Working at a Bookstore

There I am, scanning the shelves looking for an author's last name in order to reshelf displaced books and then I see it. There is an author, whose last name starts with a 'n' in the section for author's with last names starting with 'b'. By the time I finally find the author's last name, in order to shelf this one book, I have taken about twenty other books off the shelf in order to reshelf them in their proper place. It has gotten to the point where whole sections of the store are not in alphabetical order by author's last name and I would have to take all the books off the shelves in order to reorganize them, which I do not have time to do. I am constantly being told by customers that we need to sort out the books since they aren't in the correct order, which I want to do, but the amount of time we spend shelving books from receiving and reshelving books that were displaced doesn't leave much time for reorganizing the large quantity of books we have in stock. Sometimes I feel like ripping my hair out when I find a book in the wrong place, but then I would probably look like a maniac with a very interesting looking hairstyle.

I had read previously that there would be times where I would find 50 Shades tucked somewhere in the vicinity of the toilets, which I have yet to find, but the one place I never thought I would find its was the children's section. You heard me right people! The Children's section! I had just finished helping a customer find a book when as I was passing a very colorful wall of picture books, when I spotted a large paperback tucked on top of some of them. I grabbed the book and started walking towards my section of the store, looking down at the book to see where it would go, and was surprised to be staring at the cover of 50 Shades Freed... handcuffs and all. I put it back where it goes on the shelf and spent the entire rest of my shift questioning why it was in the children's department. After sharing with a couple of my coworkers, my rather disturbing find, we all decided it was best to forget about it. That was until the next shift, when I found the Kama Sutra tucked on a shelf in a back corner of the store, blocked from view by a bit of a half wall, with a chair sat in the perfect position to be hidden, yet still see if anyone was close by. To top it all off, there was what appeared to be a stain on the floor that someone had tried to clean up with water and toilet paper... I have never been so disgusted in my life.

Those seven words, dreadful words. Customers check online and see that you are supposed to have something in stock and instead of calling to put the item on hold, they drive however many minutes to the store and get upset that you, in fact, do not actually have it in stock. What we try to explain to the customers is that even if it says we have something online, it may not always match what we have in our system. Or if our system says that we have one in stock, we have to explain to the customer if we can't find it, that it could be any number of things. Someone has it in their hands, ready to buy. Theft. Damaged stock. The list goes on. And they hardly ever want to wait for the book to be shipped to them.

The same thing goes for online pricing. Sometimes the prices online do not match the prices in stores. We do not do price matching and I often tell people that they can buy it online to be picked up in store, all for the online price, but I suspect that they do not care enough to listen. Try explaining to someone that a coupon code for an online purchase does not work in-store or that the sale that we had on our website was strictly online only. Sometimes the managers will make an exception for customers, if we know that they are frequent customers at our store, but that is very rare. A quick call to the store would often eliminate many of these issues.

Imagine walking through shelves of books, a calm quiet song playing over the speakers, when all of a sudden there comes a loud screeching noise followed by screams and the noise of things being knocked over. Add to that the sheer panic of hearing the whole thing happening and you have me, any time I am near the children's section of the store. You would think that by now I would have gotten used to the noises of a child having a tantrum, seeing as I work almost every day, but I feel like my reaction gets worse every time. Most of the time you can hear a parent whisper yelling at their child to stop making a scene, but that is not always the case. Some of the parents that come into the store I work at, let their children run free through the store as they browse the shelves for something they can read during their "alone time". I once watched a child run down aisles, arm outstretched, shoving as much onto the floor as he possibly could. When we made eye contact, he stopped, and I gave him a stern look and shook my head, which caused him to run off screaming for him parent. Mind you this was not the first child of the day to do something like that, but he was in an area that housed some very breakable things and I really didn't want him to hurt himself or someone else by breaking something.

Now not all children that come into the store are demons, most of them are very well behaved and have a love and appreciation for books. I love when these children come into the store and I love even more when they come back after I had recommended a book to them and they tell me how much they enjoyed it! I wish that more of these children would come into the store. I could spend my time recommending books instead of cleaning them up off the floor.

The best part about working in a bookstore is being able to recommend books to customers. Or when a customer recommends a book to you! I don't always get to recommend books to customers, which I find to be very sad. Or when I recommend a book they have already read it, and depending on their response, I can recommend more. Sometimes I even get customers asking for recommendations, but its usually in genres that I don't read a lot of. I have been reading a lot more fiction, rather than just YA, and a lot of my book recommendations are ones that have been out for ages! Worst of all though, is when I recommend a book and the customer tells me that they hated it. Where do I go from there? I can't exactly recommend any other books in the genre that they are looking in, because they will probably hate that book just as much as they hated the first one I recommended. I will ask co-workers if they have any recs, but it usually ends with the customer picking out a book for themselves. Those who I have recommended books to, that buy the book, sometimes come back into the store and ask for more book recommendations, which always makes my day. If I recommend travel books to countries I have been to, I will usually also recommend some things for the customer to do while there, and more than a few times I have been invited along on the trip to be a tour guide of sorts. Oh how I wish I could get back to traveling! But as most college students, I need a job in order to pay for tuition and things, which leaves barely enough for a travel fund.

Working in retail is never easy, but I do love my job. I spend time with other bibliophiles like myself, discussing our latest reads and books we have always loved. I get access to some advanced reader copies of books, sent to the store by publishers. I get to add to my list of books that I would like to read in my lifetime. Not to mention the amazing discount on books! Though most of my paychecks have gone back into the store. Though it is not always a dream job, I am surrounded by the things I love and that is not something that everyone can say about their job. Plus people bring in cute dogs all the time and there is nothing better than books and cute dogs!