I WORK IN A SHOP

Write enough

2009-07-19T20:14:00.011+02:00

The daily onslaught of customers and Sisyphean tasks that make up every hour spent working as a bookseller would be enough to sustain a thousand and one blogs for ever more.

However, I'd like to let my little group of readers know that I will not be posting regularly anymore.

I don't want to call an end to I WORK IN A SHOP. I am sure that the stupidity, hilarity, wit and kindness of the great Glasgow public will move me to write here again.

But, in the past few months, I have been working earnestly at writing fiction. And, given full-time work, a squillion chores and shoogly health, I don't always have a lot of time left to do the things I love. I've realised that I need to blog less to leave myself space for fiction.

I am aiming, within a year or two, to maintain a new blog or site for my stories, so watch this space for the link.

Meanwhile, it is still possible to contact me on the email address in my profile. I'm also on Facebook.

Bookseller, Female, 24. WLTM...

2009-07-07T11:34:00.009+02:00

A dashing Guardian journalist who writes freely about things she had decided to refrain from commenting upon.

Borders UK's new online dating service.

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Many thanks to John for the link.

Anecdote antidote

2009-07-07T11:16:00.003+02:00

Hearing about the startling, horrifying and hilarious things that have happened to other folk in customer service can sometimes be enough to get you through a bad shift on the job.

Enjoy.

Thanks to Kate for the recommendation!

Arse over tit

2009-07-06T23:33:00.008+02:00

In the shop this weekend one man caught me checking out another man's arse.

There was a queue at the tills and I was serving a tall, heavily built blond guy in his thirties. He was buying a couple of outdoor sports magazines and wearing close-cut sports wear.

He smiled when I put his change in his big hands, then shrugged his bag over his shoulder and walked away.

This is where I stared at his arse.

I don't think I made a big deal of it - in fact, I was just checking him out the way you casually check out anything you like.

But then my next customer came to my till, a jaunty, mid-fifties wee Glaswegian guy. Too tanned, quite short, gold rings on his fingers.

You finished yet? he said cheekily, flicking his eyes towards the big blond and grinning at me.

I laughed and he knew that I knew that he knew I'd been looking at the guy's arse*. This was doubly startling for me because I wasn't really thinking about it. Just ... looking.

Oh no, I said, trying not to smile and bringing my hands to my face. Was I that obvious?

He piled his shopping down onto the counter, leaned towards me for emphasis, and said: Aye!

This was one of those times when the customer has struck just the right note and can get away with being a bit cheeky and, nine times out of ten, you're on safe ground having a laugh. We joked about it and, when I handed him his change, he winked at me and marched off happily.

Subtlety: 1/10
Professionalism: 2/10
Customer banter: 8/10
That blond's arse: 11/10

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* My boyfriend has just informed me that he is going to start a photo blog called Titwatch.

Sense and Sensibility

2009-07-06T14:46:00.012+02:00

Int. Fiction section of a Scottish bookshop. Day

Camera follows the slow progress of a heatwave-weary BOOKSELLER as she shelves books in Fiction and the sun beats down. Michael Jackson music is playing over the sound system while the sounds of a bellowing street magician echo from outside. A CUSTOMER, chirpy, female and blonde, bounces confidently up to the BOOKSELLER.

CUSTOMER: Hiya!

BOOKSELLER (attempting a smile): Hello.

CUSTOMER: Hi! You know how Jane Austen?

BOOKSELLER: Yes?

CUSTOMER: Whereabouts will all her books be? Ah’ve been told it’s either Fiction or… eh..

BOOKSELLER: …Classics?

CUSTOMER: Aye!

BOOKSELLER walks with the CUSTOMER to the Classic section.

CUSTOMER: Aw, thanks a million, I get lost in here! (touches BOOKSELLER's arm girlishly)What new ones does she have?

BOOKSELLER and CUSTOMER arrive in front of shelves of Austen's books. BOOKSELLER looks startled at the CUSTOMER's last question.

BOOKSELLER: Ehhh… well, Pride and Prejudice is the obvious recommendation, they teach it on all the (drops judicious, tactful hint) Victorian literature courses.

CUSTOMER (dismayed): Aw, are they all history?

BOOKSELLER: Well, you know what it’s like when they adapt them on the telly –

CUSTOMER: Aye! That’s where I saw it. Have you seen it? (touches BOOKSELLER’s arm again) On Sky? Whit’s it called again?

BOOKSELLER: Ah, is it the Jane Austen Book Club?

CUSTOMER (squealing): Aye! That’s one of hers!

BOOKSELLER: No, I think it’s someone else that wrote that one. One about people all bonding by reading her books I think?

CUSTOMER (turning abruptly away from Austen’s oeuvre): Aye! It was just wonderful. Where’s that one?

BOOKSELLER checks the stock database and takes the CUSTOMER to Karen Joy Fowler’s books in Fiction.

CUSTOMER: Aw, brilliant! Thanks a lot.

Camera pans out as the gently amused BOOKSELLER returns to her shelving work amd the satisfied CUSTOMER stands reading a copy of Jane Austen Book Club enthusiastically in the next aisle. View lifts up high above the shop floor and out of the window, to pan across the village of idiots staring slackjawed at the beardy magic bloke outside.

Cultural aggression

2009-07-06T14:20:00.002+02:00

A cheerful guy in his mid-thirties came up to my till yesterday afternoon, triumphantly deposited a cut-price Goodfellas DVD on the counter and said:

How many times have you seen this film, come on! How many times!

I said: Um, none. I haven’t seen it.

His girlfriend was standing a few feet away at the end of the queue and he turned to her, made a mad incredulous face, turned back to me and hooted:

What! What do you mean you haven’t seen it!

I said: Not much of a film fan?

He lost a bit of his cheer, sputtered a few amazed noises, a sort of faux-outrage, and eventually came up with this retort:

Ha! Well, I haven’t ever read a book!

Great.

I will hate you until the day I die

2009-07-02T20:22:00.009+02:00

I feel this way about many customers - particularly the ghoulish, resentful ones that seem to populate the shop from about 10am to 12 noon on a Sunday.

But I WORK IN A SHOP's favourite philosopher* feels this way about Caleb Crain, the New York Times book reviewer who disliked his latest book.

You know the one.

But what I'd like to draw your attention to, once you have perused our old tuna** philosopher's latest tantrum, is Francis Fukuyama's New York Times review of a little book called Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew B Crawford.

I particularly liked this part:

"Rather than achieving self-mastery by confronting a “hard discipline” like gardening or structural engineering or learning Russian, people are offered the fake autonomy of consumer choice, expressing their inner selves by sitting in front of a Harley-Davidson catalog and deciding how to trick out their bikes."

Worth a look, I think. I'll post about it if I get the chance to read a copy.

Also: more, customer-inspired posting to follow in the next few days at I WORK IN A SHOP.

---

*I think he gets a bit lonely and Googles himself, so I should probably come straight out and say it's Alain de Botton I'm talking about here, and his book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work. Hi, Alain!

** I found that his musings on the tuna industry form a substantial, and conspicuously cod-free, part of his new book.

The Christmas Crunch Shop

2009-06-16T22:16:00.003+02:00

So, it's June. The startling sight pictured above* appeared in Bath Street a few weeks ago.

This is clearly the Best Worst Shop in the whole of Glasgow, and it isn't even open yet.

Managing to be both topical and unseasonal, I anticipate that The Christmas Crunch Shop will be a hellish brew of non-stop Christmas music, cheap tinsel and creepy-eyed light-up Santas when it opens for business.

No doubt on the hottest day of the summer.

I can't wait!

*I have given The Christmas Crunch Shop the honour of featuring in I WORK IN A SHOP's first-ever original photograph. If you squint a bit, you can see my reflection in the middle of the plate glass.

Det Con Richard Horton

2009-06-16T21:47:00.004+02:00

A fascinating case for anyone interested in blogging - the man behind the Orwell-prize-winning blog Night Jack has been unmasked by The Times and disciplined by Lancashire Constabulary.

His blog, critical of the government and aspects of society, has now been removed from the internet.

I don't blog anonymously, but then I don't have anything vital and controversial to say about the politics of policing and justice. The debates about anonymity online following this case are worth a look.

Many thanks to my colleague, Kate, who brought Night Jack to my attention before he pulled the plug - his blog was an excellent, exhilirating read and I wish the writer all the best.

Man's bed friend

2009-06-15T12:11:00.007+02:00

Three of us are working at the tills. A regular customer, a man about my age, approaches. He’s in store quite a lot, haunting the basement staff with enquiries about Doctor Who DVDs whilst invading their personal space.

He approaches my manager’s till.

Manager: Hi there!

Customer: Hello!

He’s smiling, his mouth tense as if he can’t wait to tell us something. My manager scans the book through his till.

Customer: Did you know! I slept with a female last night.

Cue dismay from all three of us and smirks from surrounding customers.

Manager (formidable professionalism): Oh, did you?

Customer: Yes!

Long silence.

Customer: A female DOG!

He breaks out into a mad laugh. The potential for bitch jokes hovers dangerously in the air. My manager says, as though indulging a child: Oh, a female DOG.

Customer: Yes! See, a female DOG.

He laughs again. The woman I’m serving is typing in her PIN and grinning at the crazy dog guy.

Customer: And - and it was quite uncomfortable, because she has four legs!

Then he started chortling again, having clearly delivered a joke that he’d been thinking about ever since cuddling up to Lucky the previous night.

My manager chips in with: Not to mention a tail!

At this, the guy roars with mad laughter as though that’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard.

We weather the storm admirably.

His wonky laughter and repetition of the words ‘female DOG’ go on until he’s paid for his book (a book on dog care, of course) before cheerfully wandering off.

He was back again this week, buying another book about dogs.

0.015% THIEF

2009-06-15T06:12:00.006+02:00

I happen to know that working for an hour at the till in the bookshop at relatively busy points of the day equates to serving roughly 100 customers an hour.

I work weekend shifts these days, so most of my hours are in the ‘relatively busy’ category. This means that, every week, I process a minimum of 500 customers. Approximately once every six weeks, I short change a customer, for example giving change of a £10 instead of a £20.

Once every six weeks. Once every 3000 customers. This means (not accounting for occasions that might be missed by both me and the customer) I have an accuracy rate of 99.97%.

When it happens, roughly half of the time the customer is quite reasonable about it, having a healthy appreciation of the existence of human error.

This means that, for 0.015% of my till transactions I am treated like a thief.

I close the till drawer. I notice the startled look on my customer’s face as I hand over the change and, as ten years’ worth of shop experience stirs within me like a ‘Nam memory, I realise what’s happened.

I also know, due to the hideous contortion of the muppet’s face, that it is too late. The situation has already escalated to fever pitch.

Customers fall into one of two behaviour patterns at this stage:

The first is the ‘Indignant Scum’ response, familiar to those who have witnessed the diatribe of a ned being knocked back from a night club.

Rendered more inarticulate that usual by the conviction that I’m trying nick a tenner off them, these afflicted customers usually screech something like:

“Eh! TWENTY!”

The money is shoved back towards me and I am regarded with the hellzapoppin’ rage of a cuckolded Jeremy Kyle guest.

The alternative response is the ‘Moral Warrior’ favoured by our more middle-class customers whose school-teacherly response is to draw attention to my error by loudly announcing to the store:

“Oh! I THINK you have SHORT CHANGED me,” before curling their lip in contemptuous disgust and passive-aggressively trying to bamboozle me with numbers from their receipt.

Both responses are as equally irritating, of course, and either way I pause long enough for them to realise I’m not about to be ruffled by having made a mistake.

There is an uncomfortable silence as I do this, resentment building because they have failed to visibly distress The Thief.

I give them their proper change. Unpleasantly, they almost always linger for a moment, as if to say: I know what you are up to, smirking a little before moving off.

Short-change incidents are only one of the situations in which customers like to imply you’re a thief, but it is truly one of the most unpleasant parts of the job because you’re on the back foot having made a mistake.

But, happily, most customers accuse you of thievery when you’ve done nothing wrong at all.

One of the other ways is when, having failed to understand the way our tills deduct discounts at the end of the sale (like in Tesco) they stand scrutinising the receipt near the cash desks, often having a loud discussion with their spouse.

This is a sign of aggressive stupidity, of course, which must be why it happens even when the arithmetic of the sale is very simple.

For example: last week a woman came to my till with two Stephenie Meyer Twilight books: the Breaking Dawn hardback and the Eclipse paperback. Breaking Dawn retails at £12.99 and we’re selling it at £3 off. Eclipse is £6.99.

£16.98, no?

But, because discounts are deducted when I press Total, when I scan Breaking Dawn the digital display facing the customer reads: 12.99. And, because our systems work like this, I am in the habit of letting customers know I am aware of each discount as I scan it. Unfortunately, this woman took this as a sign I was up to something.

So when I said: “You’ll get Breaking Dawn for £9.99 today,” she narrowed her eyes and gestured at the till display.

“But that said £12.99.”

“The discounts are applied at the end of the sale,” I said. I scanned Eclipse and said: “So that’s £16.98 today."

She froze, halfway through pulling her credit card out of her wallet. She snapped: “What?”

Already, she knows I know what she’s implying. She no doubt interpreted my look of weary irritation as a look of guilt at this stage. I repeated. “That’s £16.98 today.”

“No, it isn’t,” she said.

Looking straight at her, I picked up each book and said: “£9.99 for your hardback, £6.99 for your paperback.”

She stared at me for a moment, a woman fully in the grip of the fantasy that she’s dealing with a thief. She murmured something under her breath and stuck her card in the PIN machine. When the receipts printed, she leaned over the counter and snatched them from out of my hand, gathered up her bags and planted herself a few feet away, conspicuously studying the receipt with greedy aggression.

I continued serving customers, patiently waiting for her to connect the £3 deduction at the bottom of the sale to her Breaking Dawn purchase.

Many moons later, she finally understood and slipped out of the store without saying a word.

Returning

2009-06-14T21:23:00.004+02:00

Recently some people have left very kind comments urging me to post again. Thanks to everyone who did so - I really appreciate it. At no point have I had the intention of stopping my blog. However, the past few weeks were, to use a Glaswegian term, MENTAL.

But, now that I'm back, here's a scarcely believable update to my post Bad habit. For click-lazy readers: I wrote about a ned who came up to the Main Information desk one Sunday morning and dumped his empty fag packet in my baskets of stock.

So, about two weeks later, my colleague is standing at tills. A big elderly ned comes up to her.

And apologises about the fag packet.

Cue initial alarm from my colleague, who had read my post. Caught off guard, she found herself cheerfully assuring him that it was all right, we'd just put it in the bin.

Later, we realised this must have created the impression that the incident had been widely Talked About by staff.

Somewhere out there, smoking Regals and slurping Buckfast, is an ageing man in Burberry, relieved that he finally set things right.

Book books

2009-06-14T20:26:00.004+02:00

It is a measure of my intense geek love for books that I was genuinely thrilled when I read a review in this weekend's papers for The Late Age of Print by Ted Striphas.

It's a sociological study of books, book distribution, book retailing and book technology. That, in my book, is an exciting read.

A quote from the Guardian review: "He contextualises, too, the "big-box" booksellers such as Barnes & Noble (inventor of the "book-a-teria" in the 1940s): as Striphas digs behind the hand-wringing headlines, it is not so clear that they inevitably put independent booksellers out of business; and they do also revitalise local economies, such as that of former tobacco town Durham, North Carolina."

I mean it: I need to read this. My store doesn't have it in stock and I can't afford to order online at the moment, but I will be back with an overenthusiastic nerd update as soon as I see a copy.

Books about books. A few years ago I read Scrolling Forward: Making Sense of Documents in the Digital Age by David M. Levy. The whole first chapter is an analysis of entropy in a big-barn bookshop days before it closed its doors for good.

Levy's book is mostly very entertaining and this chapter was particularly good. If you wandered into a branch of Woolworths just before they shut their doors in January this year you'll have seen the sort of thing he was talking about.

(Don't tell anyone, but Levy's descriptions of untidy shelves and gappy displays gave me a tidying itch. Admit it, booksellers! You know the one. That glee when you find a spare 30 minutes in the schedule and you know you'll be able to tidy up your section, just so.)

I would also like to point blog readers who are more generally interested in shop work in the direction of Stephen King's On Writing. The paperback edition contains a competition-winner short story called Jumper by Garrett Addams. It's set in a shopping mall and well worth adding to our pile of Workplace Fiction.

Wrap me up in cling film and call me a bitch

2009-05-24T22:26:00.007+02:00

Most shops I've worked in play music across the shop floor. This is usually only remarkable when something hellish happens like bagpipe music on repeat during the holiday season or that one time James Blunt came on and there were all these middle-aged women keening ‘You’re Beautiful’ on the Upper First Floor.

There was also the time I worked in a nostalgic gift shop that only played music they sold in the shop. This included a chorus of monks. We had all been enduring this for about an hour when a tramp halted at the front door, marched in, planted himself in front of the tills and said: “Haw! Here! Is this one of they Jesus-y shops?”

In a busy high-street store you also have to deal with a cacophony of non-musical sounds, such as: security alarms, fire alarms, screaming toddlers, the screeches of hormonal teenagers, the shouts of drunkards, that opera singer that pitches up outside from 10pm on weekends and those pan pipe dudes on a Saturday. Sometimes a magician – he’s quite shouty.

But those things (“Wrap me up in clingfilm! I will escape! Let’s start a countdown! FIVE! FOUR…) are mostly traumatic to booksellers. It’s the playlist that upsets everybody else.

In the bookshop we played that Isobel Campbell/Mark Lanegan album Ballad of the Broken Seas a few years back and a mad beardy scientist emerged from the Statistics section and demanded to know (in an amusingly hoity-toity voice) why on EARTH we play these awful THINGS in the shop. I told him it was because it was new. He snorted at me and sneered: That doesn’t MAKE it any GOOD.

I also, when a woman from head office was visiting the jewellery shop I worked in, accidentally put on a chill-out album where the lyrics in the first song go: Bitches bitches bitches bitches bitches.

That was upsetting.

Shelf talking

2009-05-20T20:29:00.012+02:00

I can tell you that dealing with ageism and class discrimination is part of the job when you're a young service worker.

It can be pretty ugly out there. But I sometimes tell myself that things can't be that bad and that most of the subtly offensive or even downright rude behaviour I experience is really mostly in my imagination.

However, today's Guardian Book Blog post has given me access to written evidence that there are customers who really perceive the world as poorly as I always suspected.

Have a read.

The reader comments (admittedly not always written by the most well-socialised members of society) are appalling.

The question posed was this: Do you listen to bookshop shelf-talkers?

Here are my favourite responses (with errors intact):

From MartinWisse:
"No, because usually they like the most godawful rubbish."

From pandemoniana:
"they're one of my pet hates actually. In fact, it'll actually put me off buying a book if I'm subjected to the tedious opinion of snot-nosed student part time worker, usually called something like Briony or Matthew"

From herrdobler:
"Even if I thought the book looked brilliant and I already intended to buy it, I would feel like a feeble-minded, unimaginative lemming being seen taking it to the counter (especially if it was the Briony or Matthew who wrote the card serving me!). Probably reveals my own insecurites but I pride myself on knowing my way around a bookshop thanks - imagine we all do on this blog?"

From TonyONeill:
"If youre in a Borders, or a Barnes and Noble, or one of the other big chains chances are that you arent going to be that interested in what the staff is recommending because they are working there not out of some great love of books. Its just a job to them, and if they are pressured to recommend a book they're going to recommend any old piece of tat that they happened to have read recently"

I thought I'd found some sense when I began reading the comment by 'sunwitch' until I reached this sentence about what it means to be rude to booksellers:

(wait for it)

"this is not just looking down on shop assistants, it's looking down on middle class shop assistants"

But - setting aside that massive brain fart - it's quite exciting that an ex-Borders Head Office employee and a current member of Borders Islington have both chipped in to defend booksellers and bookselling. I tip my hat to them.

Not 'garygibsonsfwriter' though, who tells us he worked briefly for the company and has this to say about his ex-colleagues:

"a lot of my fellow workers were recent graduates in their twenties with not a clue to what they actually wanted to do with their lives, and I suspect some of them made 'recommendations' based more on whether or not it might make them look cool."

Because we all know that writing thirty words about Bukowski's Factotum and displaying it next to the book does wonders for your street cred.

What annoys me most about this article is that I've actually had lovely experiences with customers because of shelf talkers.

I wrote one for Charlie Brooker's Screen Burn a few years back. All I did was write that the book was funny, then copied out a quote that had made me laugh. Later that week a woman approached my till with a copy of Brooker's book.

I smiled and said: "He's so funny, isn't he?" And she smiled back and said: "Yeah, I read the wee review about it - the thing about the duckling - and it really made me laugh."

And I said: "Oh! That was me - I wrote that!" And we had a laugh about it and she said: "That's so nice, I'm glad I came to your till."

Because not all customers are really so mean-minded, after all.

Bad habit

2009-05-10T23:04:00.008+02:00

I was standing at the main information desk in the bookshop, proudly surveying all the stock I had collected and separated into baskets for each floor.

It was only 11am on a Sunday, so there was a real feeling of accomplishment here.

I was looking at all my excellent work when a big elderly ned coasted into the store, keeked his head round the back of the info desk, looked straight at me, and feebly chucked an old fag packet into my reference book basket.

I stared at him as he backed off.

Bewildered, he gestured vaguely at the fag packet, then wandered away out the back door.

My supervisor appeared. Stunned, I explained what had happened. He picked up the fag packet, flipped it open and saw it was empty, then dropped it in the bin.

The bin. The BIN.

Worst nightmare

2009-05-08T12:13:00.004+02:00

This is the sort of thing that makes working in customer service feel really bleak sometimes.

On a happier note: I should be back within the month with regular posts.

Bookshop memories

2009-04-14T15:28:00.004+02:00

"Many of the people who came to us were of the kind who would be a nuisance anywhere but have special opportunities in a bookshop."

While I struggle on with my studies, here's a link to a wonderful essay by George Orwell called Bookshop Memories. It was written 63 years ago but it is still very applicable to bookselling today.

Among other things, he discusses people who can only remember the colour of the cover, thieving or ignorant customers, and the peculiar effect that working as a bookseller has on your own love of books.

The essay is also available as part of a collection of Essays published by Penguin.

Examinations

2009-04-10T14:39:00.006+02:00

I've another clutch of exams and coursework coming up, so the blog will be sparse over the next few weeks until I've sat the law papers on April 30.

Every minute I spend typing about pigeons, magnets or gift wrap is another minute lost to my understanding of the Contempt of Court Act 1981!

That's right, isn't it? 1981?

Bugger.

Better than MORI

2009-04-10T13:48:00.008+02:00

The results of the 'How much do you miss Woolworths?' poll are in!

Thanks to the 29 people who took pity and voted on one of my four options. It has helped me pass the 'new media' part of my HND and demonstrated that my readership is approximately 15 times larger than I thought.

It has also taught me that, out of the people who read this blog, two are thieves (7%), 11 are sentimental fools (38%) and the majority are heartless bastards who don't miss Woolworths one bit (52%).

Oh, and someone out there actually used to shop in Woolworths. That's nice.

I recalculated the percentages because the poll's automatic calculator hadn't rounded in a way that added up to 100. I also created the snazzy graph! Don't diss the graph. My ego is fragile about the graph.

Suggestions for my next poll (or demands to desist from polling) are most welcome.

Congratulations!

2009-04-08T21:34:00.010+02:00

When I was 19 I worked, for a few unhappy weeks, in a grotty little independent gift shop. The customers were okay. They were usually in buying happy things like teddy bears and chocolate.

However, the shop made most of its money by selling greetings cards. The shelves were bristling with cards for every imaginable event: birthdays, bereavements, anniversaries, good luck, new job, new home, new baby, congratulations, confirmations, christenings, thank yous, invitations, RSVPs. Then there was the an annual churn of seasonal offerings, which was dedicated to St Patrick's Day cards during my stint.

One afternoon I was tidying a display of aphorism magnets when the sensor above the door went off. Bing bong. I looked up. Two young women had come in, sporting yachting jackets, dyed-blonde ponytails and hula-hoop gold earrings.

I smiled and said: "Hi there, can I help?"

One said, "Nah! Wur alright. Cheers, hen!" Then they both ferreted off into the greetings card aisles.

I left them to it while I attended to the magnets. But, after some confused nattering from amongst the shelves, the women reappeared.

"Ehh, is that all the cards yis uv goat?" one said.

"Yep," I said. But, confident the shop had a card for every conceivable life event, I said: "What is it you're looking for? Can I help?"

Their eyes lit up with hope. I will never forget the heartbreaking sincerity with which one of them said:

"Eh, it's just that we're after a caird that sais somethin like: 'Congratulations! Yir oot the jail!'"

One moment, sir

2009-04-08T11:49:00.005+02:00

The BBC has uploaded a short video guide to spotting fake pound coins. Some experts reckon that one in 20 in circulation is fake.

Dare me to do this the next time a customer pays in coins.

Looks good on paper

2009-04-07T15:47:00.009+02:00

I’ve been re-reading Paco Underhill’s brilliant retail book, Why We Buy, since reviewing it recently.

I'm wondering if, given the book is based in the States, whether customers in America behave less like dangerous children than our British lot.

That would explain this sentence, which concludes a discussion about how best to provide a gift-wrapping service during busy periods:

‘One truly efficient way to handle gift-wrapping is to set up a do-it-yourself station, complete with paper, ribbons, tissue, scissors and tape, but no employees at all.”

If we did this in our store, there’d be a fatal stabbing and a ned Sellotaped to the ceiling before you could say ‘Merry Christmas’.

Squabs in the arches

2009-04-07T00:32:00.001+02:00

Pigeons have a long and troubled history with the book shop. It's a grand old building, and I'm sure they've been shitting on it since it was built in 1827.

Sometimes, one gets inside and we have to call the council to come and shoot it. Usually after a few well-intentioned booksellers have made it shit everywhere by trying to catch it in a basket.

However, the A-listed sandstone has also provided shelter to these pestilent creatures. At the right time of the year, if you peer at a sharp angle from a window on the second floor, you are afforded a rare view.

That of a baby pigeon (or squab).

Nestled outside, in one of the corners of the masonry, is a pigeon nest. One year, we noticed that our maimed-footed friends had tangled together a home here out of plastic cord and carrier bags.

Then the egg appeared.

It was watched anxiously for weeks by booksellers, who pressed their noses against the glass and squinted along the building.

Word spread among the staff. Books from the Nature section were consulted. Weeks passed.

And then, it happened: in place of the dull little egg was a squatting mass of shivery grey feather, covered in its parents' droppings.

After a few days, it had turned towards the light and was gasping at the sky, blinking its evil, beady eyes through a spatter of pigeon milk.

It was quite possibly one of the ugliest things I have ever seen.

For shop's sake!

2009-04-06T22:45:00.000+02:00

Some shops are so cool they're worth visiting regardless of what they stock. Here's my first destination shop suggestion (in what will hopefully become an occasional series).

The picture above is of the FREITAG Individual Recycled Freeway Shop in Zurich, opened in 2006. I have no desire to by one of its Individual Recycled Freewaybags, but I really want to visit. Because it's made out of freight containers.

More images & info here.

Cool Flickr stream showing staff preparing the store for business here.

It's your hamster, Richard

2009-04-06T13:40:00.000+02:00

While it may seem as though everyone’s out to wind you up when you work in customer service, that’s mostly your paranoia and resentment.

Of course, there are the customers who come through the door spoiling for a fight, the weirdos, the junkies and the downright rude. Then there are the people who deliberately wind us up in the name of Entertainment, and, like that Fonejacker eejit, this sort of behaviour often boils down to stressing out the low-paid.

But, sometimes, genuine customers become dismayed at bad service or inappropriate behaviour and, instead of grumbling and sending off vitriolic hate mail, respond mightily with works of comic genius.

First up: this stellar effort from a disgruntled Virgin airlines passenger, who was so appalled by the food on offer on the Mumbai to Heathrow flight that he wrote to Sir Richard to let him know:

“You open the present and it’s not in there. It’s your hamster Richard. It’s your hamster in the box and it’s not breathing. That’s how I felt when I peeled back the foil.”

Check it out here.

Next, the American customer who called Verizon, a broadband provider in the States, about a mistake on his bill. He was confronted with the most baffling lack of mathematical understanding ever recorded in the history of time, and stuck it on YouTube.

Another American man became tired of cold-callers and orchestrated his own in-home windup. Originally broadcast on radio; now also on YouTube.

And, finally: my ex used to work for a supermarket frequented by a well-known Scottish TV actress. She made a complaint because, any time she was in store, staff would growl across the paging system: “This is a customer announcement: There’s been a muurrrduurrr.”

Delicate matters

2009-04-05T23:19:00.000+02:00

It is important, as a shop worker, to refrain from commenting on what your customer is buying. Unless you're saying something nice about it, although that still manages to offend some of them.

Anyway, I worked in a pharmacy and never once said a thing during a sale of haemorrhoid cream.

Now I work in a bookshop, and I am spared the stony silences that accompany the purchase of Preparation H. But bookselling brings its own pitfalls, because people buy the most upsetting or distracting reading material. To my mind, it divides roughly into two categories. I have provided some examples as illustration:

Rubbish things I find difficult to sell without comment

Scientology books;
False-hope-peddling alternative medicine books;
Anything written by Ayn Rand;
Jade Goody merchandise;
Scarlet magazine (it really annoys me that it calls itself a women’s erotica magazine, but always has a picture of a woman on the front).

Things which are absolutely vital to sell without comment

Erotica;
Mein Kampf;
Books about embarrassing medical problems;
Crappy Aleister Crowley books - the 15-year-old, mascara-wearing boys who buy them are desperate for a reaction;
AXM magazine (because I suspect the way I stare at the cover says enough. Scarlet, take note).

On the point of inappropriate comments to customers: I did once work with a girl who had injured her foot and was using crutches. After a week or so she gamely agreed to work at tills again - resting quite often, but able to do the job.

She was a cheerful sort and was having a laugh with a colleague about her plight, not paying too much attention to the queue.

But a customer had come up to her till and was crossly demanding her attention. Oddly enough, he was on crutches. She apologised and said happily that she was in the same situation as him, and wasn't it so annoying having to limp around?

His face froze. It was only then she saw that he was missing a leg.

An inflamed philosopher

2009-04-04T23:38:00.000+02:00

Hey- a big thanks to all the lovely folk who have commented on my blog recently. Even if you're called Alain.

That's Alain De Botton. He's quite possibly Googling himself right this minute, so I should probably put his full name in.

And a special thanks to Mark Buckland, a Glaswegian blogger who has leapt to my defence against old Alain (Alain De Botton).

Mark, who was unknown to me until he left his comment this evening, has also been kind enough to praise my blog over on his blog.

His comment appears at the end of an unrelated post of mine (Shopworkers on the continent) because I closed comments on Why we buy while I decided how best to handle an inflamed philosopher.

Answer: ignore him till he goes away, then have a laugh about it. A bit like dealing with a rude customer, actually.

So, yeah: that's Alain De Botton. The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work. I was working today and we sold at least three copies. Not bad at all for a £18.99 hardback. He'll be pleased.

Can anybody hear me?

2009-04-04T00:17:00.000+02:00

I was working at the tills this week and a man walked up to my counter, talking on his mobile phone.

It’s not unusual for customers to conduct telephone conversations while being served. I’m used to it.

But this guy inadvertently created a weird telecommunications Twilight Zone moment.

At first he was relaxed, chuckling at something his friend has just said on the phone.

Then his reception cut out. Instead of hanging up, he just stood there, clutching his phone to his ear and wailing desolately:

“Heelllloooooooo? Hellloooooooooo? Are you therrrrree? Hellloooooooooo?”

He was standing three feet across from me, staring right as me, and keening like a lost kitten into his iPhone.

It was totally unnerving – as if he’d dialled up an alternative universe, lost the connection and been cast adrift into our dimension at the very moment he’d tried to buy a copy of Nuts.

It is, of course, possible that I’ve been watching too many episodes of Quantum Leap.

Well worth it

2009-04-03T23:38:00.000+02:00

The BBC showed an hour-long documentary last night about the Dorchester branch of Woolworths. After the company went into administration, shop manager Claire Robertson rehired her staff and reopened the store as Wellworths. Nice work, madam.

It's available on the BBC iPlayer until April 9.

Many thanks to Erik, who first told me about this.

The photograph above, of Claire Robertson, is from the Telegraph story.

Why we buy

2009-04-02T14:27:00.000+02:00

I'm back, with the news that irritating popular philosopher Alain De Botton's new book, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, is published today.

None of the available excerpts or reviews mention shop work, and there is a much better book for those of us interested in shops and shopping: Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping by Paco Underhill.

First published in 1999, the book has lost none of its relevance to the retail experience. It's particularly interesting to booksellers because one of the major case studies in the book is based on a bookstore in America.

Underhill carried out massive, labour-intensive studies of the behaviour of shoppers in the US and came up with a delicious mix of findings that are either startling and counterintuitive or underpin common sense in the most satisfying way.

De Botton's book, on the other hand, imagines the inner life of an accountant like this: "He puts his feet up on the seat opposite and is carried back to other evenings which looked almost exactly like this one, which were of the same temperature and clarity, but happened when his mother was still alive, before his children were born, when he was not yet divorced."

Mince.

De Botton hasn't worked a day in any of these jobs, and as several reviewers have pointed out (today's Metro, the Times last month), De Botton, an affluent, Cambridge-educated author who signed a book deal upon graduation, is not best placed to hypothesise about work.

Why We Buy, on the other hand contains an addictive blend of narrative and fact - close to the blend that made bestseller Freakonomics so popular six years later in 2005.

One of the most amusing findings is the "butt-brush factor", where researchers noticed that people would quickly abandon shopping in an area where they were jostled, even slightly, from behind.

Underhill goes on to unpack this finding, demonstrating its repurcussions for the design of stores and walking you through case studies of problem stores he expertly redesigned or remedied.

Other chapters include a break down of how long it takes shoppers to slow down before they enter the store, the importance of baskets, the visibility of signs, problems affecting till points, how the precincts of the shop affect its sales (I liked the observation that it was best not to have your store front beside a bank, because people speed up to pass banks, and take a while to slow down at merchandised windows).

Nothing in there about what accountants might imagine wistfully on the train home.

Shopworkers on the continent

2009-03-06T13:20:00.000+01:00

A brief interruption in my blog-free study period to introduce you to Anna Sam, a French checkout girl who has found fame and fortune with her retail blog.

I am quite, quite jealous.

With many thanks to Catherine, who brought the article to my attention.

Study panic sets in

2009-02-26T23:58:00.000+01:00

I have two options:

1. Study for my exams for the next three weeks (neglecting my blog in favour of reading about local government finance);

2. Enter a vortex of procrastination and denial by continuing to blog, thus probably failing my exams.

I am choosing option 1.

This is good and bad news. Good for me, because it increases my chance of passing my exams. Bad for you, because it means I have neatly avoided turning this blog into a blow-by-blow, off-topic account of FAILURE.

I might have been able to laugh about it in a few years' time.

Speaking of failure, I shall sign off for now with a link to the FAIL blog's celebration of retail incompetence.

See you in April ...

Looking good

2009-02-21T13:04:00.000+01:00

Yesterday an article appeared on the BBC website about work uniforms.

It's a good read, although the journalist - possibly filing the piece from home in his pyjamas - gets a bit carried away:

"It is the final insult for many wage-slaves everywhere. Itchy nylon; fiddly clip-on ties; garish corporate branding - if any aspect of one's job can make it a trial of drudgery and alienation, it is surely the bad uniform."

I was glad to see him touching on the safety issues of bad workwear - I'm only disappointed there's no mention of employer demands for uncomfortable shoes.

Harbl

2009-02-21T00:49:00.000+01:00

Years ago I worked as the special orders clerk in the bookshop. Special orders are where we don’t have the book in stock and order it in for the customer.

The clerk processes all the orders coming up from the shop floor, sorts them out when they come in and puts them behind the tills for collection. He or she also takes complaints to do with special orders, marring an otherwise cushty office-based role.

So, years ago, I took a complaint from a very, very angry man about a colleague who had messed up his book order. An observant customer, he had recorded the name displayed on my colleague’s tag.

“I have a note here of who served me. I’m not sure how to pronounce it, an unusual name: Harbl.”

I knew who he meant, but his name certainly wasn’t Harbl. Later, I playfully admonished my colleague, telling him his nonsense name had been taken seriously. We all had a wee laugh about it – years ago.

And today I was about to write a blog post about funny names people use on their tags when I thought: perhaps I should Google that word, maybe it's some obscure cultural reference I’ve missed. I was right. But it’s not a forgotten film character or kooky sci-fi concept. No.

“Harbl” is slang for “cock”.

Shop workers in the Mist

2009-02-20T20:02:00.000+01:00

The Mist, a Frank Darabont horror film based on a Stephen King novella, takes place mostly in an American supermarket. A mist descends over the parking lot and a local man runs into the store, nose bloodied, shouting "There's something in the mist!" Cue lots of panic, argument and alien-bug action.

In the midst of it all, shop worker Ollie Weeks (pictured above) tends to his flock of customers with sage advice, diffuses several serious arguments, attacks a giant tentacle with an axe and secures control of the only available gun.

Ollie Weeks is a clearly a man who has considered the potential of his supermarket being attacked by hostile forces before. And, after a lethal battle at the goods entrance with a creature from the mist, he leaps into action:

Ollie: We gotta discuss how we're going to stop that thing from getting in here.

Myron: What do you mean getting in? We shut the loading door.

Ollie: Yeah, but the entire front of the store is plate glass.

I cheered at this point because I work in a store walled with plate glass and it has caused me much concern when considering how I might deal with a zombie apocalypse if it happened while I was at work.

Anyway, cue more panic, shouting and argument, while Ollie (played by British actor Toby Jones) calmly dispenses wisdom to his panicky customers before silencing his troublesome manager by telling him to "shut the fuck up".

What a hero! It's just a shame that, in reviews of the film, he's often described as an "unlikely" hero - presumably because he's not woodenly good-looking like our lead man Drayton, and because he's a service worker.

Never mind.

Portas feels the pinch

2009-02-19T15:52:00.000+01:00

Mary Portas, Queen of Shops, has made it into Pseuds Corner in Private Eye* this fortnight for talking nonsense to the Telegraph about credit crunch fashion trends.

No mention, though of our retail expert’s Credit Crunch Complaint in last Sunday’s paper!

A telly guru who has often insulted shop workers in her reviews, Portas found plenty of fault in the behaviour of the employees of Bershka, a clothes shop in Derby. She writes:

“I approached an assistant with a black wool tunic I'd spotted with a missing belt. She said all the belts had been lost and suggested that I buy a belt separately from the accessories range. Good salesmanship, maybe, but low-grade customer care. In the worst retail sales climate on record, no one is going to get away with that.”

Then she spots a lovely dress – “a steal at £19.99” – and triumphantly declares she won’t be buying it: “I have principles so I left empty-handed and fuming.”

What is she talking about? Here we have a genuine print example of the Spare Tenner Syndrome I discussed in a previous post. It’s nice to see Portas is staying on trend.

---

*The 20 February issue is also worth looking at for the reader-spotted Zavvi closure sign from Norwich on page 14:

"Everything is closed. The games dept is now closed. The DVD dept is now closed. Please fuck off if you require assistance."

Erotic journeys

2009-02-19T13:26:00.000+01:00

Right. So you're wandering around one of those giant Tescos that cover the same area as three football pitches. You've only got a few more aisles to go before you hit the checkouts. And, just as you pick up some HobNobs, you decide: I don't really want potatoes with dinner tonight. Nah - I'll get some oven chips.

You're about half a mile away from the fruit & vegetable display at the front door.

Feeling slightly shitty, you ditch the potatoes in a wee bit of free space near the HobNob display. You also tell yourself you still have principles - you wouldn't have done that with frozen or cooled food like that, it would have spoiled.

But I bet supermarket employees find sad little pools of melted ice cream and soggy defrosted pizzas on a daily basis. Because a lot of customers seem to actively enjoy pratting about with stock.

In bookshops, for example, a lot of customers enjoy deliberately depositing stock from our erotica section in 'humorous' locations. Unlike frozen ice cream, erotica does not melt. It remains, in various locations, until unearthed by an unsuspecting bookseller.

I am reminded of my old friend, The Big Penis Book, which arrived on our shelves last summer and immediately began a noble journey around the store, relayed by the clammy hands of sniggering idiots to the Christianity section before turning up, later that same day, in the middle of Fiction.

In the following week, it was variously propped up on windowsills and service desks, and slotted in among unrelated books before finally being discovered, flaccid and spent, on the carpet in front of the Judaism section.

Its spine was broken. We returned it to the warehouse.

Sugar rush

2009-02-18T23:42:00.000+01:00

A famous photograph, called 99 cents, of a "big box retailer" in America. Internet reproductions of Andreas Gursky's image don't do it justice: prints measure 207 x 337cm (or just over 6ft by 11ft).

I love the detail, the neatness of the displays and the impression of the weight of thousands of pounds of confectionery lying on the shelves while customers forage amongst it all with shopper's tunnel vision.

It would be amazing to see a full-size reproduction up close.

Tit for tat for Tesco

2009-02-17T17:06:00.000+01:00

After my disapproval of Jeanette Winterson's inability to distinguish between a dislike for corporations and the folk who work on their shop floors, I thought I would flag up my immense approval for Dot Reid, 58, who went straight to the top when Tesco decided it would like to demolish her house to build a supermarket.

Indies are not the only shops

2009-02-17T15:54:00.000+01:00

In 2007, novelist Jeanette Winterson wrote Real Shopping, an introduction to the freebie Guardian Shopping Directory (it came with the paper on a Saturday in December).

I already knew I didn't like Winterson's opinions, having read some of her journalism and John Carey's dismissal of her in his art crit book, but Real Shopping really stuck in my craw.

The thrust of Winterson's article is basically that those who can afford to run their own independent shop are superior to people who work for large corporations.

I'll leave aside issues of class - however you want to look at it, Winterson's argument actually fails to acknowledge the humanity of those working in big-chain stores. It's that odious - read it for yourself.

She views corporate employees as fake, while becoming nobly distressed by the concept of sweatshop workers. She uses "the politics of shopping" as a magic phrase to dismiss corporate chains - but also to demand "passion, commitment, conscience - something more than the transaction" from an independent.

Although the piece is riddled with nasty little assumptions and perceptions, I'll quote the most startling paragraph in full. After declaring the Corporate Shopping Experience to be harried and soulless, here is what Winterson says:

"This might be because corporate shopping is run by straight white Alpha Males - the world's worst shoppers. You've seen them, tapping their feet, checking their phones, hands in pockets while wifey or mistressy tries on another frock. They HATE shopping, but they run the chains, and behind all the phoney retail smiling and the robotic flat language of fake helpfulness dinned into their low-paid employees, Corporate shopping knows only two words - BUY. GO."

Sexist and condescending, she declares her motto in life to be "Do it from the heart or not at all," a meaningless dollop of words she uses to exclude the majority from her sphere of privilege (Winterson plugs her own deli at the end of the article).

I know high-street stores can be difficult places to work and shop - but I also know that some of the worst working and shopping experiences I've had are with petty little independent owners, free of head office scrutiny to be as despotical as they like.

But ultimately the joke is on her. She looks to small shops for "essential community", a "friendly face" or a "bit of gossip", blinkered to the sense of community, levels of tolerance and myriad functions large high-street stores provide for their shoppers.

There's even the small army of sad, lonely or unwell people who never spend a penny in the stores, but who are indulged every day by the "robotic" low-paid shop workers who often don't have much interest in what profit their store is turning - and can spare 15 minutes for a chat.

But high-street bookstores are regularly the target of delusional, idealistic grumbling from people - often authors - like Winterson. A few years ago, one writer (who shall remain nameless) told an audience attending her event in our store she wasn't proud of appearing at such a blatantly capitalist shop before getting on with a reading that shifted at least a dozen copies of her book.

Winterson’s novels have featured successfully in the 3-for-2 promotions in several high-street bookstores. I'd like to see her put her money where her mouth is and refuse to sell her novels to the corporate stores she's so keen to criticise.

Not good with keys

2009-02-16T13:58:00.003+01:00

I’ve worked in bookselling for four years now. I really like bookselling. It plays to my strengths. I like books. I like people.

And I appreciate having a job I like. Since I began working I have had 17 jobs and not all of them have been as much fun as the book shop (although some have been better paid).

It was my fault that jewellery selling became a hellish daily trial.

I have about four years' worth of experience working in jewellery shops, across three different jobs. I quite liked working in jewellery: it’s nice to sell happy things like engagement rings and special 21st birthday presents, and I enjoyed some of the hard selling (especially on commission).

The thing is: I’m not good with keys.

I remember walking home, when I was very young, and pleading with my mother to let me unlock the front door for the first time. She gave me the key. I slotted it in after a few false starts. Then I stood, for approximately 3,000 hours, failing to turn the effing thing.

I remember concluding that key use was just one of the Things In Life I’m Not Good At – like gymnastics and mental arithmetic – and I could get by without it when I was older.

I was half right: I am older, 24 years old in fact, and I’m still shit with keys. Sadly, it is now apparent that I’m lacking an essential life skill.

I get to the door, put the key in the lock, and – shit! - fumble it. I just don’t have the key ‘knack’.

I have managed to conceal my secret shame while working as a bookseller. This is not possible when you are a jewellery assistant.

Looking back, I don’t know how I survived it. Rows and rows of secure glass-fronted display cases, regiments of locked glass-topped cabinets.

So picture me: I’m looking good. I’m dressed in a suit, I’ve got a wee golden name badge pinned to my lapel, I’m smiling at you.

It’s your daughter’s 21st and you’ve got about £500 – maybe £600 if you like what you see. You’re a wee bit nervous, this is a big buy for you and you want to get it right. You’re thinking a matching pendant and earring set.

So far, you’re happy: I’ve established what you’re after with a few chatty questions and you know I’m listening. I take you over to a display cabinet and your spirits rise as you spot at least three different things your daughter might like. You’d like a better look at them though, so you ask me to take them out of the display for you.

I smile and say: of course, then start fumbling about at my hip, where I have a massive fob of about a dozen keys attached to my belt by an extendable wire.

While you gaze happily at the sparkling jewellery, I scrabble madly at the fob, checking and discarding each key visually before I get to the end of the selection and realise I must have missed the wee fucker that opens Cabinet A.

I start over, and as I scrabble through them again. When I find the key I try to shove it upside down into the lock. There's a rough period where I can't get the key to turn in the lock, I wrench it out to double check it's the right one, then rattle it back in again. You stare at me.

I eventually get the cabinet to open, your attention is diverted once more by the shiny things, and we agree on a £610 silver and diamond combo.

The till is just to my left, so when I’ve returned the other jewellery to the cabinet, I move over to process your purchase, forgetting I’m still attached to lock, and jerk back like a dog on a lead.

I went through this eight, nine, ten times a day minimum! I should be a shivering wreck by now. I didn't improve with practice, either.

There. My secret is out! Mock me, for I am shit with keys.

I'd be that girl in the horror movies who, running frantically for her car, would fumble her door lock and have her head munched off by giant mandibles.

Red and yellow and...

2009-02-16T12:06:00.001+01:00

This image made me smile - years ago I worked with a girl who, left to her own devices in the poetry section, shelved all the books by colour.

Also, check out the inclusion of a pug in another image of the bookshelf. Excellent work.

Sweet nothings

2009-02-15T00:01:00.000+01:00

Customers are often irritating; they complain, they whine, some get aggressive, many talk total mince.

But it's time I admitted that the majority of people I serve in the bookshop range from inoffensive to quite lovely.

So, it's also time I examined a curious thing that sometimes happens when you want to avoid upsetting a nice customer.

You make stuff up. You lie cheerfully – about yourself or your knowledge on a particular subject – in order to play along with whatever your customer is prattling on about.

I mean, obviously you don’t tell the wee lady buying the People’s Friend that you think it’s a waste of paper, or the bloke clutching the latest DVD release that it’s a misogynistic pile of crap. No. You play along. But what I’m talking about is bare-faced lying.

For example, it was Valentine’s Day today and the store ran a promotion where if the customer brought in a coupon from a national newspaper they got a free Mills & Boon book.

There was a choice of six and it was actually quite heart-breaking to watch their faces light up as they chose.*

Twice – twice! – today I pretended to nice wee old ladies that Mills & Boon books are great and I read them all the time. In fact, somewhere in the greater Glasgow area is a pensioner who believes I have a stack of the particularly steamy ones on my bedside table.

I really don’t want to offend folk so when they ask if I read M & B… I lie! I say yes. But my weakness is not limited to romance fiction customers. Behold: my List of Things I Have Pretended in Order to Please Nice Customers:

1. Any interest, whatsoever, in the weather.**

2. A fascination with Cornwall.

3. A liking for ferrets.

4. Great distress at the rumour of love trouble between various celebrity couples.

5. That the store is a complex labyrinth of dead ends and cunning traps and I, too, regularly get lost in other stores – such as Debenhams.

6. I enjoy spaghetti – so much, that I can’t understand why you wouldn’t buy a book about it.

7. "You're right, the only way to choose girly books is by how pretty the covers are." This last one tumbled out of my mouth when a cross-dresser followed me around earnestly at Front of Store, chatting about chick lit.

Almost every shop worker, unless a heartless sod, has ventured cheerfully into the realms of pleasant nonsense, and I think it's worth it to keep the nice folk that walk through our doors in good cheer.

Took it a bit far with the bedside-Boon confession, though.

---

*It was also like a mini-personality test – they got to choose between the really saucy ones (like Claimed by the Billionaire Bad Boy) and the more romantic ones (The Italian’s Passionate Revenge). But the most popular seemed to be Her Secret Family. So, if I’ve learned anything today, it’s that committed Mills & Boon readers do not share the layperson’s appreciation of ridiculous titles.

**This does not include hail stones, which are interesting and increase in interest the larger and more smashy they get.

True Books

2009-02-13T16:12:00.000+01:00

Okay. Here is an actual conversation, which actually took place, between me and a customer this week.

I'm standing on Upper First, where we keep all the fiction. I am standing amongst thousands and thousands of made-up stuff here: literary novels, crime fiction, romance, poetry, drama, graphic novels.

In other words, it is the only floor in the whole, eight-floor store dedicated almost exclusively to lies! And here she is: middle-aged, harried looking, smoker's skin, voice out of the Barras. She has a similar friend in tow.

She starts speaking to me when she's behind me - and, although I could only have seen her if I'd the peripheral vision of a horse, she gets harrassed by the fact I have to take a few seconds to turn towards her and smile.

Customer: Right, hen. Where are all your true books?

This may, to those not in customer service, appear a laughable question, but I'm asked this quite a lot. It's quite funny when they ask this on the Upper First floor though, because they've usually stomped about for awhile becoming increasingly crazed by the fact all the books are full of silly stories.

Where this customer became astounding was in her commitment to the pursuit of True Books and her conviction I was failing to provide them.

Me: Well, it depends on what you're looking for - did you have a particular book in mind?

Customer: Naw. Just the true ones - where are they?

Me: ... this is the only floor you won't really find them - if you're into history and biography then-

Customer: Naw. It's for my husband.

Me: Oh okay, what are you after, then?

Customer (eyeing the surrounding shelves of fiction with mounting distaste and impatience): Can you not be more helpful?

Me: Yeah, of course... erm... what has he enjoyed in the past?

Customer: True books!

Me: Okay, well there are two main divisions really - if he likes science then-

Customer (screwing her face up and blowing air through her lips): Naw! No' science!

Me: Okay. Your best bet is the basement - we've got all the biography and history and politics and that down there.

Customer: Does he like biography?

There's a really uncomfortable pause here, where I assumed she was talking to her friend (and had simply forgotten to stop staring at me ). Then I realised her friend was looking at me expectantly.

Me (with alarm): Your husband? Well - they're certainly meant to be true, biographies. Worth a look.

Customer: What will I get him, then?

Me: Eh... well the bestselling one at the moment is probably Barack Obama's autobiography, Dreams From My Father.

Customer: Which one's that?

Me: Eh...it's the one with the more blue cover?

Customer (as if crucial understanding has dawned): Ahh. Right. Ta. Down the way?

I point her to the stairs and she and her friend walk off, no doubt convinced that I am the least helpful shop assistant they have ever encountered.

It was ultimately quite an odd experience - it made me feel like I'd forgotten the real meanings of nouns and wasn't making any sense.

...

In a related story: A few years ago I overheard a woman inform her companion that there was no point in browsing the reference books in store because you weren't allowed to buy them. It was like the concepts of Shop and Library had collided in her brain and come out all wrong.

This collision (hey! Let's call it the Libop!) also leads to customers frowning at one another like stern librarians when someone uses a mobile phone in the shop.

Computer says ... O?

2009-02-12T10:45:00.000+01:00

Well, at least if I make a mistake at the bookshop it's not going to displace my hapless customer 1,300 miles across the globe.

Behold the story of Samantha Lazzaris, who Thomas Cook cheerfully sent to package-holiday dump Puerto Rico instead of luxury paradise Costa Rica.

According to the Daily Mail: "Instead of entering the code for Juan Santa Maria in San Jose, Costa Rica, which is ' SJO', staff incorrectly entered 'SJU', the code for San Juan in Puerto Rico."

Mind you, if I did have the power to launch irritating customers hundreds of miles in the wrong direction I'd probably be in the jail by now.

Like something out of a book

2009-02-11T22:21:00.001+01:00

Shop workers! We have been immortalised in fiction! Never mind all that media froth about how Joshua Ferris caught the reality of working life in his (excellent) first-person-plural novel Then We Came To The End.

Based in a middle-management office, Ferris alienated all retail workers with the second adjective of his very first sentence: "We were fractious and overpaid."

I loved Ferris's novel, but as a retail worker, there were whole areas I couldn't identify with. It was left to two other 2007 novels (seemingly a bumper year for workplace fiction in paperback) to portray the humble modern shop worker.

I'm talking about The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland and What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn. The first, by the author famous for zeitgeist novel Generation X in the 90s and more recently for office satire jPod, is about a middle-aged man and his Goth-girl colleague who both work in giant stationery barn Staples (we've got one in Glasgow now - it's replaced the Office World up at Baird Street).

The second is a debut novel from Birmingham author Catherine O'Flynn, set mainly in an eerie, Braehead-like shopping centre and concerning a character who works for Your Music, a thinly fictionalised HMV.

Coupland, a Canadian, had ten novels under his belt by the time he presented us with The Gum Thief, and the book reads with all the assurance and craft that suggests, while delivering the humour, cleverness and imagination fans have come to expect.

But it does ring hollow on a few points. First of all, there's the unquestioning depiction of retail as the refuge of broken people (alcoholics, like main character Roger, for example) and youngsters passing through (like the Goth, Bethany) - presumably to 'better' jobs like the ones depicted as hells of complacent despair in Ferris's work.

Then there's the moment, one minute and thirty seconds into this interview on The Hour where Coupland finds it necessary to point out shop workers have an interior life (phew! We're fully human, after all).

I'm being picky, though - and almost certainly unfair on that last point. Many of Coupland's observations are spot on: Roger thinking wistfully about a drug that could turn haggling discounts with pensioners into a blissful pastime; the descriptions of Staples as a badly lit, boring place divided into aisles and duties; an angry customer who launches into an ode to Sharpie markers; the flavour of days varying according to delivery dates; absurd staff training materials.

Coupland charms with his full set of skills here, but it does feel a bit like he was writing in cruise control - the characters are quirky and farcical and terribly sad things happen to them, but it's all wryly observed and no depths are really touched.

My biggest reservation with The Gum Thief (also now accompanied by video shorts on YouTube), however, is not that retail is equated with failure and stagnancy, but that he never explores the darker side of working in customer service - the creepy or seedy customers, violent incidents - and the inconveniences of a low wage. Improbably, Bethany escapes from the hell of 'Das Shtoop' first by saving money to go travelling around Europe, then by her poverty-stricken mother selling her condo so that Bethany can afford to go back to school.

Catherine O'Flynn's What Was Lost has a different take on things. The employees of Your Music are mostly portrayed as competent and intelligent individuals who have somehow found themselves on the shop-floor career ladder. The wage difficulties are touched upon, and the existence of sinister individuals in the shopping centre, Green Oaks, forms an important plot point.

While the novel is chiefly concerned with the disappearance of a young girl, it switches between past and present and the main present-day character is Lisa, a deputy manager in the store. O'Flynn's descriptions of retail scenarios read more like stand-up and are strong pieces of comic writing in themselves - for example, the reaction of customers to the lift doors opening on the staff floor, the Type A personality of the Easy Listening specialist, the rants about customer misunderstandings.

Although What Was Lost is a first novel without the slickness of Coupland's offering, O'Flynn achieves an emotional depth as a direct result of her potrayal of retail work: Lisa's angst about accepting promotion; an incident with a sad old man that finally triggers her decision to leave; and haunting monologues from the minds of nameless shoppers inserted at the end of several chapters.

I'd strongly recommend both novels, but for me O'Flynn's is the better book - Coupland is an excellent writer, though, and I'm paying a massive compliment to the Brummie lass by rating her book ahead of his.

Check them out, let me know what you think and if you've any recommendations I'd love to know about them, too.

Credit Crunch Complaints

2009-02-11T16:40:00.000+01:00

Customers have been taking the buzzwords of the economic crisis and throwing them at me in a self-righteous attempt at wrangling some money off.

What’s enraging is that, digesting news headlines with the discrimination of pigs gobbling up feed, they’re all acting as if the economy only came into existence in 2008. At first this was amusing: it was like your toddler learning some new words. People of all ages and all shades of stupidity, soaked in months of saturation coverage of the credit crunch, stood in front of our tills and bleated things like ‘exchange rate’, ‘Right now you should be grateful I’m even shopping here’ and ‘VAT reduction’.

Let me deal with each of these in order - I'll start with the exchange rate problem. I keep getting customers who inform me with profound condescension that I must charge them less in pounds for their untranslated French novel (also priced in Euros on the back) or for their import magazine from Spain.

Why? Well, I assume because they’ve sat down in front of the telly or picked up a Metro just long enough to catch half the story – and also vaguely remember getting their holiday money changed into foreign at the post office.

Right. A few points. The pound changes value against the euro all the time and has done since the euro entered the financial markets ten years ago. But, except with a few superficially canny but fundamentally benighted customers, this didn’t come up before. Damn you, News! And retail prices don’t operate as a constantly fluctuating shadow of the exchange rate.

But here’s the money shot (sorry): the pound is presently weak. Even if their argument was sound, and shop prices did bounce up and down on an hourly basis, their argument means they would actually be paying more.

Then there are those customers who have grappled with the credit crunch headlines and concluded they’re special because they’ve a spare tenner.

I’ve had this twice at the cash desks now – harassed shoppers who, after spitting out some vitriol about how much they hated the store, hack out that I should be grateful that they are choosing to spend money right now.

No, I’m not grateful. You’ve came into the shop with a shitty attitude, stomped around for a while, then tried to haggle 79p off a Davina McCall exercise DVD.What I am grateful for are the overwhelming majority of customers, who wander in, make an enquiry or buy a book, then wander off again.

And finally, about that 2.5% VAT you’re clawing after: books and magazines are not subject to VAT. Go away, won’t you? Go and hassle someone in the Marks & Spencer biscuits aisle: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7340101.stm

Sleepless nights

2008-11-17T23:29:00.000+01:00

This is sad.

I'd like to know whether staff are being compensated for unsociable working and whether the shops involved require all staff to cover the extended opening hours.

I'd also like to know who needs to buy anything from Au Naturel at 3am.

Minding manners

2008-11-17T23:22:00.000+01:00

People are rude - not just rude to shop assistants. Bar workers, for example.

A few years ago I was standing, dressed all in black, waiting to be served at a bar. A woman, late middle-aged and standing just at the edge of my vision, was saying something insistently. I eventually tuned in and turned round.

She was quite well-spoken. “You gone deaf have you? Get me two menus. Your place is run terribly.”

I ignored her and looked back towards the bar. She grabbed my sleeve and used it to pull me around.

“I said get me-”

“I don’t work here – stop touching me,” I said.

She dropped my arm as though it was white hot. Her face crumpled, but with a helpless look as if to say: What do you expect, I thought you worked here!

Tut, tut, madam.

Damaged goods

2008-11-06T15:45:00.000+01:00

Broken? Unsuitable? Off your face when you bought it and never want to look at it again? No problem, sir, we'll sort it out for you.

Honestly, we will. In fact, every shop I've worked for has went beyond its call of duty when it comes to accepting returns from customers.

If companies are guilty of taking people for a ride, members of the public are just as good at taking the mickey out of shops when they want to return what they've bought. Or stolen. Or found. Or bought elsewhere.

There are many categories of Problematic Returner and all of them are guilty of a) contempt for the retailer and b) some sort of character flaw. So, here we have the Seven Deadly Sins of Problematic Returners.

1. Impatience

I worked in a high-street gift shop that sold Victoriana garden fairies made of fragile frost-resistant resin. They were about eight inches tall and quite spindly and they came packed in a polysterene cube inside a thick, corrugated-cardboard box.

Now, with a modicum of patience, you could open the box at both ends, have a wee shove at the polystyrene, it would slide squeakily out of the cardboard and you pulled the two halves apart and there was your fairy.

Or, you could tear open the lid of the box and dig angrily at the top of the polysterene with your fingernails. When the little fairy head with its little hat appeared, you could grab it and, by brute force, attempt to wrench it out of the polystyrene.

In the stock room we had a shelf of decapitated fairies (a few were missing arms because there was a version meant to look like it was prancing, so it was waving its hand in the air and they got to that before the head).

We always let people return them, and we always smiled politely when people claimed they opened the box and found it broken.

2. Clumsiness

I worked in a stationery store that sold luxury photograph albums with linen covers. A father and daughter came in to return one worth forty quid because it 'just wasn't suitable'. I took it out of the bag and suddenly I could smell booze. There was red wine all over the lilac cover.

Nice cosy night in, make up the photo album, lovely idea. Until you spill the wine all over the album and decide you'd rather have your forty quid back.

There's no drama, no climax. As a sales assistant you give them the money back then stand around with your colleagues muttering "At it. Totally at it."

3. Entitlement

Some people treat bookshops like a video rental store where the price labels are like a rental fee. So they buy the book, rough it up a bit (I assume some of them read it) then bring it back. Or swap it for another one. Ad infinitum.

This category also includes the woman who brought a ten-year-old leather handbag back to the gift shop I worked in, claiming that she was due a replacement because it was looking 'awfully worn for its age'.

4. Deception

Right. I'm not daft, you're not daft, and last week you bought three books in a '3 for 2' promotion. You're now standing in front of me with two of those books and the receipt. You are returning the two books. So where's the free one, buddy? It's at home! I don't mention this. It is like the elephant in the sale. I return your cash or card payment. And sometimes, you genuinely believe that I am daft and that I don't realise that you've technically just nicked a book.

Other examples include the people who find new book titles in charity shops and bring them into a high-street book store for an exchange, and those who steal a book, buy the same book, return the first book without the receipt (so that the assistant finds that the store has sold the item recently and can authorise the no-receipt return) then return the second book with the receipt. Two refunds, one sale.

5. Inappropriateness

Customer brings a porn DVD to the tills for a return. Bookseller asks: "Is it faulty?" Customer replies: "I just don't need it anymore."

6. Callousness

Or; Why I Hate Working on Boxing Day. On December 26 you're basically dealing with a big queue of people who are all trying to bring back what their grandmother bought them. This has happened in every store after every Christmas I've ever worked. It's fine per individual, but en masse it's quite wearying. In the book shop, this includes the people who journey into the city centre the day after Christmas with a wad of book tokens, not to buy things, but to try to return the tokens because they cannot or will not read.

And this includes the troubled individual who returned a self-help book called Overcoming Grief. The book was reshelved for sale in store. It was returned again by the next purchaser, who pointed out our terrible mistake. The first customer, who we now realise must have received the book as a gift, had returned it despite a personal message about the death of her father scrawled in pen inside. It's now in the damaged bin in the stock room. A member of staff has attached a damaged-stock note that reads "Heart-wrenchingly shop soiled: see title page."

7. Insanity

I have had customers try to return an item the shop does not sell. In the book store, sometimes you get an obscure or out-of-date title that we don't stock, and the customer was genuinely mistaken. But sometimes you get wildly wrong items such as a broken toy or a spoon. This is because the customer was unwell or confused.

Finally, as part of this last category, I'd like to add the guy who stole the free soft-porn DVD from the cover of DVD World magazine. He posted it back to the store a few weeks later. Inside the envelope was a cheque for £4.99 and a note saying he hoped we would accept his apology.

The note also said that, now that he had posted the DVD back, he hoped that the bad luck that had followed him ever since he had stolen would go away.

It's behind you

2008-11-04T01:10:00.000+01:00

This week a customer stared at my bum intently while I explained to her where we keep the travel books. This was because she had noticed there was a store directory on the wall behind me.

There is a large proportion of the population who set a timer off in their heads when they ask a store assistant for help. When they ask for something – anything - they immediately set about trying to prove they didn’t need to ask in the first place. I recognised this woman as one of their number.

She said: “Where are the travel books?”

And I said: “On the Upper Ground.”

So, this was a bit too quick for her and she still needed the satisfaction of beating me to the answer. Therefore, she tried to make me wrong by blindly guessing other possible combinations. This is perfectly standard daily behaviour from otherwise normal-looking customers.

‘Isn’t it Lower Ground,’ she said, staring just to the left of me.

My bum was still obscuring the bit that says ‘Upper,’ you see. She craned forward, obviously trying to see the directory. I ruined the tension a little (we both knew I knew she was trying to read through my arse by this point) by stepping aside.

She read the store directory with all the intensity of Moses scrutinising the commandments.

‘Ah! Okay - okay, I see - Upper Ground!" She rattles this out as if by speaking quickly she might reverse time and look like she came to this conclusion first.

Anyway, Upper Ground was two flights of stairs down from the landing. But I said nothing as she pranced victoriously upwards.

This is what I’m up against.

The Angry Box of Corkerhill

2008-11-04T01:06:00.000+01:00

I wrote this a few months ago but I thought it was worth including here. When waiting for a train I was thrilled to witness a new and exciting form of long-distance customer-service aggro. It was a thing to behold.

There were three neds in the shelter at Corkerhill train station last Friday, grabbing each other by the balls and generally taking out their sexual frustration on one another.

When they tired of that, they ventured out of the shelter and pressed the Help button box to speak to ScotRail. After they pressed it four times and failed to ruffle the feathers of the guy at the other end, the train to Glasgow was cancelled.

Two of them wandered off. The third stared, bewitched, at the box. He pressed the button again.

"Ehhhhhhhhhh...when's the next train?" An ominous pause.

"Whit?" The box barked. "Whit? Does it no matter whit way yer goin? Ye just want a train dae ye?"

The ned's eyes widened. "Ehhhh...aye."

Without the back-up of his ball-squeezing pals, he was banter-free.

"Well, am no' telling ye, pal!" Mr Scotrail was the type of man who cared enough about keeping his job not to swear, but not enough to actually rearrange the grammar and rhythm of his sentences. He was leaving fuck gaps.

"Ahm no' tellin' ye! Ye think it’s funny ye just stand there pressing the f— button and ask me when the f— train is?”

The ned blinked, looked a bit nervous, and slouched off.

“Whit is yer problem pal? Eh? Whit is it? Eh? Hello?”

Like working in a GUM clinic of the mind

2008-11-04T00:41:00.000+01:00

From October 2006 and my old blog

You get to know too much about humanity when you sell it books. Today, I have sold:

A Duke of Her Own by Lorraine Heath, to an absolutely adorable and completely ancient wee lady. Tagline: Lady Louisa longs to marry for passion and love - but will she find happiness in the arms of a duke? Thinly disguised granny porn with a bad (incredible) illustration of two lovers on the front cover. They've obviously been copied from a cheap porn mag photo. She phoned back later in the day to say she'd read it, really enjoyed it, and could we get her Love With a Scandalous Lord?

The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls by Chris Morton, to a man with few teeth. He's a regular customer and spends at least twenty quid a week on books from the Mysterious World and Mind Body Spirit section. Heavy on conspiracies, lacking in dentistry. He makes me feel sad because he probably believes all this stuff.

Two copies of a 43p TV Guide to a nice big man who also bought LandRovers Monthly and explained that the TV guide fits snugly inside the manly car magazine so he can sneakily read about soaps on the bus. One copy is for his wife and one is for his mother in law, both of whom he teases for being daft enough to look forward to reading a 43p TV Guide. Oh, and they all live in the same house, but he buys two copies to 'save arguments'.

Out of The Shadows, a book about overcoming sexual addiction, to a very tired looking, smartly dressed man.

Copies of Le Monde, Le Figaro etc. to various men who suffer attacks of the wobbly habdabs every week if they can't just snatch the paper up and GET AWAY FROM THE TILL BEFORE YOU HAND THEM THE RECEIPT. GO! GO! GO! EVADE EVADE!

What's that about? Pfft. And why are the books on grief in the 'Death' section? 'Bereavement' was too long a word, was it? And why does it have to be next to the Incest section? Why do we have to have an Incest section at all? Filed inbetween Bestiality and Paedophilia is it? No.

Another day... another store directory

I’m standing in the fiction department this afternoon. I have a scribbled list of books I need to find and take downstairs to the display tables. But, as my nametag says, I’m Happy To Help.

A middle-aged woman with a tragedy of make up across her face approaches me.

“Sports!” A lot of people do this.

“Sports! Sports books!” She gestures impatiently and the jangle of the cheap jewellery around her wrist makes me want to poke her in the eye.

I speak. “Second floor. Just one floor up and -”

She has turned away and is stalking, like an overweight, grumpy banshee, towards the lift.

Another customer catches my eye and smiles at her behaviour. I wander off to find five copies of Mark Haddon’s Spot of Bother.

Minutes later, she’s back. Her eyes are lit up with the joy of mean-minded victory.

“Excuse me? Excuse me?” Her voice is sweeter now, because she thinks she’s about to prove me wrong. I smile at her.

“It says on the store directory...’ – she takes a triumphant pause – ‘that Sport is on” – another pause, she’s beginning to look like a constipated turkey – “...this floor!”

This is because our head office asked us to change the location of several sections in store, but then failed to provide the budget for pay for new store directories that match the new layout. I don’t tell her this, because she’s being rude and I don’t want to indulge her. I nod instead.

“Ah, yes. Sport is on the second floor.”

“Ah – but...” I anticipate the trademark pause and fill it with a look of placid wisdom. Stalemate. Her eyes flicker with alarm. She refuses to complete the conversation. She leaves.

I wander downstairs with Spot of Bother. A polite evasion manoeuvre, just in case she is limbering up for round three.