Monday, May 15, 2006

A Few Facts

Fact: When Big Bookstore needed someone to fill gaps in the schedule, I was always available. I would estimate that I responded positively to 90% of the calls I received asking me to fill shifts on short notice. The only time I turned them down was when I absolutely had other commitments.

Fact: In eight and a half years of working at Big Bookstore I called out sick for four full shifts. Four. In eight and a half years. I've known booksellers who couldn't make that claim for one month, let alone eight years.

Fact: I never received less than the second highest possible rating on performance evaluations. I was told that the last performance evaluation I received was among the two highest in the entire store that year - for all employees, supervisory and otherwise.

Fact: I provided excellent customer service to Big Bookstore's customers. Our store's single largest customer, a man who spends about 5K per month in the store, has requested me by name for the last three years. Over that time, I've ordered over 1100 out-of-print books for him, and countless hundreds of in-print books. Virtually everything he has purchased for the last three years has been ordered by me, and his purchases account for a significant percentage of the store's annual corporate sales.

Fact: Last year, I won the monthly customer service award.

Fact: Last month I had the highest total percentage of membership sign-ups.

Fact: I can count on one hand the number of cashier errors I've made in the last year.

Fact: The last GM thought highly enough of me to beg me to become the Training Supervisor. I accepted even though it meant working two full-time jobs, because the store needed me. As we agreed beforehand, I stepped down after six months when the holiday period ended.

Fact: When Big Bookstore desperately needed Cafe staff last year, I volunteered to cross-train, then spent the next six weeks doing closing shifts in the Cafe six nights a week until the staff situation improved.

Tell me again why I'm a bad bookseller?

12 Comments:

Blogger (BB & B) said...

Fact: You're a bad bookseller because others are jealous of you and your accomplishments.

Idiots. They Don't even know what they're missing sometimes, do they?

ps.
i had a big fat white-trashy lookin guy yella t me today because i wouldn't take back a badly damaged book they he *claimed* his father bought from our store but had a heart attack (relavence?) though he had NO receipt. When i said i was sorry i couldn;t help him he said "No youre not!!" i told him to have a nice day.

Fact: i wanted to punch him in the face.

11:29 PM  
Blogger ereshkigal said...

Ah, yes. The "let me clean out my bookshelves so I can do some shopping" customer. Kudos on the restraint. It ain't easy.

11:41 PM  
Blogger Daisy said...

The fact that Ms. McSmartass could never be the bookseller that you are and can't seem to accept that fact acting like a spoiled rotten teenager is the problem here. She has a problem with the way you did things and instead of agreeing to disagree, went crying to management. Then she decided to attack you on your own blog. Don't worry about her. She will never measure up to be the bookseller you were.

6:16 AM  
Blogger Gary Walker said...

O tempora! O mores!

I was just informed of this development and I thought I'd pop back in after such a long absence to drop my $0.02.

Lisa, dear, we reap what we sow.

"Hi, I'm Lisa, and I have a license to be a bitch and nothing can ever touch me because I'm so competent I work in retail! Look at me blogging about the bookstore! Hey, look at me as I lampoon my wacky cow-workers! Observe as I come up with new and interesting ways to make myself feel like my situation isn't every bit as pathetic as theirs! Watch as I amplify all the available drama! I feel so...so...significant! I finally matter!"

Oops...no you don't! That turns out to have been an error. It appears that you're every bit as disposable as you've continually intimated your colleagues to be. What a surprising revelation! I'm sure it hurts--karma usually does.

Please spare us the tale of how you've been wronged. This isn't injustice. This is your pigeons coming home to roost. This is the crop of discontented sarcasm you planted. How can you find it unappetizing when it is harvested and served at your table? This is the bed you made. The least that you could do is to lie in it with something which approaches quiet dignity instead of flailing about grasping at any opportunity to justify yourself and escape taking responsibility for this situation.

9:17 AM  
Blogger ereshkigal said...

flamethrower! Welcome back!

You haven't been here since you posted that you wanted to slap one of the managers silly.

Imagine my surprise to get both an email and a comment on the blog from you in one day. Yeah. We all knew who "flamethrower" was back when you originally posted, or should I call you grrrl, or maybe just "Becky" will do?

Huge difference between you and me, babe. I worked hard for the money. I gave respect to the coworkers who also worked hard. You expected respect based on...nothing.

7:48 PM  
Blogger ereshkigal said...

FYI, next time you want to be sly and post a comment and you don't want to be identified? Don't do it from your husband's employer's servers.

DOH!

7:54 PM  
Blogger Gary Walker said...

Lisa, you remain almost bright. Becky sent you a sincerely sympathetic email. I thought what happened to you was simply typical. Then you insulted her for it. You're a real winner.

As for the basis of respect, if I find you lacking, there's reason. People deserve a certain modicum of respect simply by dint of their existence. You seem to feel that that modicum of respect consists of clubbing them like "baby seals."

You're a mediocre mind with mediocre talents who attempts to make up for her own perceived inadquacies by being a bitch to people. I almost didn't bother with this. After all, I rarely do and the truth is, you and most of the rest of the slugs at that store are beneath my notice. The only reason I've ever been inclined to give two shits about your existence is insofar as you had an impact on Becky's life which is, needless to say, now minimal. So do please fuck off into the wind, you bloated, unhappy, poxy, bovine, unlettered twat.

9:02 PM  
Blogger ereshkigal said...

Unlettered? Now that stung. Truly, I bleed, Becky.

I no more believe in your sympathy than I did in the crocodile tears you shed whenever customers demanded to see a manager about your condescendingly rude treatment of them. Remember that time you demanded that parents put shoes back on their baby? Ah, good times.

As for your protestations of not giving "two shits" I think your comments give the lie to that assertion. What has it been? A year and a half? And you're still bitter?

9:48 PM  
Blogger (BB & B) said...

***"Please spare us the tale of how you've been wronged"***

ok, one thing to say here. If you 'wanted to be spared' this information and didnt really want to hear about it, then WHY oh WHY did u bother to come to this site and READ IT in the 1st place, FlameThrower? obviously u were curious of whats been going on, and actually WANTED to find out what was up. If you REALLY and truly didnt "give 2 shits" about any of this, you wouldnt have come here in the 1st palce, AND you wouldnt keep coming back to check on the comments as well. Reep What We Sow you say? Please keep in mind while attempting to "flaunder" Eresh, we may be in NJ and you guys may be in VA, but we ALL got Eresh's back. so think about what u say, before you end up reeping whatever it is that YOU sow my friend.

2:16 PM  
Blogger Daisy said...

I am with Bookseller on this one. The Jersey girls will always have Ereshkigal's back.

5:04 PM  
Blogger ereshkigal said...

I love you and miss you too.

10:22 PM  
Blogger fieldhouse said...

i just found your blog.

you're my hero.

8D

6:31 PM  

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