(no subject)
Well. I think actually writing my thoughts about the book itself is going to take longer than I care to spend on this tonight, plus I might wait until I get through it a second time before I write anything.
So for now, I thought I'd ramble a bit about the release party!
It was actually SUPER DUPER fun. It was crazy busy hectic AHHH but still fun. A lot of us dressed up - I was Luna and I was really the only one who was a specific character. Nora was sort of Hedwig but only in the sense that she was wearing all white. Um, and Cristie-Jo was Wonder Woman. But a lot of other people dressed up in generic magicky clothes. And everyone loved my outfit.
I was ringing register all night, which meant that I got to stay out of the way a bit - behind the registers we actually had room to breathe, which really existed nowhere else. Of course, none of us knew hardly anything, so we had people coming up constantly asking for exact details on how everything was going down and we're just repeating "I'm not sure, no, we don't know, different color wristbands will go to different locations of the store, I don't know if they'll use the numbers, no, sorry, we have no idea." Early on nobody seemed too annoyed with that although they did sort of keep asking questions. In some cases it seemed like they just wanted us to say ANYTHING in hopes that later on they could be all "blah blah I was told blah blah" and maybe somebody would give in to them just to shut them up. Which pisses me off because I HATE when people try to be bitchy in order to get their way like that. Like...yes, if you are being a prat I will try to shut you up and get you out of my face, but I certainly will NOT do so by capitulating to you so kindly don't be a prat on purpose in that hope.
As time wore on the people coming up pressing us for EXACT details of precisely what would happen got a little more frequent, but still not too bad. When it gets really hectic it gets pretty easy to just brush people off and hurry away in the "I do NOT have time to argue with you about minutiae right now" manner. Which is a card better played by our managers than us lowly cashiers, but either way it helps.
They started handing out wristbands in the morning, which I was super super pissed about. Way to stress repeatedly that 7:30 is wristband time and we should be very clear with customers about that. We had been repeating that like good little cashiers, and then they hand them out early. AAUGH. I hate when they do stuff like that because it so often comes down on the cashiers since we're more easily accessible. I was afraid a lot of people would be very angry that they were told a specific time and then they actually handed them out like TEN HOURS EARLY. I'd be super pissed in that situation. But nobody really complained to us, so I guess the people handing out the wristbands must have gotten whatever complaints there were.
Sometime around...oh, 11:30 maybe...it occurred to somebody that we hadn't brought the posters out yet. We had rolled something like 1600 posters and they were all conveniently in the back room. Adam was like "Hmm, we probably could have done this this morning..." Uh, you THINK?! So Nora and I got to cart them out to the registers. Now, picture if you will little Mellie trying to get to the back room. I have just fought my way through a HUGE throng of people who barely move enough for me to squeeze through, and I'm at the door to the back room trying to type in the code without letting anyone see. And then the door is one of those kind that doesn't move faster when you pull it, so I had to stand there and wait for it to swing shut pretty much. With the books like RIGHT THERE. I'm pretty sure they had to have been visible from the doorway because at least one rack was right in front of the door. So nerve-wracking. And that is NOTHING compared to trying to get back OUT of the door when you're wheeling a cart of boxes. Oh man. Everybody went BERSERK. Luckily the boxes were open on top so everyone realized pretty quickly that we didn't have the books, but trying to fight through the crowd with the cart was still not at all fun. But we survived.
At one point Nora and I were in the back room with the books and Adam and somebody else were there and they said that some customer had been complaining that somebody walked out with two books. And we're all like "...wtf? We're right here...the books are right here...that absolutely did not happen." There is no chance anybody got any before midnight. We even made a huge deal of giving out the first book to the winner of the raffle and we all clapped and cheered when it was midnight and stuff. Plus, we were back there with the books, they didn't even get brought out until midnight. It pisses me off so much that people make shit up like that. I'm guessing whoever said that either saw someone with one of the earlier books and mistook it or was just trying to cause trouble. Y'know, thinking, hey, maybe if they think it got leaked there's a chance they'll hand them all out. Which is such a shitty thing to do, especially when you consider how much trouble we'd be in if it happened. Not only whichever employee(s) were responsible, but the store as a whole would be in serious trouble and probably facing some nasty lawsuits. Of course, one person making stuff up isn't going to cause anything like that, but it still pisses me off that someone is willing to play around with that just because they're being selfish and want their book before everyone else.
I was definitely getting sort of fed up with that kind of thinking - I don't mean to dwell on it here because overall people were awesome and it was only a few people who were acting like that, but yeah. There were definitely a few who were very clearly acting like they needed to get their book before anyone else. I really wanted to just be like "LISTEN. I promise you you will leave here tonight with a book. Who the HELL cares how many people have it before you do?!" I cannot understand at all why that is such a huge deal to people. Don't get me wrong, I'm just as obsessed as anyone, I just don't understand the need to have it before everyone else. I even had someone complaining because her station was upstairs and she thought all the people downstairs would beat her to the registers. My customer service cheeriness probably slipped a bit cuz I was just like "Well, there's plenty of stations that are upstairs, it's not like you're the only one up there or something." I mean, seriously people. You'll get your book. You can read it while you're in line and then you will pay for it and then you will leave. Stop worrying, and maybe while you're at it you can appreciate the fact that we're here in the middle of the night going through hell to get your books to you as soon as possible.
After midnight wasn't actually too bad. We had all ten registers open, and honestly we were moving pretty fast. I expected complaints about how long it took, but I actually didn't really get any and I had MULTIPLE people tell me what a good job we were doing and how quickly the line was moving! Yayyy. Plus I had multiple people say how amazing we were for doing that or how they could never do it or bless us for putting up with it or whatever. The annoying people I mentioned before were very much in the minority, and most of everyone was in a really good mood and very very grateful to us. It was really hard to get people's attention, though. Every time one of us finished with a customer we would have to wave our arms about and scream "I CAN HELP SOMEONE DOWN HERE!" And still nobody paid attention. There was one awesome woman - just a random customer - who started directing the line and pointing people towards the open cashiers. She was totally awesome. I made sure to thank her over and over at the end of the night.
Generally speaking, as I said before, the customers were awesome. Nobody felt the need to write checks or insist on double bags or anything ridiculous like that. I had a few people who did want a bag, a few people who had something else besides the books, and some stuff like that, but a few of those won't bother me too much. And everybody was in such a good mood to be getting the book that nobody was really mad about the wait or anything. I did have a couple people that apparently were with other people who were still waiting for books. So they'd say "my wife is coming with another book, can you ring this twice so I can pay for it now?" and I'd have to say "no, sorry, she'll have to wait in line to pay for it" but nobody really argued with that so it wasn't a big deal.
Overall, I believe we sold over 800 books and had around 1000 people there, although I have no idea if those numbers are right. I'm pretty sure channel 9 sent a crew and channel 6 might have too, but I never saw them so I don't know if they even really came in. One of the biggest radio stations was around for a long time up in the cafe with the band, so that was fun. And a guy took my picture! I was totally hoping to be filmed for the news reports, but apparently I'm only news-worthy in hockey fan garb. But still this one customer guy came up and held up his camera and said "mind if I get a picture?" so I said of course not and started to come around the counter so he could get a good shot. He said he wanted it behind the counter so you could tell I worked there, so he ended up taking it from an angle so you could still see all of me but could see the counter too. I gave him my best dueling pose. =P
So, all in all...great experience! I'm really glad I was working at a bookstore for what is probably the biggest fuss that's ever been made about a book release - and I assume that ever will be made. There's something really magical - excuse the cliched pun - about that many people being so happy like that. And to me, it's so so so great to see such that a BOOK is such a big deal. In this day and age...it's not a movie or a video game or anything else, it's a good old fashioned book and it's the biggest event of the summer by far. Plus, I realize it's been said over and over, but it's still amazing and heartwarming - when it comes right down to it, J.K. Rowling wrote a book that spurred a bunch of kids who never read anything longer than a magazine to pick up a book and lose themselves in it and keep coming back for more - and THAT is the magic.
So for now, I thought I'd ramble a bit about the release party!
It was actually SUPER DUPER fun. It was crazy busy hectic AHHH but still fun. A lot of us dressed up - I was Luna and I was really the only one who was a specific character. Nora was sort of Hedwig but only in the sense that she was wearing all white. Um, and Cristie-Jo was Wonder Woman. But a lot of other people dressed up in generic magicky clothes. And everyone loved my outfit.
I was ringing register all night, which meant that I got to stay out of the way a bit - behind the registers we actually had room to breathe, which really existed nowhere else. Of course, none of us knew hardly anything, so we had people coming up constantly asking for exact details on how everything was going down and we're just repeating "I'm not sure, no, we don't know, different color wristbands will go to different locations of the store, I don't know if they'll use the numbers, no, sorry, we have no idea." Early on nobody seemed too annoyed with that although they did sort of keep asking questions. In some cases it seemed like they just wanted us to say ANYTHING in hopes that later on they could be all "blah blah I was told blah blah" and maybe somebody would give in to them just to shut them up. Which pisses me off because I HATE when people try to be bitchy in order to get their way like that. Like...yes, if you are being a prat I will try to shut you up and get you out of my face, but I certainly will NOT do so by capitulating to you so kindly don't be a prat on purpose in that hope.
As time wore on the people coming up pressing us for EXACT details of precisely what would happen got a little more frequent, but still not too bad. When it gets really hectic it gets pretty easy to just brush people off and hurry away in the "I do NOT have time to argue with you about minutiae right now" manner. Which is a card better played by our managers than us lowly cashiers, but either way it helps.
They started handing out wristbands in the morning, which I was super super pissed about. Way to stress repeatedly that 7:30 is wristband time and we should be very clear with customers about that. We had been repeating that like good little cashiers, and then they hand them out early. AAUGH. I hate when they do stuff like that because it so often comes down on the cashiers since we're more easily accessible. I was afraid a lot of people would be very angry that they were told a specific time and then they actually handed them out like TEN HOURS EARLY. I'd be super pissed in that situation. But nobody really complained to us, so I guess the people handing out the wristbands must have gotten whatever complaints there were.
Sometime around...oh, 11:30 maybe...it occurred to somebody that we hadn't brought the posters out yet. We had rolled something like 1600 posters and they were all conveniently in the back room. Adam was like "Hmm, we probably could have done this this morning..." Uh, you THINK?! So Nora and I got to cart them out to the registers. Now, picture if you will little Mellie trying to get to the back room. I have just fought my way through a HUGE throng of people who barely move enough for me to squeeze through, and I'm at the door to the back room trying to type in the code without letting anyone see. And then the door is one of those kind that doesn't move faster when you pull it, so I had to stand there and wait for it to swing shut pretty much. With the books like RIGHT THERE. I'm pretty sure they had to have been visible from the doorway because at least one rack was right in front of the door. So nerve-wracking. And that is NOTHING compared to trying to get back OUT of the door when you're wheeling a cart of boxes. Oh man. Everybody went BERSERK. Luckily the boxes were open on top so everyone realized pretty quickly that we didn't have the books, but trying to fight through the crowd with the cart was still not at all fun. But we survived.
At one point Nora and I were in the back room with the books and Adam and somebody else were there and they said that some customer had been complaining that somebody walked out with two books. And we're all like "...wtf? We're right here...the books are right here...that absolutely did not happen." There is no chance anybody got any before midnight. We even made a huge deal of giving out the first book to the winner of the raffle and we all clapped and cheered when it was midnight and stuff. Plus, we were back there with the books, they didn't even get brought out until midnight. It pisses me off so much that people make shit up like that. I'm guessing whoever said that either saw someone with one of the earlier books and mistook it or was just trying to cause trouble. Y'know, thinking, hey, maybe if they think it got leaked there's a chance they'll hand them all out. Which is such a shitty thing to do, especially when you consider how much trouble we'd be in if it happened. Not only whichever employee(s) were responsible, but the store as a whole would be in serious trouble and probably facing some nasty lawsuits. Of course, one person making stuff up isn't going to cause anything like that, but it still pisses me off that someone is willing to play around with that just because they're being selfish and want their book before everyone else.
I was definitely getting sort of fed up with that kind of thinking - I don't mean to dwell on it here because overall people were awesome and it was only a few people who were acting like that, but yeah. There were definitely a few who were very clearly acting like they needed to get their book before anyone else. I really wanted to just be like "LISTEN. I promise you you will leave here tonight with a book. Who the HELL cares how many people have it before you do?!" I cannot understand at all why that is such a huge deal to people. Don't get me wrong, I'm just as obsessed as anyone, I just don't understand the need to have it before everyone else. I even had someone complaining because her station was upstairs and she thought all the people downstairs would beat her to the registers. My customer service cheeriness probably slipped a bit cuz I was just like "Well, there's plenty of stations that are upstairs, it's not like you're the only one up there or something." I mean, seriously people. You'll get your book. You can read it while you're in line and then you will pay for it and then you will leave. Stop worrying, and maybe while you're at it you can appreciate the fact that we're here in the middle of the night going through hell to get your books to you as soon as possible.
After midnight wasn't actually too bad. We had all ten registers open, and honestly we were moving pretty fast. I expected complaints about how long it took, but I actually didn't really get any and I had MULTIPLE people tell me what a good job we were doing and how quickly the line was moving! Yayyy. Plus I had multiple people say how amazing we were for doing that or how they could never do it or bless us for putting up with it or whatever. The annoying people I mentioned before were very much in the minority, and most of everyone was in a really good mood and very very grateful to us. It was really hard to get people's attention, though. Every time one of us finished with a customer we would have to wave our arms about and scream "I CAN HELP SOMEONE DOWN HERE!" And still nobody paid attention. There was one awesome woman - just a random customer - who started directing the line and pointing people towards the open cashiers. She was totally awesome. I made sure to thank her over and over at the end of the night.
Generally speaking, as I said before, the customers were awesome. Nobody felt the need to write checks or insist on double bags or anything ridiculous like that. I had a few people who did want a bag, a few people who had something else besides the books, and some stuff like that, but a few of those won't bother me too much. And everybody was in such a good mood to be getting the book that nobody was really mad about the wait or anything. I did have a couple people that apparently were with other people who were still waiting for books. So they'd say "my wife is coming with another book, can you ring this twice so I can pay for it now?" and I'd have to say "no, sorry, she'll have to wait in line to pay for it" but nobody really argued with that so it wasn't a big deal.
Overall, I believe we sold over 800 books and had around 1000 people there, although I have no idea if those numbers are right. I'm pretty sure channel 9 sent a crew and channel 6 might have too, but I never saw them so I don't know if they even really came in. One of the biggest radio stations was around for a long time up in the cafe with the band, so that was fun. And a guy took my picture! I was totally hoping to be filmed for the news reports, but apparently I'm only news-worthy in hockey fan garb. But still this one customer guy came up and held up his camera and said "mind if I get a picture?" so I said of course not and started to come around the counter so he could get a good shot. He said he wanted it behind the counter so you could tell I worked there, so he ended up taking it from an angle so you could still see all of me but could see the counter too. I gave him my best dueling pose. =P
So, all in all...great experience! I'm really glad I was working at a bookstore for what is probably the biggest fuss that's ever been made about a book release - and I assume that ever will be made. There's something really magical - excuse the cliched pun - about that many people being so happy like that. And to me, it's so so so great to see such that a BOOK is such a big deal. In this day and age...it's not a movie or a video game or anything else, it's a good old fashioned book and it's the biggest event of the summer by far. Plus, I realize it's been said over and over, but it's still amazing and heartwarming - when it comes right down to it, J.K. Rowling wrote a book that spurred a bunch of kids who never read anything longer than a magazine to pick up a book and lose themselves in it and keep coming back for more - and THAT is the magic.