A MIGHTY WIND & A CRAPPY DAY

[paularubia]

Today at work absolutely everyone and everything pissed me off. The mood might have started when I arrived at work and, upon approaching the entrance, was accosted by two screaming (and I mean SCREAMING) 10-year olds asking if I wanted to buy Girl Scout cookies. Or maybe it started on my way to the back when I passed that same guy who is camped out

Comments

[magnoliafires]

Wow, that sounds like a terrible day. I completely agree with you on the children's books and The Fucking Secret. Customers come up and start raving about it and it takes all of my willpower not to roll my eyes at them. People are so gullible. And the personal space thing! About a month ago there was one customer that stood so close to me I took a step backwards... and he took one step towards me. I ended up walking backwards almost the entire length of the store, with him following me and NOT understanding that all I needed was my personal bubble back.

[marionravenwood]

And the personal space thing! About a month ago there was one customer that stood so close to me I took a step backwards... and he took one step towards me. I ended up walking backwards almost the entire length of the store, with him following me and NOT understanding that all I needed was my personal bubble back.

The trick to stop this is to take a step back, but only on one foot. Someone else shared it in this community and it has worked so far for me.

[magnoliafires]

Ooh, yes, I'll try that for suuure. Thanks!

[paularubia]

That same thing happened to me last week. A woman got so close to me that I swear her breath was blowing my hair back. I kept stepping back and she kept stepping forward. After about 3 steps, I realized that she didn't get the hint. She looked confused and concerned that I kept trying to move away from her, so I stayed put but found myself leaning backward rather awkwardly. Usually it's male customers I have problems with (as a female bookseller). And usually it's pretty creepy. (Unfortunately, the guys you WANT invading your personal space are generally courteous enough to maintain the Emily Post-mandated polite distance. But that's another story....)

[liquidmirror]

I. HATE. THE SPELLING THING. I get it ALL the time. I figure I must look especially retarded (seeing as I live in Southern California and a) don't have died hair, b) don't have breast implants, and c) rarely put on makeup in the morning) for people to feel the need to spell out words like Bob. Or Smith. Or innocent, metaphysics, Buddhist, or mythology. Especially when I've already started typing them, and in fact have finished before they've gotten to the third or fourth letter.

[dyfferent]

I actually tend to stop people and tell them that's ok, I can spell that. The only exception is addresses because while they're spelling out their street name I can get as far as the postcode. Unless they have a really thicko street name like Maple or something.

I can kinda understand it. I have to spell my name for people and my name is a garden-variety word. But people spell the stupid words for you and assume you know the ones that have a lot of homophones. I had a woman looking for a book which started with Ceres. She didn't spell it and amazingly I assumed the English word series instead of the goddess/asteroid. Buh!

[threegoldfish]

I've sadly fallen into the habit of spelling my incredibly common name. First name has two extremely common spellings and most people usually guess wrong with mine and last name starts with a V which most people seem to hear as B for whatever reason. I just find it's easier to spell, just in case.

[thisdaydreamer]

I get the customers who say something like "My first name is Bob - that's B-O-B, my last name is Glegfalkbcfdksfkbgawsrlnl, and my phone number is..."

[dyfferent]

Do you remember the post early on about the bookseller who hadn't heard of the Bhagavad Gita and the customer who couldn't spell it? Still the funniest thing ever. And it permanently made me learn to spell it ;)

Thanks for posting this. You can sure tell a story!

[paularubia]

Ha. Well, I was just in a cranky mood yesterday. We all have weird and/or irritating people and situations that we have to deal with every day - usually I find them entertaining. Yesterday I just wanted to run screaming from the store before I did something I'd regret. Or that would land me in jail.

[doolkid]

Lol. The other day I had a customer ask me for the Bhagavad Gita. I knew what it was but did not know how to spell it. Neither did the customer. So I walked us over to eastern philosophy and found him a copy!

[marionravenwood]

* Paging a co-worker repeatedly who does not pay attention to pages

* Paging a co-worker who carries around a walkie-talkie but doesn't wear it (and rarely listens to it)

Your store doesn't use headsets? I thought nearly all of us did now.

[paularubia]

Yes, we have headsets. We refer to them as walkies, though. One guy just carries the base around and doesn't plug in the head set. When he's in the stockroom he sets in down and it blasts out like a walkie-talkie and he speaks into the base like a guy on military maneuvers.

The headsets are the best things to happen to modern bookselling since the advent of computerized inventories!

[marionravenwood]

My bad. I was thinking you still had to page employees using the phones, in which case your day was even worse than you stated. I agree that the headsets are marvelous; I don't see how we survived without them.

[kingshearte]

My old store still uses phones for paging, and it is always great to listen to the info desk people grow increasingly frustrated with their repeated pages to employees clearly not paying attention.

[cindeefirst]

With the exception of the grit, it sounds like a typical day for us lovely unfortunates in post-Katrina-land. Did you not wonder why, if competing bookstore has the Sargent book, customer is in YOUR face asking for it? And how dare you have the unmitigated gall to prove to all the world that she is an idjit? Harrumph indeed. You need to work on your "stop a clock" look. I got mine down pat