Three stories from work
One is short, one medium length, and one a bit long.
Story #1
Guy: I'm looking for a Rainbow Study Bible.
Me: Right this way, sir. (We go to the bible aisle.) Which translation would you like?
Guy: Just a rainbow one.
Me: ...ok.
(There are several, and the first rainbow study bible I see is...)
Me: Well, here's the Catholic Rainbow Study Bib-
Guy: No, man! I need a Christian one!
Me: ...
Story #2
I had just let my crew into the story yesterday morning, and walking back to clock in, we all hear a loud THWACK! come from the front. It's common for nitwits who are too illiterate to read the hours post on the front door to attempt to enter the store when the doors are locked and the lights are off. Typically they look confused, peer in the window, and then give the front door another good YANK before they get disgusted and leave. This time, however, we saw no persons outside. We were all confused, but went on with opening duties anyway.
A few minutes later I am taking the crew to the bank to drop the evening deposit, and they point out a dead dove on the sidewalk that wasn't there when we entered. The girls are sad, and we surmise that it hit the window at full speed, evidenced by the bird-shaped splat over one of the exit doors. Brantley notices when we return, however, that there is a hawk chillin' out in the parking lot, looking at us, and hopping around in little circles. I speculate he was the reason the dove hit the window, and I say, "Maybe he's waiting for us to leave so he can get his breakfast. I hope he does, 'cause then I won't have to clean up the dead bird."
He did.
Story #3
I am responsible for, among other things, all the bargain books in my store. A few months back, whole categories of my salebooks were disappearing off the shelves. I was informed that a customer was coming in and loading up two carts full of kids bargain titles wholesale, picking out certain books, and then taking all the copies at once, usually going for broke in one group or another. Sometimes the kid's classics would be gone, or a huge chunk of kid's fiction, etc. While we were overjoyed at the large amounts of sales, this left me with a decimated area that I had to make look nice and neat and full. Plus, I had an empty position for the person who is supposed to be taking care of this for me. It was rough times, and I had to request an increase in stock to cover for the lack of product on my shelves. Some weeks pass, and with the higher volume of deliveries, I finally get my bargain section back to its former packed and pretty state.
Last week, the Bargain Book Bandit struck again. Only this time, I caught her. One of the employees tells me a lady is doing a purchase for an institution, which is something a manager has to handle. I get there, and there is an older lady, probably in her late 40s/50s with two shopping carts heaped with the discount kids books I'd only set up two days previously. She has some of them already crowding my checkout counter in even stacks, each with a coupon on top. I begin to worry that this is going to be one of those nitpicker customers who will argue over the "mysterious" information on her receipt and such.
The lady turns out to be extremely patient and very polite, which allows me to relax and have friendly conversation with her while ringing her up. She explains how she works for the local government doing environmental impact analysis for highway construction. She is required to check the effect of new roads on, among other things, the cities and towns it crosses by or through. It was on one such job that she discovered a small town in North Carolina. She couldn't just post a notice there and let those cross with the idea of a new road complain because the town was super-low income, and close to half the people were illiterate. Literally.
She had to develop a campaign of radio broadcasts, public announcements and so on to communicate to the non-reading community that a new road was coming through and what changes it would bring. The program was a huge success apparently, and reached the people very effectively. It earned her national recognition as an outreach effort.
The lady explained to me that while she appreciated the recognition, she could not just leave the town after all that and forget about it. So at the end of last year, she started to do something about it. She came to my store, spent $500-$600 as thriftily as she could on the salebooks, and donated them to the school library in that North Carolina town. She's been doing it once a week, every week, since then. She said that if she could do this for a living, she would. The majority of the kids in that town had never owned a book in their lives, and were carrying their new gifts around like revered treasures. The librarian there is completely flabberghasted, and when asked what kinds of books the kids would like, the answer was boys' fiction, and surprisingly, biographies. I guess in the kids need some role models.
If this lady keeps up her habit, she'll be dropping about $26,000 a year out of pocket for this town to learn to read.
I've been emailing my district manager about this. I don't plan on letting her come in to empty shelves ever again.
Story #1
Guy: I'm looking for a Rainbow Study Bible.
Me: Right this way, sir. (We go to the bible aisle.) Which translation would you like?
Guy: Just a rainbow one.
Me: ...ok.
(There are several, and the first rainbow study bible I see is...)
Me: Well, here's the Catholic Rainbow Study Bib-
Guy: No, man! I need a Christian one!
Me: ...
Story #2
I had just let my crew into the story yesterday morning, and walking back to clock in, we all hear a loud THWACK! come from the front. It's common for nitwits who are too illiterate to read the hours post on the front door to attempt to enter the store when the doors are locked and the lights are off. Typically they look confused, peer in the window, and then give the front door another good YANK before they get disgusted and leave. This time, however, we saw no persons outside. We were all confused, but went on with opening duties anyway.
A few minutes later I am taking the crew to the bank to drop the evening deposit, and they point out a dead dove on the sidewalk that wasn't there when we entered. The girls are sad, and we surmise that it hit the window at full speed, evidenced by the bird-shaped splat over one of the exit doors. Brantley notices when we return, however, that there is a hawk chillin' out in the parking lot, looking at us, and hopping around in little circles. I speculate he was the reason the dove hit the window, and I say, "Maybe he's waiting for us to leave so he can get his breakfast. I hope he does, 'cause then I won't have to clean up the dead bird."
He did.
Story #3
I am responsible for, among other things, all the bargain books in my store. A few months back, whole categories of my salebooks were disappearing off the shelves. I was informed that a customer was coming in and loading up two carts full of kids bargain titles wholesale, picking out certain books, and then taking all the copies at once, usually going for broke in one group or another. Sometimes the kid's classics would be gone, or a huge chunk of kid's fiction, etc. While we were overjoyed at the large amounts of sales, this left me with a decimated area that I had to make look nice and neat and full. Plus, I had an empty position for the person who is supposed to be taking care of this for me. It was rough times, and I had to request an increase in stock to cover for the lack of product on my shelves. Some weeks pass, and with the higher volume of deliveries, I finally get my bargain section back to its former packed and pretty state.
Last week, the Bargain Book Bandit struck again. Only this time, I caught her. One of the employees tells me a lady is doing a purchase for an institution, which is something a manager has to handle. I get there, and there is an older lady, probably in her late 40s/50s with two shopping carts heaped with the discount kids books I'd only set up two days previously. She has some of them already crowding my checkout counter in even stacks, each with a coupon on top. I begin to worry that this is going to be one of those nitpicker customers who will argue over the "mysterious" information on her receipt and such.
The lady turns out to be extremely patient and very polite, which allows me to relax and have friendly conversation with her while ringing her up. She explains how she works for the local government doing environmental impact analysis for highway construction. She is required to check the effect of new roads on, among other things, the cities and towns it crosses by or through. It was on one such job that she discovered a small town in North Carolina. She couldn't just post a notice there and let those cross with the idea of a new road complain because the town was super-low income, and close to half the people were illiterate. Literally.
She had to develop a campaign of radio broadcasts, public announcements and so on to communicate to the non-reading community that a new road was coming through and what changes it would bring. The program was a huge success apparently, and reached the people very effectively. It earned her national recognition as an outreach effort.
The lady explained to me that while she appreciated the recognition, she could not just leave the town after all that and forget about it. So at the end of last year, she started to do something about it. She came to my store, spent $500-$600 as thriftily as she could on the salebooks, and donated them to the school library in that North Carolina town. She's been doing it once a week, every week, since then. She said that if she could do this for a living, she would. The majority of the kids in that town had never owned a book in their lives, and were carrying their new gifts around like revered treasures. The librarian there is completely flabberghasted, and when asked what kinds of books the kids would like, the answer was boys' fiction, and surprisingly, biographies. I guess in the kids need some role models.
If this lady keeps up her habit, she'll be dropping about $26,000 a year out of pocket for this town to learn to read.
I've been emailing my district manager about this. I don't plan on letting her come in to empty shelves ever again.