Bookstorror: Retail Hell (in print)

It is understandably ironic that the day after I post a heartfelt "thank you" message to my coworkers that I receive word that my position with the company will be terminated as of 2013. The Angry Video Game Nerd makes my skin crawl with his tasteless pandering to the South Park demographic, but honestly the only thing that comes to my mind right now is the phrase "what a shitload of fuck."

A shitload of fuck, indeed.

So, that's that. I put in my hours and then some, covered shifts for anyone who needed a day off, and attempted to demonstrate worth to the company and it all ends with "we need to make cutbacks, Scrabble, you're no longer a part of the company. Thanks for whatever flerp derple blah blah blah frazzle snazzle synergy diversification."

Well, fine. If that's how it's going to be handled then that's that. I'll just go buy my shit from Half Price Books from now on, like I did before I was hired. I'll get over the guilt of selling people worthless e-readers by feeling more sorry for myself than I do for them.

I'm going to finish writing all of my customer stories and put them into the Tumblr auto-queue and I guess that will be the end of this blog. I don't really have any followers, probably because I don't advertise this place much, but if you've taken even a tiny liking to this place then I apologize for letting you down.

As for what will happen to me post-job-I-lost-that-I-wrote-about-here, I really don't know. I was facing eviction from my apartment before I was hired, and I've been teetering on bankruptcy since I started working there. Now that I am no longer employed I really don't know where I'm going; Social Security told me to get lost (despite overwhelming documentation supporting my conditions and history) and HHSC revoked my food stamps. Thanks, America.

It has been nice knowing you, Tumblr-people. Thanks for being so kind and listening to me.

Today's update isn't something cynical and rude. I would simply like to take the time to say that I hope you, the reader, had an enjoyable holiday with your friends and families. If you're one of the lucky few who have good, level-headed, and loving families that all get along then good on you. For the rest of us, those with dysfunctional families or things that cannot yet be water under the bridge... look at it this way, at least you won't have to see them for another 364 days.

Merry Christmas, and here's to 2013.

~~~~~

While I'm here I would just like to give my thanks to my friends and coworkers at the bookstore. Yeah, I know it's not exactly countercultural of me to stop for a moment and say "I love all of these people working for this retail chain" but the way I see it many of them are stuck in the same cycle of bullshit and despair as I am; none of us really want to spend our entire lives here. Some of us have, though, which is kind of sad. Regardless, here's my excessive diatribe about the people whom I like to consider an extended family.

A and R, thank you for being quite possibly the first actual friends I made when I moved and settled in at the bookstore. Playing games with you after hours is something I look forward too weekly. I'm sorry that I cannot make it to all of the game nights; I hope neither of you think it's because I have something better to do... I don't.

Both M's, thank you for hiring me when no one else would. I realize having to make certain accommodations can be tiresome and a real pain in the ass, but thank you for putting up with mine. Thank you for actually being "equal opportunity".

S, I think you're pretty damned cool. It's really fun talking about sci-fi stuff with you over lunch and then being cynical about the holidays and idiot customers. You're old enough to be my grandmother but you're still one of the most fun people I've ever met. Actually, I wish you were my grandmother; it would give me one person in my family I could really relate to.

J and C, thanks for helping me out with all of the irate customers who come in with broken e-readers and expect me to kiss their shoes or whatever. It's good to know that someone has my back, and also because it's fun to put asshole customers where they belong.

K, you are truly one of the most caring individuals I've worked with in a professional environment. Thank you for being so understanding of my setbacks and conditions and working to put me into places where I can avoid troublesome situations and experiences.

M, I really enjoy your smile. Your smile reminds me of my friend's and when I see you smile, I think of him. He passed in 2011. It is nice to see parts of him in other people. You are unknowingly helping me cope and get over my lingering attachment issues. Thank you.

V, thanks for covering my shifts and hours when I ran into problems with my other duties and work. That was really awesome of you. I offered to cover for you when your mother got sick. I haven't spoken to you since then, yet, but I hope she is doing better.

F, you make me laugh when I order coffee and you mix a mean... whatever the hell that special concoction of yours is. (It's good!) I only wish you swung my way because you are so totally my type. I seriously think I'm in love with you. We should make out in the receiving room sometime, heh heh.

J, thank you for all of the encouragement and kind words when I was nervous about having to travel and confront things from my past. I know you probably broke about 48 employee rules helping me in my confidence pertaining to my sexual identity, but it has helped -- thanks for being so open-minded.

K, I've never seen you upset at anything at all, ever. You're like compulsively happy, and it's contagious. Thanks for always chatting with me when we cross paths even though we're on opposite sides of the building. I'll eventually get the awkward "you too" thing under control.

There's more of you at the store, I know, but this can go on a while. You're all special people to me, and I'm grateful for having you in my life even if we all really only see each other at a chain store.

I wasn't present for this story, but holy hell... I kind of wish I was. I don't post secondhand stories very often (this being my first) because they're kind of cheap in a "game of telephone" kind of way; I don't know what is and isn't exaggerated, for example. The story I was related today was so simplistic, though, that I can't really see it as being made up. It's too perfect and concise.

~~~~~

This customer purchased an e-reader from us and brought it back the next day. This is acceptable, and we've seen it before; we offer a glorified trial run "program" that eagle-eyed customers will notice is just the standard "keep your receipt and you can bring anything back in 14 days" nonsense. Apparently pitching this as a "TEST DRIVE IT FOR 2 WEEKS" clause boosts sales probably because people are stupid by nature. This particular story wouldn't be notable had it not been for the reason the device was returned: "it doesn't give me notifications".

Clarification requested.

"It doesn't give me notifications on Facebook when someone likes or comments on my posts. I want to return this device, which does a ton of other more useful shit, solely because I'm a goddamned moron whose hobbies include catching thrown bricks using only my teeth."

I guessed at the second half. So shoot me.

The first part, though? 100% true. Yes, the device was returned SOLELY because the Facebook app did not support that little fucking box that shows up on your screen when someone gives your inspirational cat picture a thumbs up. That was the reason. Not "I am not satisfied with the battery life" or "the touch detection when reading is too spotty"; the device was returned for a one-off missing feature on a fucking third party app.

I can't even fathom the level of stupid that this person simply understands as their everyday life. I wish for one day I could see the world through the eyes of someone who is this deficient and clueless not just about technology but surely the entire world. I just can't process the lack of logic that goes into returning a device that doesn't "work" with Facebook when it isn't fucking designed to be used with Facebook. This is a person who purchased a device intended for reading books and instead used it to mindlessly stare at FUCKING FACEBOOK.

I just... I don't even know. I just don't. 

When I first started working at the store and was completing my training I remember overhearing a return transaction taking place at the e-reader kiosk. An older man was dissatisfied with his device and wanted a refund because, and I quote, "I just can't wrap my head around it. I can't figure out how to use it."

It's a fucking touchscreen.

I'm so sorry that the e-reader isn't steam powered and doesn't take a binary punch card to operate, however these things are designed and marketed toward older customers with convenience and ease of use being the sole design factor.

There is no keyboard. There are absolutely no peripherals or tools that you would have to use to navigate the device other than literally looking at what you want and touching it with your goddamned finger.

And this guy couldn't figure it out.

I just wonder either how stupid or technophobic you would have to be to take one look at a touchscreen, press on it angrily a few times, and then give up on it. We've trained gorillas to associate pictured buttons with treats and actions and this guy can't even do that. He can't even look at a buttonized cover of a book and make the mental association of "I want this" with touching it. It's just lost on him. Poof.

Physical books have a certain charm to them. I get that. I prefer real books to downloadable trash any day of the week, but the fact of the matter is the technology isn't hard to learn. It simply isn't. Finding yourself unable to operate something as simple as this is the equivalent of undoing thousands of years of progressive psychological evolution. Language and usage of complex tools is what set us apart from apes yet something tells me this guy would be right at home throwing feces at his companions and banging on his chest.

One of the things that irks me the most about where I work are the people. If there were no customers I'd be happy. I'd be content to sit in a giant building full of books and absolutely nothing else whatsoever. Unfortunately things don't work like that; sometimes you get a random person who comes into the fray and expects something.

Yes, I sell books. Usually, however, I work at our store's kiosk for the e-readers we offer. It's like a little "store within a store" kind of thing; the nook has its own floor pattern, its own unique walls, and it even has a giant sign visible from all angles with the brand name of our product on it in giant light-up letters. Not only this, when you step into the mini-store you're surrounded on all sides by at least twenty display models of our products. Twenty floor models, heavy brand iconography, four floor shelves of carrying cases, and four giant light-up posters prominently featuring the device. Throughout all of this you will see exactly zero books.

This is why it pisses me off when some knuckle-dragger will come into where I work and bother me to help them find a book. Can I do this from my terminal? Absolutely. However, it's the principle of the matter that gets on my nerves. Can't you see you are CLEARLY not in the right place to be treating the staff like librarians?

Apparently the kiosk was once the location of the customer service desk, so I can understand some confusion from customers who weren't privy to the change. That was over a year ago, though. I realize it's a miracle that most of the people who stumble into the store can even read in the first place, but there's no excuse for making the same mistake for a fucking year. Not when the new location of the customer service desk is literally visible from the front door. Not only this, there is a huge sign, bigger than the sign from my kiosk, hanging directly above the desk that says -- surprise, surprise -- "CUSTOMER SERVICE".

It's like you have to be fucking blind to miss the sign. I mean, we sell books in large print, but not Braille.

I've tried it. I've tried walking into the store when I am clocking in and seeing if I can get inside without giving the customer info desk even a passing glance. It isn't possible. You have to actively try to not look at the desk; it is impossible to miss. That's the sign of a well-designed store. It's the people that are stupid, not the designers.

What upsets me is that I am not allowed to point customers elsewhere unless the e-reader store is excessively busy, otherwise these idiots will stand around with glazed-over eyes just thinking this is the place to ask for the location of books, completely helpless to oh I don't know learning how to fucking browse a bookstore. Whenever they ask me for a bestseller, which is 90% of the time, I know they aren't even trying. They're not even using the rumored 10% of their brains; they are in the negative percentages.

I shouldn't be allowed to cater to their needs and let them consistently use the kiosk as a makeshift information desk, not when there is still a dedicated desk in the store staffed by up to three people specifically there to help. One thing I've learned throughout my life is that most people are quite literally sheep. They're cattle. They will not question anything and unless you specifically train them NOT to keep returning to the wrong place to get information they will continue to do so not unlike a dog that hasn't been paper trained and continues to piss on the carpet. The next time you're at a theme park go to a rollercoaster line, open all of the high capacity line gates, and then see how many people complacently walk through the entire maze of empty line without even realizing they can open gates or duck under chains. 

You'll be so amazed you'll vomit.

One of the defects features of our line of e-readers is the ability for content to be shared automatically across all devices registered to the same online store account. You can have two devices under one account, purchase something on one, and it will show up on both at the same time. Not hard to figure out.

This guy brings in his three kids, the oldest being 7 or 8 and the other two far younger, and says he's having problems with the devices. Things like freezing and general slowness; e.g. things he should have been (and probably was) warned about when he decided to buy the lowest-end model we sell and use it with all of the brand new apps and software available. Gotta save those dollars since we all know children are rampant poverty vortexes.

He also complained about the fact that when one kid would buy Angry Birds (it's always fucking ANGRY BIRDS these days, god damn it) none of the other kids would receive it. He solved this by purchasing the games two more times. Notice I said "games". He had done this for EVERYTHING that was "shared" across the accounts. Rather than stop at the first sign of trouble he wasted about $200 purchasing duplicates of everything ranging from games to books and just assumed that's how it worked. Just be grateful this guy isn't in charge of some federal department of spending or we'd all be fucked (and we'd have three separate economies).

We couldn't find a practical solution to his devices' problems (they were that trashed) so we offered to perform a memory wipe that would reset the devices. He could then reconnect the accounts and get his digital goods back.

"Do you have the usernames and passwords to these devices?" We asked.

"Yes."

Commence memory wipe.

Once the purging was over the devices all prompted us for their corresponding account information. It was at this time we discovered the customer didn't actually know any of the passwords to them. Or the usernames.

He calls his oldest son over whom apparently was the one who initially set up all the devices (because I guess coming up with and keeping track of a fucking password is just too hard for Dad to figure out). The kid gave his dad the best deer-in-headlights look I've ever seen, said "I don't remember them", and went back to picking his nose and playing with the demo models or whatever it was he had been doing. Seamlessly.

We eventually dug his customer information out of our system and called technical support to have all of the passwords reset. We then went ahead and merged all three accounts into one so that in the future when Smart Dad decides to buy the 47th installment to the Angry Birds line of shovelware he doesn't have to stupidly buy it two more times. He had the audacity to ask us if we'd credit his account for all of the duplicates he had purchased over the past few months.

Sorry, "being a moron" isn't part of the e-reader's warranty.

Maybe you've heard the phrase "bookoo bucks" be thrown around by someone who more than likely isn't too endowed in the department of fiscal education. "Bookoo" anything is a term for an indeterminate amount, however I'm pleased to say that I've discovered exactly how much "bookoo" quantifies. It's eight dollars.

I learned this from an older woman who came to the register with a shopping basket full of the gaudiest knick-knacks we sell in the store along with a reusable shopping bag made of recycled plastic. Essentially she looked like the kind of woman who would buy the overpriced sets of fancy beads from a craft store and attempt to make her own jewelry out of it; you know the kind I'm talking about. She dressed like she has money like her husband has money and smelled like SkyMall perfume.

Her total came out to be around $120 for what amounted to pretty much zero books and a dozen tacky this-n-thats. She had a membership with the store, of course, and insisted that we had given her eight dollars in credit to her account.

This is the part where the transaction went from tolerable to abysmal.

We don't put "credit" on someone's account for whatever reason. Returns, defective goods, coupons, etc. No. Any "credit" we give a customer is issued on a gift card; our system literally does not have the capability to store negative numbers as credit on an account. We aren't Blockbuster, you don't need a membership to buy from us. I knew something was up and since we had recently received correspondence from corporate about gift card fraud I decided to page the store manager to help sort this out.

The customer continued on her tirade of having $8 of credit on her account which we should have honored and taken her word for it because she spent -- and I quote -- "bookoo bucks here" and gives us tons of business. Bitch, please. It's Christmas. If you're not going to spend $400 on shit you don't need for people who probably hate you then guess what? The 10 people in line behind you probably will. Bookoo bucks my ass.

She didn't even have a receipt from the alleged "bookoo" transaction, either. You know what else is funny? Said transaction wasn't even in our register logs since just for the heck of it we brought up her purchase history via her membership card. Maybe she gave bookoo cash to another store across town and thinks all of us are psychically tuned into her needs and her needs only. I don't really have the capacity for such nonsense, though, so to me the whole ordeal was funny.

What amused me the most was the amount of money she claimed to have been owed. Eight dollars. For someone who allegedly comes into a store and frequently drops several hundred dollars on purchases why the hell would they be so uptight over eight measly dollars?

"It's the principle of the matter", she claimed. "Because you have an obligation to your customers to take care of them and provide them with service."

Wrong. We have an obligation to provide service to customers who have their act together and don't come into our store acting suspicious and just so happen to have lost the receipt from the magic transaction we supposedly owe them money for. Here's a tip: If a store owes you money, keep track of the paperwork if it's THAT significant to you. If you lose the "proof" and we can't bring it up in our system then guess what happens? The House wins.

I hate kids. A lot. Mostly I just hate unsupervised, untrained, and ill-mannered kids, but still nonetheless I'm quite happy I myself am incapable of having kids and will never have to put up with such heathens in my life. That plus all the money I'll save by not having them makes me feel better. Sort of.

However despite my predisposition to children we see a lot of them at the e-reader kiosk I manage. The number one thing that pisses me off are parents who think that a bookstore with electronic devices is a free babysitting service. If you're reading this and you're the type of "parent" who treats department stores as childcare facilities because you want time alone and regret having kids then fuck you and fuck everything you stand for. I get paid to do a job, and making sure your crotchspawn isn't drooling on the demo devices isn't it.

The e-readers we have on display are not toys for your brainless kids to fuck with. You do realize someone has to routinely clean (both physically and electronically) these things, right? That when your kids yank on the security devices and set them off I'm the one that has to deactivate the beepers and rewind the security cords they jacked with, right? That when they sit there and download every single goddamned Angry Birds trial I'm the one that has to wipe the internal memory so the device is presentable to the next customer who actually wants to see how they work, right?

I'd be more than happy to tell you how an e-reader can be both a fun and educational device for your first grader. Just ask me. Letting him run wild around my kiosk while you go shopping for Elf on the Shelf and the latest shitty Janet Evanovich novel isn't acceptable.

~~~~~

And for the love of god if your kid has a fucked up voice get that poor soul some speech therapy. When she says she wants to play "angry BORDS" if the next thing out of your mouth isn't "Biiiirds, honey, remember what the vocal coach taught you?" you're unfit to raise a kid. Speech impediments don't just vanish into thin air; that kid is going to have a ton of confidence issues when she grows up and it'll be your fault.

Today's post isn't really about anyone in particular, but rather a specific group of customers noted for two main things: age and how little time they apparently have for such trivial matters such as common courtesy and common fucking sense. Retention of plastic cards is also an issue here, now that I think about it.

You see, we have this loyalty/membership program at the store where signing up gets you discounts on almost everything we sell. The "almost" in "almost everything" happens to be anything in the store that doesn't actually cost a lot of money. No, I take that back. Certain collectible items, figurines, and models of popular characters (e.g. "plastic crap") are still eligible. If you know how to game the system you can wring some decent savings out of stuff if you were going to buy it eventually anyway.

When you join we give you this little credit card-ish thing. If you have more brain cells than you do eyes, you'll know this as a "membership card". You generally kind of need this thing as proof that you are, in fact, a member. Surprising. I know, right? We're reaching Richard Fucking Dawkins levels of intellectual thought here at Bookstorror.

Most people lose this goddamned thing immediately. It's like it's not even worth giving to them in the first place because it just goes straight into the cardboard box of old copies of Readers' Digest or something. If you decide not to keep your card we can always look up profiles by telephone number, and this is where the insanity begins.

When someone hands me their purchases I take them in both hands while asking if they have a membership with us. If I don't ask then I apparently get fired or something like that. Usually these retirees have memberships because when you're old as hell and tired of your spouse there's apparently nothing else in the world worth doing other than reading lots and lots of books. Without fail these people will, before I have a free hand and sometimes even before I finish the question, rattle off something that sounds like someone who can't remamber what Pi is try to name Pi to more than three digits.

Thanks, asshole. Can you repeat it now that I have a free hand?

Old people don't have much time left, I get it. They aren't exactly absolved of all blame, however. In many instances these people have had upwards of 30 fucking years to read these books. Another five minutes won't kill them.

Or maybe it actually will. I really don't know or care.

Where I work we sell these things called "e-readers" where you can download books (at barely any savings than just buying the damned thing in print) and read them on the go. Allegedly you can also purchase movies digitally for more than it costs to buy a DVD. I'm serious. We sell a number of these things. This blog's theme is designed to look like a specific type of e-reader, one that I sold today, even... and then had to return before the receipt even printed.

This woman and her kid came into the kiosk inquiring about our e-readers. She stated, quite explicitly, that she only wanted one "for reading". She understood that we sell other types that can surf the web, play games, and watch movies, but she claimed "I have an iPad for that".

Fine.

I showed her all of the features of our basic e-reader designed solely for an optimized reading experience. She seemed pleased. She even went and picked out TWO cases for the device -- to use at the same time -- because she was convinced she would drop it and break it. Hilariously, she would rather spend upwards of $40 on multiple cases for the damned thing than $25 for a two year idiot-proof replacement plan, but I digress.

We played 20 Questions for almost 40 minutes about the differences between the black and white e-reader and the ones that had Internet access and other features. Ultimately, she bought the standard B&W one. She paid with a handful of gift cards and was convinced that we were in the wrong when one of them was denied for having a balance of $0.00. She insisted she had a "strict personal policy" of discarding blank cards. Right. Our fault. New rule: Any time someone hands you more than two gift cards in one transaction trouble is guaranteed.

The remainder she would have had to pay? Four dollars and change.

She paid with a $5 and before her receipt had even finished printing she said she had changed her mind and wanted to buy one of the color devices instead.

Motherfucker.

See, returns aren't really that hard to do. Normally you just scan the receipt, which we thankfully had, and then call a manager to come enter their verification code. With these things it's just a little different. Different in that there's more to it than "oh I'm a fickle Neanderthal and changed my mind even though I debated this purchase with the employee for almost an hour".

This post is beginning to draw out longer than I had intended, but to wrap up the story my lunch break came around and because I wasn't yet in a transaction I pawned her off onto my coworker (because I'm evil like that) and let it be his issue. Don't worry, I've caught his back in the past; he owed me one and I cashed that coupon in.

According to him, she was just as indecisive about her new device as she was with the old one. Why she bought what amounted to a mini-iPad when she already owned one I have no idea. The jury is still out on how many cases she bought for it. My guess is eight.

~~~~~

Also, I mentioned her kid at the beginning of this post. Believe it or not he was pretty quiet. I almost felt like maybe he wasn't really there and my mind was trying to insert a well-behaved child into the store for once.

A customer came in today asking for "books with pretty pictures in them, for my house". Pretty pictures. I found her sorting through all of our calendars when she asked me this, pointing to the thumbnails on the back and trying to open them to see the full sized prints.

I asked what, specifically, she wanted. Interior design? No. Just pretty things. Mentally I rolled my eyes and took her to the interior design section. She was quick to point out a book with first lady Michelle Obama on the cover (holding a basket of vegetables) and expressed extreme disdain for it because "she can eat well and we cannot". I feigned a laugh and nodded even though fresh vegetables aren't exactly expensive commodities.

She pointed only to the books facing outward rather than look for any of them by spine. Something about covers and judging books came to mind. I handed her a book on gardening and on vegetable growing (one that did not have any Obamas on them) and she then dropped a bombshell on me saying she was going to CUT THE BOOKS APART and make a collage out of them.

You can do whatever the fuck you want with the stuff you buy, but the books she'd be slicing up for her ridiculous collage would have been of use to someone else. Go to a used bookstore if you want to do that; this is a big city, we have those. I instead told her we have magazines on gardening and home design and showed her those, where she seemed content to browse. I left.

She continuously came and found me throughout the store, despite the fact that we have a dedicated customer information desk, only to ask me questions about returns and more books. In broken English.

~~~~~

After she left I spoke with a coworker and apparently the customer inquired about opening a magazine that had shrinkwrap on it. We of course told her "no" and that if she did so she would have to buy it. Apparently this pissed her off and she became irate, calling my coworker "new" because she apparently comes in "all the time and never sees her here". Uh huh. I've worked here a while and have seen this crackpot exactly zero times before. I'd remember someone as mentally blank as this piece of work.

Also, she refused to show her ID when she handed the cashier an unsigned credit card. Guess her dreams of taking an X-ACTO blade to $80 worth of interior design books will never be realized.