In America, we have the right.
I don't think it was a full moon Friday night. My last girlfriend, The Stripper, used to swear up and down that every time she worked at the strip club on nights when there was a full moon, crazy shit happened. I wanted to, but didn't, tell her that she was a superstitious fool, and that a child could debunk this notion given the time and motivation. Instead I pretended that she wasn't just as likely to have a guy whip it out on her with a crescent moon in the sky as with a full one.
The preceding paragraph served three purposes:
1. To mention that I used to date a stripper.
2. To talk shit about her for no particular reason.
3. To establish that I think the belief in greater strangenesses during the full moon is ridiculous horseshit.
Now that that's out of the way, Friday was absolutely crazy. By the end of my first hour I'd already dealt with two extremely irate customers who were trying to check on orders that, according to the computer, did not exist. One of them called me an asshole as she went up the escalator, presumably to buy a different puzzle in lieu of the "Seurat" Simpsons puzzle that according to BN's database does not exist and could not possibly have been ordered no matter how much pixie dust we sprinkled on the keyboards.
That was the normal part of the day. Around 1 PM, a woman approached the desk and asked for the store manager. Since the store manager was not in, and in any case we do not bother the store manager unless there is a clear reason to, Bad Brains1, the manager on duty, offered his assistance. Woman proceeded to complain that she was in the cafe and put her head down on the table. Shortly thereafter, one of our friendly maintenance people either asked her if she was okay or touched her on the arm and told her she couldn't sleep there, depending on who you ask. She was so traumatized by the alleged arm-touching that she felt the need to complain. It was obvious that she is one of those people who gets very, very easily flustered. Too fragile to live in this crazy world, obviously.
Things got interesting about an hour later when she returned to the store with her husband and they walked up to the customer service desk just as the guy who'd offended her so, whom we will refer to as C., was clocking out. Now, C. is an older gentleman who hails from one of the many non-English speaking countries of the world, possibly Albania, and despite his relatively advanced age is clearly a tough-ish guy. I certainly wouldn't get in his face without reason. But this woman's husband starts yelling at him: "Why did you touch my wife??? You don't touch my wife!!!" From the way the guy was carrying on, you'd think that our possibly-Albanian friend had touched his wife, you know, indecently.
Meanwhile, the woman was saying something to the effect that "This is America, I have the right to sleep where I want" (which I think is going to become my new motto), and suggesting that since there is no sign specifically saying that sleeping in the store is not allowed, it should be allowed. In a perfect world, I would have pointed to a pregnant woman and said, "There's no sign saying I can't cut open that pregnant woman's belly and feast upon the warm, nascent flesh inside, but that doesn't mean I can do that." Alas, we do not live in such a world.
I feel like pointing out here that both the man and his wife smelled like corpse ass.
So C. is trying to be conciliatory as best he can, which amounts to denying that he touched the man's wife. Hubby is unsurprisingly not placated and continues to try to start shit. C. is behind the customer service desk. C. gets out from behind the customer service desk, fists raised.
Oh, shit.
One flurry of activity later, a manager had grabbed C. to keep him from pounding the hell out of a customer, while another stood in front of husband and wife and told them to get the fuck out of the store, which after a bit more yelling they did. But not before delivering a devastating parting shot: "We used to recommend this place to our friends all the time, but not anymore!" I always think it's cute when people think gigantic mega-bookstore chain Barnes & Noble can be brought to its knees by bad word of mouth.
So, near fight on the sales floor, just days after a would-be shoplifter hit a female employee in the forehead with the plywood board from a cheap chess set. I'm starting to fear for my safety.
More fun from Friday:
- Customer asks me how much it costs per day to keep the store cool. Exactly the sort of information I can reasonably be expected to know.
- Guy asks me where the nearest Borders is in a low, conspiratorial voice, like he's asking me where he can find weapons-grade plutonium or Mother Teresa nudes or something. I tell him I'm pretty sure there's one on 43rd and 10th Ave. There is definitely not a Borders on 43rd and 10th.
- Crone decides to bitch to me about how BN is not doing enough to help the community, specifically that we should be getting "lecturers" (yes, the authors who come by the store to flog their books are lecturers now) like The End of Poverty author Jeffrey Sachs to come in. It took me about five tries to explain to her that I wasn't the person she needed to be complaining to before I gave her the number of the store's Community Relations Managers, who I'm sure were delighted to hear from her if she actually called. I'm sure she didn't call, though, because she is a crazy old crone who enjoys taking out her streak of irrational and cranky liberalism/socialism on low level employees and will probably come in periodically to do so until the day she finally dies.
1 Need I mention that names have been changed to protect the innocent? I didn't think so.
The preceding paragraph served three purposes:
1. To mention that I used to date a stripper.
2. To talk shit about her for no particular reason.
3. To establish that I think the belief in greater strangenesses during the full moon is ridiculous horseshit.
Now that that's out of the way, Friday was absolutely crazy. By the end of my first hour I'd already dealt with two extremely irate customers who were trying to check on orders that, according to the computer, did not exist. One of them called me an asshole as she went up the escalator, presumably to buy a different puzzle in lieu of the "Seurat" Simpsons puzzle that according to BN's database does not exist and could not possibly have been ordered no matter how much pixie dust we sprinkled on the keyboards.
That was the normal part of the day. Around 1 PM, a woman approached the desk and asked for the store manager. Since the store manager was not in, and in any case we do not bother the store manager unless there is a clear reason to, Bad Brains1, the manager on duty, offered his assistance. Woman proceeded to complain that she was in the cafe and put her head down on the table. Shortly thereafter, one of our friendly maintenance people either asked her if she was okay or touched her on the arm and told her she couldn't sleep there, depending on who you ask. She was so traumatized by the alleged arm-touching that she felt the need to complain. It was obvious that she is one of those people who gets very, very easily flustered. Too fragile to live in this crazy world, obviously.
Things got interesting about an hour later when she returned to the store with her husband and they walked up to the customer service desk just as the guy who'd offended her so, whom we will refer to as C., was clocking out. Now, C. is an older gentleman who hails from one of the many non-English speaking countries of the world, possibly Albania, and despite his relatively advanced age is clearly a tough-ish guy. I certainly wouldn't get in his face without reason. But this woman's husband starts yelling at him: "Why did you touch my wife??? You don't touch my wife!!!" From the way the guy was carrying on, you'd think that our possibly-Albanian friend had touched his wife, you know, indecently.
Meanwhile, the woman was saying something to the effect that "This is America, I have the right to sleep where I want" (which I think is going to become my new motto), and suggesting that since there is no sign specifically saying that sleeping in the store is not allowed, it should be allowed. In a perfect world, I would have pointed to a pregnant woman and said, "There's no sign saying I can't cut open that pregnant woman's belly and feast upon the warm, nascent flesh inside, but that doesn't mean I can do that." Alas, we do not live in such a world.
I feel like pointing out here that both the man and his wife smelled like corpse ass.
So C. is trying to be conciliatory as best he can, which amounts to denying that he touched the man's wife. Hubby is unsurprisingly not placated and continues to try to start shit. C. is behind the customer service desk. C. gets out from behind the customer service desk, fists raised.
Oh, shit.
One flurry of activity later, a manager had grabbed C. to keep him from pounding the hell out of a customer, while another stood in front of husband and wife and told them to get the fuck out of the store, which after a bit more yelling they did. But not before delivering a devastating parting shot: "We used to recommend this place to our friends all the time, but not anymore!" I always think it's cute when people think gigantic mega-bookstore chain Barnes & Noble can be brought to its knees by bad word of mouth.
So, near fight on the sales floor, just days after a would-be shoplifter hit a female employee in the forehead with the plywood board from a cheap chess set. I'm starting to fear for my safety.
More fun from Friday:
- Customer asks me how much it costs per day to keep the store cool. Exactly the sort of information I can reasonably be expected to know.
- Guy asks me where the nearest Borders is in a low, conspiratorial voice, like he's asking me where he can find weapons-grade plutonium or Mother Teresa nudes or something. I tell him I'm pretty sure there's one on 43rd and 10th Ave. There is definitely not a Borders on 43rd and 10th.
- Crone decides to bitch to me about how BN is not doing enough to help the community, specifically that we should be getting "lecturers" (yes, the authors who come by the store to flog their books are lecturers now) like The End of Poverty author Jeffrey Sachs to come in. It took me about five tries to explain to her that I wasn't the person she needed to be complaining to before I gave her the number of the store's Community Relations Managers, who I'm sure were delighted to hear from her if she actually called. I'm sure she didn't call, though, because she is a crazy old crone who enjoys taking out her streak of irrational and cranky liberalism/socialism on low level employees and will probably come in periodically to do so until the day she finally dies.
1 Need I mention that names have been changed to protect the innocent? I didn't think so.
posted by Dktr. Blasphemy at 1:08 AM
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