par with that of fans of the purple dinosaur, keeps whispering to me, "She's crazy, don't talk to her," as if it was possible I had missed that. "Oh, really Barnie? I thought she was totally normal. Thanks for straightening that out for me! Hey, Skolnick, sorry, we can't chat anymore. Barnie just informed me that you're crazy!!!"

So when Skolnick left I not-so-patiently explained to Barnie that I liked to talk to Skolnick because she was crazy. Barnie still doesn't get it. Now every time I talk to someone who is slightly senile or a little off, Barnie refers to me as an instigator.

I have to admit something shameful. When I first came to work at the store, I thought that, what with me being so “well-educated” and “overqualified” and all those other pretty little words I whisper to myself in the dark, I would stand out. I’m not sure exactly what I pictured. Most likely my co-workers fawning over me, asking what on earth I was doing working retail, and coming to me with questions about the more intellectually challenging books.

Um, yeah.

I was deluding myself.

The majority of my co-workers a.)have no interest in my life outside the store b.)couldn’t care less if I went to college or not, and c.) have no idea how old I am. I’ve heard guesses ranging from 19-27. All within the realm of the acceptable I suppose, but for me, it feels insulting. 27? And still working here? No way in hell. 19? I seem that immature? Great, just great. On the rare occasions that someone has tried to place me in a context that exists outside of the muted greens and oranges of the store, the name of my school, in the real world fairly powerful, does not even warrant a flicker or recognition on their faces.

What does register is every time a make a mistake.

Surprisingly, Barnes and Noble, or at least the one where I’m employed, is cut throat. A favorite recreational activity is huddling among the stacks in groups of twos and threes to gripe about the incompetence of each and every other person employed by the store. “Can you believe she sent that customer upstairs for a book on the bestseller list? She’s only worked here three years!” “He told a customer we didn’t have anymore Zagats- but he was looking at the stock on the 2003 book. What a moron!” “She SHELVED the due-outs I pulled. I’m going to kill her!”

Now, I work at the info desk. The first week on the job, I had no idea where anything was located in the store, yet I was somehow expected to direct the customers to the books. If I knew then what I know now about the gossip mill in the store, I would have either had a nervous breakdown or quit. I have literally been approached and interrogated by managers as to whether I sent someone upstairs for a book located on the first floor. Which can only mean one thing: Someone tattled. And 9/10 times it was not a customer, but one of my more sweet-tempered peers who flew into a rage when I sent someone to their section for something that was so OBVIOUSLY on the 20% off table.

Of course, by now, I know where the books are. I almost never make mistakes. So my co-workers have cut me some slack. Some of them even think I’m pretty good. But not one of them thinks I’m anything remotely close to special.

Which is why, just occasionally, when I’m feeling particularly underappreciated, I take pleasure in their mistakes. Like yesterday. When one of my co-workers kept referring to her “immunity system.” Or when one of my supervisors, a woman who is at least 35 years old, asked me what “lecherous” meant. Or when someone asked me who wrote Lolita. Or when I see one of the girls reading the Sparksnotes version of Catcher in the Rye for her community college American Lit. course.

This may make me sound like an asshole. Maybe I am one. I certainly have to admit to a level of intellectual snobbery. But the truth is, I don’t really think I’m better or smarter than a lot of the people there. In fact, quite the opposite. I’ve become so convinced that I truly am nothing special, that I have to collect little nuggets. Otherwise, I just may lose all hope that I'm destined for more than shelving travel books and tagging Easter displays with 50% off stickers. So cut me some slack. I'm new here.

Every store has it’s regulars, and Barnsie is no exception. There are, of course, the normal regulars. People who simply live or work in the neighborhood, and who pop by for the latest paperback mystery or to get their morning coffee.* From a corporate perspective, these people are essential. They make up the bulk of the business. Without them, the stores would close and I’d be even less employed than I am now. (Tragedy!) Personally speaking though, I have no use for them. They are as boring and faceless as I am to them. Whether they have been in one time or a hundred, they will forever remain Some Guy In A Business Suit or Random Girl With Walkman. (That is, unless they are really super hot, or they ask me a spectacularly dumb question.) The regulars who I actually care about, the ones that I’ve come to cherish and miss when they don’t come by, are the eccentrics. Whether they are stalkers, the senile, compulsives, the disabled, the psychotic, the fanatical, or the Australian, they are who I look forward to seeing. So this post is dedicated to them- Shine on your crazy diamond(s)!


*An aside vaguely related to coffee: Barnes and Noble Café’s are NOT Starbucks. They simply sell Starbucks coffee products. For no reason in particular this distinction is of prime importance to all B&N employees. At first, I didn’t understand what the fuss was about, but just the other day a customer asked me what time “the Starbucks” closed, and I pretended to think he meant the one across the street.

All names (with the exception of one which I really, really, like and was unwilling to let go of) have been changed for the protection of those mentioned, despite the fact that they are pretty much all too old or in some capacity defunct to be searching the internet for random reference to themselves.


BURTON
Burton comes into the store literally everyday. He wears black sweatpants, and a white long sleeved tee-shirt with a yellowed short sleeved tee-shirt over it. If it’s cold, he’ll add a scarf. He has a large yellow-white Afro. I realize this suggests that he is both elderly and black, but actually, I’m not truly sure he is either of those things. Both his race and his age are ambiguous. Most notably, Burton seems to be a hunchback. I mean no disrespect by this. I don’t know the politically correct term, or if one exists. Though he never buys anything, simply gathers books to read in the café, he is a model customer. He re-shelves his own books, and is unfailingly polite. He says good morning to each and every employee by name.

GUY IN SUIT WHO USES THE PAYPHONE
As I said before, guys in suits mean nothing to me. They are a dime a dozen. But this particular man distinguishes himself from the riffraff on two counts: 1.) He uses the pay phone (what, no cell phone?) and 2.) He sprawls out on the floor below the phone when he talks.

Oh, and he also wears brown socks with a grey suit. He should really take into the account the sitting on the ground thing when he dresses.

RICH DAD
My favorite customer of all is Rich Dad. The first time I met Rich Dad, he was indiscriminately shaking hands with anyone behind the info desk all the while expounding on the brilliance of the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. (For those of you not in the book trade, the tagline of the book is What the Rich Teach their Kids About Money that the Poor and Middle Class Do Not.) He loved the book, had read the book, had known everything in the book before he read it, but wanted to read it again anyway. Only problem was, he didn’t know where it was located in the store. Fortunately, I did. Although remembering where books are is a.) my job, and b.) not intrinsically difficult, he was very impressed. He labeled me a “real fire cracker,” and vigorously shook my hand. In a moment of unbridled sass, I asked him if he was the rich dad, or the poor dad. He was happy to tell me he was the rich dad. Hence the name.

For about six weeks, Rich Dad came into the store everyday. Every time, he shook my hand, called me sweetheart, and reminded me how sharp I was. He brought back memories of my grandpa, the way he clearly loved me and thought I was brilliant even though he didn’t really know me at all. Once day he confessed that the reason he was in the store everyday was that he was receiving cancer treatment at Sloane-Kettering. He assured me that it was going well, rattled on about the virtues of a positive attitude, and finished by telling me I was a beautiful person inside and out.

His treatment is over now, and from what I understand, it went well. He still comes by, for check-ups I assume, and on his most recent visit as he was shaking my hand, he planted a kiss on my cheek. Scamp. I love Rich Dad.


GUY WHO LEERS AT ME
This one is really my own fault. The first time he leered, he told me I was the most beautiful girl he’d seen all day. A blatant lie. I could see five or six prettier from where I was standing. Flattered, I smiled, and in my cheesy-mildly-flirting-with-the-customer-voice I informed him that he’d made my day. I should have realized this was a mistake. Now he comes in a few times a week to smile at me lasciviously and wave at me with one of those little waves where you hold your hand up next to your face, scrunch your head into your shoulders, and flap your fingers down to your palm and back up. It’s not really as cute as it sounds. I find it fairly creepy.

THE TWEETER
The tweeter is woman in her early fifties who likes to come in during the evenings when it’s quiet. She sits in the café and tweets energetically. If anyone glances at her, she snaps, “I’m training my parakeets!” I try not to look, but it’s hard.



MRS. SKOLNICK
Long before I had the pleasure of actually meeting her, I heard rumblings about crotchety old Mrs. Skolnick. Every time a particularly ornery older woman crossed my path, I would whisper to whoever was nearby, “Was that Skolnick?” I was met with the same response every time: When it is, you won’t need to ask.

Before long, I started to suspect that she was a myth. She always seemed to appear when I was on break, or on a day off. Then one Sunday, out of the blue, there she was- all 4 foot 9 of her wrapped in a ragged plaid coat, running to the information desk, shrieking.
“I NEED A BOOK ON AYABABABEE!” I had no idea what she had said, but sensed it was urgent.
“I’m sorry, a book on what?”
“AYABABABEE! AYABABABEE!” She practically growled at me. “What are you, STUPID?” That kind of made me want to smack her, but hey, the customer is always right, so I just called her m’am, admitted I was a little bit dim, and asked her to repeat her request more slowly.
“EEEEEEEEE! LEC! TRICITY!” she screamed, followed by, “I don’t have time for this!” Before I could even type “electricity” into the keyword search, she was gone. One of my coworkers, who had disappeared at Skolnick’s approach, sauntered back over to ask me what she had wanted.
“She wanted a book on electricity.”
“Oh, yeah,” she told me, “She’s been on about that book for months.”

The object of her desire, it turns out, was a $7.99 Do-It-Yourself Electrical Wiring book written in the mid-80s. It had been a bargain book over the holidays. Now, I don’t know what it was about this particular book that captured her imagination. I mean, one look at her tells you she ain’t gonna to be doing no home wiring of her own. Whatever the reason may have been, the book became a fixation. Every time she came into the store, she would take the book to the cashier and have them place it on hold for her. When she didn’t come to purchase it during the requisite two days, it would go back on the shelf. Like clockwork, she’d come in and have it put on hold again. At the end of the holiday season, the book, like many others, was deemed overstock and sent back to the warehouse. I can’t be sure of this, but I think my first encounter with Skolnick came on the tragic day when she realized her book was no longer in the store. Now, this may have been a hitch in her plan, but Skolnick was resourceful. She quickly learned that she could have us order the book. When it came into the store, she would be called and informed that it would be on hold for two weeks. Armed with this knowledge, she devised a system that worked for her: She made a note of the day the book was to be removed from hold and sent back to the warehouse. The next day, she would call and ask for the book, only to be told it was no longer there. Upon hearing this, she would scream, and on her more articulate days, berate the poor sap who answered the phone. Once she was satisfied, she would turn on the charm and ask to have the book reordered. If the bookseller refused, she would simply call back until she spoke to someone who would.

One day a couple of weeks ago, a cashier called me over the intercom. He told me Skolnick was holding on line one, and could I deal with her? I agreed. When I picked up, all I could here was “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!” Apparently, she was on auto-scream. It was slightly terrifying. When she realized I had picked up, she switched to words: “THAT MAN! THAT MAN! HE TOLD ME MY BOOK WAS GONE! HE SAID “SORRY!” RUDE LIKE THAT! “SORRY!” HE WASN’T SORRY! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” I put on my sweetest voice, and apologized profusely. I called up her order, and told her I’d go check upstairs to see if by chance, it had yet to be sent out. She changed tacks quickly, “All right. You call me back. You got my number?” I told her I had it in the computer. “Make sure you give me ten minutes to get to my apartment. I’m at a pay phone.” I called her back ten minutes later, and told her that the book was gone, but that I’d reordered it. She didn’t scream. Instead, she sounded nervous. “Was anyone listening to you? Did anyone hear?” After reassuring her that the conversation had indeed been unobserved, she sighed. “Manager doesn’t want me ordering any more books,” she said, “I never buy them. I guess I’m just a frustrated old woman.” I was shocked. I hadn’t realized that Skolnick was with it enough to have perspective on herself. It made me sad. Thinking of her as crazy and unhinged had always been amusing, but thinking of her as crazy and unhinged and aware of it was quiet a different story. I decided to like Skolnick. I decided to defend her right to keep needlessly putting this book on hold. I made a note in the order comments that I would call her myself, and marked it with capital letters and exclamation points.

Skolnick’s book came in after a few days. When it came off hold 14 days later, I brought it upstairs and shelved it instead of sending it to the warehouse. Someone must have found it, because the next time she called, it was gone. I almost shed a tear. But I shouldn’t have worried. Skolnick can take care of herself. Two days later the book was back, and I was happy to call Skolnick and tell her the good news.

10:48 am

Let me just set this up for you: I'm 24 years old. I live in Manhattan in the oh-so-un-hip Murray Hill district. (My apologies to the ibankers and ibanker hanger-ons of the world, but really, face facts: Murray Hill is lame.) And I went to A Good School. A Really Good School. I thought this would mean I'd have A Good Job. Unfortunately my lack of substantive career goals combined with the sluggish economy and the plethora of people exactly like me have left me with fewer options than I had hoped. So for now I am employed in the ever glamorous field of Bookselling. Barnes and Noble bookselling to be precise. My three month anniversary with the retail conglomerate is coming up in a few days (I think they're going to add a quarter to my slave wages!) and as I've reflected back over the past months I've realized something important: I'd better start writing this shit down. In the twelve weeks I've been working there, I've encountered female foot fetishists, celebrities, hunchbacks, gangsters with a passion for the written word, perverted photographers, and Japanese tourists who speak NO English but want nothing more than to own a copy of Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven. And those are just the customers! Among my fellow employees, I count a Mormon with a passion for the Indigo Girls, a mentally-challenged standup comedian, an 80-year old shrew who forgets to change her diapers, and countless effeminate "straight" men, aspiring actors, and future American Idol blooper reel contenders.

So I make a pledge here and now: I am going to make a record of my wonderfully bizarre days at B&N. Because heaven knows, I'm no lifer. Someday, probably someday soon, I'll have a "real" job, and the wonders and weirdness of a life in retail will be a thing of the past.