It seems that, with Christmas coming up, the worst (and best) is brought out in customers. People are overstressed, spending too much money, and dealing with lines (and, in some areas, heavy snow storms). One would think that, with the other eleven and a half months throughout the year, they would get their shopping done (don't people understand ( Read more... )

Actually, most of our customers were pretty nice this Christmas Eve, all rather 'Oh, duhh, aren't I silly for leaving it so late.'  Did get one lone slice of fried gold though:

Mr Man:  Hello, I am looking for Book X.

Me:  Umm..  oh, I'm sorry sir.  We don't have that in today, but we do have 5 on order.

Mr Man:  (Testily)  Well that doesn't help ( Read more... )

There was this woman in the store today, and she was driving us spare. Did we have books on this? What about this? What about this? Was this book on sale? What about this one? This one? Could we hold these? I'm not sure which of these I'm going to get, can I leave them here?. And so on (and on. And on). The climax of this little drama ( Read more... )

I threw a bit of a fit the other day at our annual holiday meeting. Many of you have non-profit fundraisers wrapping books for you for donations. We've had this for the past two years. The year before that, however, the booksellers themselves wrapped books and I got a couple hundred dollars in tips over the entire holiday. It's bad enough that the ( Read more... )

It's still a month until Christmas, and I'm already ready for it to be over. To wit, in just the last week ( Read more... )

What do you think are your nicest titles (aside from the drearily obvious newspaper/magazine/tv books) for Crimble this year? I speak to those of us who can order in stock which is not dictated by Those Higher Up, or who have in some way the freedom to beef up or back titles they believe in. Edit: I don't mean books that specifically have a ( Read more... )

Around the Holiday season you get all sorts of crazies who don’t seem to shop except at Christmas. I had one of those crazies last Christmas, but I didn’t think of posting about it until I saw him again the other day ( Read more... )

Howdy all,

As a former retail bookslave who is now a publishing bookslave, I just wanted to say thanks for putting up with us unwashed masses over the Holiday (in a non-War-on-Christmas way) season. You booksellers are swell.

Also, I'm looking for this pink book that has a corkscrew in it. Can't you look that up on your computer?

Happy returns

Urgh, the customer service entry down there reminded me of my weekly dose of asshat. Some guy wanted me to check if we had a paperback copy of a cookery book, & a quick search told me one didn't exist. So, after big sighs, he explains he needs to send it via post & a paperback would be cheaper. More sighs. He asks if I could tell him how much ( Read more... )

Dear god - all my dreams last night involved books and customers.

Yesterday was crazy.

"No, I'm afraid we don't have Silver Spoon."

"No, I'm afraid we don't have Rachael Ray's 365."

"No, I'm afraid we don't have Born to Kvetch."

"No, I'm afraid we don't have Misquoting JesusAnother week of this pandemonium, and another week of working until 12 ( Read more... )