Empty Cage

When people first hear about my job in a bookstore they get this starry far-away look and talk about how that it “probably their dream job, or something”. And every time I shoot whoever I’m working with a knowing smile and just say nothing. Sometimes looking pretty is the best you can legitimately hope for in such a situation. Of course, given I had permission to say what I thought on the matter my list might go something like this. (These are probably mutually exclusive to independent booksellers — support them damn you)

1. Just to dispel any initial illusions I have yet to meet someone in a bookstore who has time to read on the job. Ever. Maybe flip through a book, perhaps read the back but I don’t think a full novel has ever been read in a store whilst said store was open. And if you were reading, you’d better believe your coworkers are planning mutiny because they must be doing the work.
2. You will never meet someone with the same taste as you. No one will read a book you liked and agree with you, ever. This may be a problem exclusive to me ‘Little Miss American Psycho-Battle Royale-Fight Club’. But nine times out of ten you will be asked what someone should get for their 12 year old niece. (And none of the aforementioned books ever cut it)
3. To tie into that, you have to love every book ever even if the idea of it makes your skin crawl. Why? Because you must sell every book ever. Be all things to all people, let them know (in my case as diplomatically as you can muster) that Twilight is ‘a really hot seller’. And that ‘sure, you loved it, and would recommend it to anyone’ You cannot be sarcastic or mean about it. You have no idea how many veins I’ve popped telling people terrible books are wonderful. But you have to, because you’re a sales person. You can try to distract them with something less painful but this smoke screen has rarely helped my efforts.
4. Furthermore, you have to know everything about every genre. Which in turn, seems to require you know everything about everything. From Fantasy to… Sports. ‘What’s a good book on plants? Does it include detailed information on where to plant my hostas? What do you MEAN you don’t know?” Very few people will legitimately believe that you have not read every book in the store.
5. You must be open to the usual plight of one working in customer service and consent to being treated like an idiot every single day. This is sort of a general law, but I figured I should include it, just to remind you. At twenty you get treated no better in a bookstore than at McDonald’s.
6. There are more stupid labour detail intensive time draining jobs in a bookstore then any other place I’ve worked. Starting with receiving the books (which used to require typing every ISBN to cross our doorstep into the computer — and even occasionally all the the book’s information such as the title and author, we’ve advanced since then but not much), labeling each book (and not with just a generic label, a specific label is needed to be matched to each one), attaching special orders to the right books or shelving them. A hideously extensive process just to get the books on the shelves. You also have to do inventory yearly (which involves putting your hand on every book in the store), and a return several times a year (which involves also touching every book in the store as well as scanning and shipping out old inventory– ordeal doesn’t begin to describe it) We actually just finished a return which is why I am so bitter today.
7. Special Orders are always mayhem, and you will never have the right book in stock. The only person who will have the right book is sitting eating Cheerios in their little Belgian publishing house. Or it’s a self pub, or out of print, or out of stock indefinitely. Even though the customer KNOWS they saw it at Chapters yesterday. Or they really need it… tomorrow. And well, they don’t know the title or the author but they will kill the next twenty minutes of your time telling you all about the plot. Because, as I said earlier, you have of COURSE read every book in the store. And every book ever written.
8. This is not really part of the list of why you don’t want to work in a bookstore, but what the hell — Amazon wants to sell ad space in Kindle E-book Readers? Because my brain isn’t already permanently jelly-ized by the other millions of commercials I see daily. If I’m buying an e-book reader and a book then damnit, I don’t want advertisers blinking in the corner of my eye. Myself being a grumpy old man aside. What is with commercials at movies? I’m only paying 20 bucks so you can blind me with fifteen minutes of ads. Okay, grumpy old man REALLY aside now.
9. If they come in the store at five to close they are a browser. There is no exception to this rule in recorded history.
10. Sometimes you learn more than you want to about your customers when they decide to buy that copy of the Kama Sutra. And they are seventy. And they have a suspicious looking drugstore bag. And usually no teeth.

Okay, my momentum has died, but I think that’s a good start, don’t you?