Drones R Us

Over on Metafilter, retail employees are told to: "Shut up, sit down, and put on a happy face you fuckers."

Things Change

A little more than a year ago, I wrote about My Big Fat Bookselling Family (MBFBF). And while we are a family at Big Bookstore, our family membership is fluid. People come. People go. Lately, it seems like it's mostly go and not a lot of, er, come.

Since last year at this time, there has been so much change. Closeted Straight Man, who had been the General Manager of the store since its opening, decided to move to Florida with his partner (who managed one of our sister stores). The Queen of the Flying Monkeys, his Assistant Manager, followed Closeted Straight Man to Florida a few months later. (Our Fabulousness Factor has plummeted as a result of these departures, and more gay men need to be recruited for Big Bookstore stat.)

Three of the charter members of The Mean Girls have gone. Mimi decided to give China another whirl, and she is living the ex-pat life in Beijing. Chick Magnet is doing environmental cleanup work for Katrina in New Orleans. Cake Girl, our Events Slave, finally threw in the towel, got an Office Space type job, and is hanging with the norms now.

In MBFBF, the music guys are like the grown kids who refuse to leave home and continue to live in the basement, smoking dope, playing their music too loudly, and generally making their parents despair. But even music mainstays like Billygoat and Kermit have decided to move on.

Not everyone has gone completely. Dark Goddess finally caved in to the lure of a living wage and got a job with a consulting firm, but she still works on Saturdays. I hooked Calendar Boy up with a sweet job working for a friend of mine in IT, but he still comes in on Sundays.

All this change has been more than a little sad, and maybe that's why I haven't really been motivated to blog lately. But for all of the departures, there are many good friends who remain: the Wife-in-Law and her husband, the Medieval One. The Holler, Foam Party and Gun Nut. The Bathroom Fairy and the Queen of the Cashiers. The aforementioned Dark Goddess and Calendar Boy. And there are new people, some of whom, I hope, will stay long enough to become part of My Big Fat Bookselling Family.