Holiday reflections from a shallow pool.
Not anything even remotely like a comprehensive catalog of the hellish swarm of last minute credit card-carrying locusts that descended upon the store in the two days before Christmas. Just a few things that've been bugging me.
To the woman who, on Christmas Eve, tried to bypass the line by calling ahead and paying for her book over the phone, then sarcastically told me to have a merry Christmas when I told her we don't do that: Your difficulty is caused, like many difficulties customers have, by an inability to think about the larger implications of your request. I hate to get all everything-I-need-to-know-I-learned-in-kindergarten on you, but the things people say to shut kids up aren't just for kids; in this case, if we did it for you, we'd have to do it for everyone. The result: two separate lines, one for people who've paid over the phone and one for people who aren't comfortable with giving a stranger, whose phone calls are not monitored and who can thus use a fake name and claim he never talked to you if he decides -- out of pure spite -- that he wants to fuck you over hard, their credit card info over the phone. This inability to think through the consequences of what they're asking applies to a lot of customer complaints. For example, if we sent books between branches we'd have to, in effect, hire a fleet of Barnes and Noble bike messengers1. Or if we took pre-orders for signed books when authors sign in the store? "Sorry, Mary from the Bronx2, who left work early so she could get here in time to get her book signed by David McCullough, these last two copies are going to Bob from Wisconsin. I don't know why he needs two copies, either. I didn't ask! Bye!"
As a corollary to the above, here are things that are guaranteed to not get you through the incredibly long holiday line any faster:
- Complaining to me about the length of the line.
- Complaining to nobody in particular about the length of the line, presumably just so the people around you know how displeased you are. Loud sighing also counts in this category.
- Asking me if you "really have to wait in that line."
- Asking me if there's another line.
- Complaining to me about there not being enough registers.
- Telling me that you don't have time to wait in line.
The answer to all of the above is "it's Christmas Eve." I know you, dear reader, already know this, and I don't have to remind you, because you are classy and self-possessed, but I cannot tell these things to people when I am working and I need to vent.
This year's shitty, thoughtless gift book from people who don't read books, for people who don't read books:
I gave up on trying to convince people to put this down and buy Close Range: Wyoming Stories, the Annie Proulx collection that contains "Brokeback Mountain" and ten other stories, after being met with blank stares and outright hostility3 from customer after customer. If you bought this for yourself, you're merely an idiot: at $9.95 for 55 pages of story, it's probably the worst value in the store, and it gets even worse when you consider that the text is larger and spaced farther apart to stretch it out from the thirty pages it occupies in the collection. But if you got it for someone as a gift, fuck you, seriously. I hope they turned to you and said, "You couldn't have dropped the extra four bucks and bought me a copy of Close Range?
To the people who actually have the gall to sit on the big stacks of books and then get pissy with me when I suggest to them that people might not want to buy something that has touched their ass: Fuck you. One of my biggest problems with BN is the overly permissive attitude that is company policy when dealing with assholes who not only make my job more difficult but also make it more difficult for people to get the books they want. Say, for example, a customer is sprawled out on the floor in front of one of the fiction bookcases, making it all but impossible for people to browse the bottom three shelves. I am not allowed to go up to that person and tell them to move. Same deal with the kids who make the manga section a fucking obstacle course every goddamned day. This is so irritating that some guy even wrote an editorial about it in The New York Times Book Review. And yet I can do nothing about it; it's store policy to let people kick back on the floors, as long as they don't do one of the only things that can get you kicked out of a BN, falling asleep. But people actually sitting on books? They do not fall into that category. That is why I told you to move. So stop looking at me like that. Asshole.
Another installment of Detonation Radio should arrive in the next few days, but you surely know better than to hold me to that.
1 I suspect the real reason this policy hasn't been implemented is personal rather than fiscal. Have you ever dealt with a NYC bike messenger? Yeesh.
2 Or Queens, whatever.
3 Actual quote: "She said she wants 'Brokeback Mountain,' not a bunch of other stories."
To the woman who, on Christmas Eve, tried to bypass the line by calling ahead and paying for her book over the phone, then sarcastically told me to have a merry Christmas when I told her we don't do that: Your difficulty is caused, like many difficulties customers have, by an inability to think about the larger implications of your request. I hate to get all everything-I-need-to-know-I-learned-in-kindergarten on you, but the things people say to shut kids up aren't just for kids; in this case, if we did it for you, we'd have to do it for everyone. The result: two separate lines, one for people who've paid over the phone and one for people who aren't comfortable with giving a stranger, whose phone calls are not monitored and who can thus use a fake name and claim he never talked to you if he decides -- out of pure spite -- that he wants to fuck you over hard, their credit card info over the phone. This inability to think through the consequences of what they're asking applies to a lot of customer complaints. For example, if we sent books between branches we'd have to, in effect, hire a fleet of Barnes and Noble bike messengers1. Or if we took pre-orders for signed books when authors sign in the store? "Sorry, Mary from the Bronx2, who left work early so she could get here in time to get her book signed by David McCullough, these last two copies are going to Bob from Wisconsin. I don't know why he needs two copies, either. I didn't ask! Bye!"
As a corollary to the above, here are things that are guaranteed to not get you through the incredibly long holiday line any faster:
- Complaining to me about the length of the line.
- Complaining to nobody in particular about the length of the line, presumably just so the people around you know how displeased you are. Loud sighing also counts in this category.
- Asking me if you "really have to wait in that line."
- Asking me if there's another line.
- Complaining to me about there not being enough registers.
- Telling me that you don't have time to wait in line.
The answer to all of the above is "it's Christmas Eve." I know you, dear reader, already know this, and I don't have to remind you, because you are classy and self-possessed, but I cannot tell these things to people when I am working and I need to vent.
This year's shitty, thoughtless gift book from people who don't read books, for people who don't read books:
I gave up on trying to convince people to put this down and buy Close Range: Wyoming Stories, the Annie Proulx collection that contains "Brokeback Mountain" and ten other stories, after being met with blank stares and outright hostility3 from customer after customer. If you bought this for yourself, you're merely an idiot: at $9.95 for 55 pages of story, it's probably the worst value in the store, and it gets even worse when you consider that the text is larger and spaced farther apart to stretch it out from the thirty pages it occupies in the collection. But if you got it for someone as a gift, fuck you, seriously. I hope they turned to you and said, "You couldn't have dropped the extra four bucks and bought me a copy of Close Range?
To the people who actually have the gall to sit on the big stacks of books and then get pissy with me when I suggest to them that people might not want to buy something that has touched their ass: Fuck you. One of my biggest problems with BN is the overly permissive attitude that is company policy when dealing with assholes who not only make my job more difficult but also make it more difficult for people to get the books they want. Say, for example, a customer is sprawled out on the floor in front of one of the fiction bookcases, making it all but impossible for people to browse the bottom three shelves. I am not allowed to go up to that person and tell them to move. Same deal with the kids who make the manga section a fucking obstacle course every goddamned day. This is so irritating that some guy even wrote an editorial about it in The New York Times Book Review. And yet I can do nothing about it; it's store policy to let people kick back on the floors, as long as they don't do one of the only things that can get you kicked out of a BN, falling asleep. But people actually sitting on books? They do not fall into that category. That is why I told you to move. So stop looking at me like that. Asshole.
Another installment of Detonation Radio should arrive in the next few days, but you surely know better than to hold me to that.
1 I suspect the real reason this policy hasn't been implemented is personal rather than fiscal. Have you ever dealt with a NYC bike messenger? Yeesh.
2 Or Queens, whatever.
3 Actual quote: "She said she wants 'Brokeback Mountain,' not a bunch of other stories."
posted by Dktr. Blasphemy at 9:50 PM
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