Notes from a Bookseller

Reasonable expectations a customer might have for an employee at a chain bookstore:

1) The employee will know the big authors, and their recent titles.

2) The employee will be courteous, and offer to help you find a book.

3) Even if you can't remember the author's name or the title, the employee will do what they can to help you.

Unreasonable expectations a customer might have about an employee at a chain bookstore:

1) That, despite the fact that you're too addled to write down the title of a book you read/hear about or saw on TV, you expect us to be able to find the exact title you're looking for, quickly.

2) That the predominantly student-age staff spend their spare time reading the Saturday Globe and listening to CBC.

3) That when we say a book you swear you saw at another bookstore exists, and we can't find any evidence of anything remotely like it, we admit our obvious error.

I had a women get angry with me today because I hadn't read the book review section of the Globe today. When I say "angry", I mean she was scolding me, saying "I can't believe they'd let you work here if you don't read the newspaper!"

Now, I've worked at this store for a few months, and for this company for several years now. And until today, I'd never used an audible obscenity on the sales floor.

Oh, and as a bookseller, I think this is pure gold. If you haven't heard of "A Million Little Pieces", all I can say is that when Oprah had Frey on her show, I spend the next three days telling people we were sold out. To find out that it's a giant hoax makes me feel all warm and tingly inside.