I'm Not Dead Yet!
Sorry I haven't posted. I've been sick. Really sick. SARS. Avian flu. Hantavirus. Something along those lines. Anyhow. I'm back.
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Attention Big Bookstore customers. It's February 25th. The calendars are gone. Please do not express shock and dismay at this fact. You chose to live dangerously, deliberately waiting long after the New Year in order to get your calendar as cheaply as possible. You could have gotten one for four bucks at the beginning of February, but you thought if you just waited a little bit longer, they'd go down even further. And you were right! They went down to a buck apiece in mid-February. Still you did not buy. Perhaps you thought if you waited just a teeny bit more, we would pay you to take them? I don't know. In any case, you're too late.
If you've been living without one for this long, I think you can manage the rest of the year without.
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Hot new titles on the newstand: FaceFull, the first "world-wide paintball magazine," because domestic paintball is so, you know, unglamorous; and, New York Dog, a magazine which is, not surprisingly, for New Yorkers who own dogs. The cover features Nicole Richie and her hairy little beast, which leads me to wonder if the target demographic is rat-faced tramps with rat-like dogs, and whether this is really a winning business proposition.
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Customoron of the Week #1:
"I'm looking for a particular painting. How can I find it?"
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Customoron of the Week #2:
"I need books on raising alpacas and llamas. I can't believe you don't have anything like that in the store."
***************
Customoron of the Week #3:
C3: I'd like to return these books. I bought them with a gift card, but I don't have the receipt.
Bookseller: Fine. I can give you a store credit, sir.
C3: I don't want a store credit. I want them credited to my credit card.
Bookseller: I'm sorry, sir, I can't do that. Without a receipt I can only give you store credit.
C3: Well, I bought them with a $100 gift card that I purchased here with a credit card. I don't understand why you can't credit the books to my credit card.
Bookseller: I'm sorry. Without the receipt, I can't credit them back to your card, because I can't tell which credit card it is. Our agreement with the credit card companies prohibits us from crediting merchandise back to a card without a receipt.
C3: I don't want that. I want them credited to my card.
Bookseller: Let me get the manager, perhaps he can explain better.
[Extended discussion between Customoron 3, Bookseller, and Calendar Boy in which all parties reiterate points already made. Calendar Boy holds his ground. Thank you, Calendar Boy!]
C3: Alright. Fine. I AM NOT HAPPY. I AM NOT HAPPY. You've got $100 of my money, and all I've got to show for it are these books.
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Attention, Big Bookstore Management: I will no longer alphabetize the Corner of Doom, aka, Art, Design, Crafts, Architecture, Photography, Antiques and Construction. After redoing the section in November, I swore a solemn vow that it would be the last time. Then in January, after putting the CoD back into excruciatingly correct order, I swore a blood oath with the most dire consequences for violation, that I would no longer perform this task. BUT THIS TIME I'M SERIOUS.
(By the way, did you know that Mongolia is in Africa? Apparently the person who currently shelves the Corner of Doom, as well as Travel, believes this is so. Yup. That's where I found the new guidebooks on Mongolia that arrived last week - right there between Malawi and Morocco. Something to think about. I'm sorry...Am I being mean again?)
*****************
Attention Big Bookstore customers. It's February 25th. The calendars are gone. Please do not express shock and dismay at this fact. You chose to live dangerously, deliberately waiting long after the New Year in order to get your calendar as cheaply as possible. You could have gotten one for four bucks at the beginning of February, but you thought if you just waited a little bit longer, they'd go down even further. And you were right! They went down to a buck apiece in mid-February. Still you did not buy. Perhaps you thought if you waited just a teeny bit more, we would pay you to take them? I don't know. In any case, you're too late.
If you've been living without one for this long, I think you can manage the rest of the year without.
****************
Hot new titles on the newstand: FaceFull, the first "world-wide paintball magazine," because domestic paintball is so, you know, unglamorous; and, New York Dog, a magazine which is, not surprisingly, for New Yorkers who own dogs. The cover features Nicole Richie and her hairy little beast, which leads me to wonder if the target demographic is rat-faced tramps with rat-like dogs, and whether this is really a winning business proposition.
****************
Customoron of the Week #1:
"I'm looking for a particular painting. How can I find it?"
****************
Customoron of the Week #2:
"I need books on raising alpacas and llamas. I can't believe you don't have anything like that in the store."
***************
Customoron of the Week #3:
C3: I'd like to return these books. I bought them with a gift card, but I don't have the receipt.
Bookseller: Fine. I can give you a store credit, sir.
C3: I don't want a store credit. I want them credited to my credit card.
Bookseller: I'm sorry, sir, I can't do that. Without a receipt I can only give you store credit.
C3: Well, I bought them with a $100 gift card that I purchased here with a credit card. I don't understand why you can't credit the books to my credit card.
Bookseller: I'm sorry. Without the receipt, I can't credit them back to your card, because I can't tell which credit card it is. Our agreement with the credit card companies prohibits us from crediting merchandise back to a card without a receipt.
C3: I don't want that. I want them credited to my card.
Bookseller: Let me get the manager, perhaps he can explain better.
[Extended discussion between Customoron 3, Bookseller, and Calendar Boy in which all parties reiterate points already made. Calendar Boy holds his ground. Thank you, Calendar Boy!]
C3: Alright. Fine. I AM NOT HAPPY. I AM NOT HAPPY. You've got $100 of my money, and all I've got to show for it are these books.
******************
Attention, Big Bookstore Management: I will no longer alphabetize the Corner of Doom, aka, Art, Design, Crafts, Architecture, Photography, Antiques and Construction. After redoing the section in November, I swore a solemn vow that it would be the last time. Then in January, after putting the CoD back into excruciatingly correct order, I swore a blood oath with the most dire consequences for violation, that I would no longer perform this task. BUT THIS TIME I'M SERIOUS.
(By the way, did you know that Mongolia is in Africa? Apparently the person who currently shelves the Corner of Doom, as well as Travel, believes this is so. Yup. That's where I found the new guidebooks on Mongolia that arrived last week - right there between Malawi and Morocco. Something to think about. I'm sorry...Am I being mean again?)
posted by ereshkigal at 1:30 AM
6 Comments:
I am so happy to see you are back. Sorry to hear you were sick. Hope you are feeling much better. We get the same calendar questions. I send them to the mall where there is an actual calendar store where I am sure they will be paying full price. But thats what you get when you piss around waiting to see if you can get a "deal". You snooze, You lose!
Welcome Back, we have all missed you so, disgruntled, you are our mentor and we need your stories to fill the the escapism in our lives.
We in London still have people coming in and asking for diaries.
WTF?
YAY! Im so glad to see you are back! We were all getting pretty worried that our DB Mentor was MIA!
So again, Welcome Back from all of us!
About the *calandars, i actually had 2 customers today (feb 26th) asking for calandars, and when i told them were dont have anymore, and that we only carry them in may/june and nov/dec they were like "what? thats crazy! what blasphamy!" ces't la vie! Losers.
Wow you really do work in a big book store. I don't believe we stock travel guides to Mongolia or Malawi. Morocco maybe.
Do you ever feel like elves or poltergeists or worse yet your own enemies are coming in at night and rearranging things in exactly reverse alphabetical order? Or do the customers really pull four James Michener titles off the shelf and then replace them: Texas, Hawaii, Carribean, Alaska?
You are my people.
Sadly, grrl8trax, the poltergeist in this particular case actually works for Big Bookstore.
Hey, sometimes I feel Big Bookstore (or at least my branch of Big Bookstore) hire people to come in and mess things up for us to fix because I swear I put the same dang things away all the time!!! And the Art wall...UGH!!! It is ALWAYS a mess. Even after people put a lot of work into straightening and alphabetising, the next day it is a wreck. WTF!!!
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