You will notice a few posts ago that I am trying to get rid of some of my old books, so I posted a few on www.bookmooch.com. Everybody I talked to loves this site, the main idea is you post books you want to get rid of and put up a wish list of books you want to get. This is in theory a great idea, and I understand why people like it. But I am picky (and weird) and certain things about books bother me. I like the way a new book smells, I never get books from a library because they smell funny. I also take very good care of my books even when I am reading them and it bothers me to see books with a broken spine or terribly bent pages.
I have received two books so far from Bookmooch
1) Notes from a Small Island
2) Club Dumas
Both of these books were in awful condition and Notes from a Small Island not only looked like it went through a garbage disposal but it also smelled like it has spent a week in a dumpster. I am not exaggerating here, I won't even put this book back on Bookmooch because I don't want to send it back out and have people think that I may have done this to the book.
My other problem with this site is they are a bit snotty. when I first joined I didn't get the email, the site said not to email them because it was not there fault that it was the fault of the email provider I was using. OK, well it didn't go into the SPAM folder and I never got it so I joined under a different name and got the email, I got it amazingly fast but it wasn't the site because they said so! Ah yes, and my favorite thing from Bookmooch occurred the other day, when I accidentally clicked on the wrong button because the page was slow to load I got this message after I corrected my mistake:
Please do not add books you do not intend to give away
When you added your book a minute ago, an email was sent to the people who have this book on their wish list, and they will now be frustrated that the book is not actually available.
Only add books into BookMooch you really intend to give away.
Well I know that's why I took the book off, can't you be nice about the message you send, now that I don't like the site I think I am just going to add and remove books to piss them off. OK, I won't but I am done with Bookmooch, I know I am weird but that's the way I am.
oh yeah, does anybody want a really smelly copy of Notes from a Small Island!
Please Don't Get Naked In My Bookstore
I admit it, a flaw with my current store is that we have no fitting room. Yes, this is very annoying and I understand that you want to be able to try on some clothing you may be purchasing. Therefore, I understand if you want to take off a shirt and try on a sweatshirt over an undershirt. Please feel free to do this in the back of the store where the mirror is. This is fine and I really don't mind.
Recently however, I have seen multiple guys trying on shirts and then taking them off and walking around shirtless in my store. People, haven't we ever heard of no shirt, no shoes, no service. It is not appropriate to be walking around my store with your shirt off. Now, today a young foreign gentleman crossed the line...
I came out of the back stockroom and ran face to chest into a man wearing just his underwear, I am not even joking. He was taking off a pair of shorts that he had tried on and he must have also tried on a shirt. After I regained my composure I kindly asked him to please put his clothing on as this was a public environment and his behavior was not appropriate. He redressed and I apologized for not having a fitting room and told him that he could buy these and try them on at home and return them if they did not fit. I think I was still in shock from this for a good hour after he left.
The moral of this story is... PLEASE DON'T GET NAKED IN MY BOOKSTORE, OR ANY OTHER PUBLIC PLACE!
Recently however, I have seen multiple guys trying on shirts and then taking them off and walking around shirtless in my store. People, haven't we ever heard of no shirt, no shoes, no service. It is not appropriate to be walking around my store with your shirt off. Now, today a young foreign gentleman crossed the line...
I came out of the back stockroom and ran face to chest into a man wearing just his underwear, I am not even joking. He was taking off a pair of shorts that he had tried on and he must have also tried on a shirt. After I regained my composure I kindly asked him to please put his clothing on as this was a public environment and his behavior was not appropriate. He redressed and I apologized for not having a fitting room and told him that he could buy these and try them on at home and return them if they did not fit. I think I was still in shock from this for a good hour after he left.
The moral of this story is... PLEASE DON'T GET NAKED IN MY BOOKSTORE, OR ANY OTHER PUBLIC PLACE!
3 Hours and Still Nothing
I had to work today, I was nice to one of my managers who didn't look at the schedule and on Thursday realized that he was working Saturday when he was supposed to do a charity walk. Because of graduation and prep etc today was day 16. My patience was running low, especially since two of my managers are on vacation next week and I have to do cash and sales and run the GM department. Needless to say if a customer was anything but perfect today they would probably rub me the wrong way.
I was doing quite well for a majority of the day and then at 4:00 I got paged up to the customer service desk, E was helping a customer with a ring and apparently this had been going on for a half hour and showed no sign of being finished. Class rings run upwards of $700.00 and there are a few different things you can get, so I understand it being a long transaction. But at 4:30 this transaction was becoming a bit excessive, and at 4:40 they "left" without buying a ring.
Around 5:00 I finally break away from the register and go down to the lower level and run into the ring people that I thought had left. They are talking to one of my sales associates about graduation regalia, this is also a big purchase so they once again had a lot of questions. My sales associate who is helping them breaks away for a moment and comes up to me in the back room and says that she is going to kill these people because they have been asking her every question imaginable for close to a half hour. I told her that she has at least 40 more minutes to look forward to if the ring was any sign.
Yes, it was about 5:30 when they decided to not buy regalia at this time but took some information and moved on to the diploma frames. At this point I am getting frustrated because if they took an hour on each of the previous non-purchases then this non-purchase could put us well over closing time and on day 16 I was not going to let it happen. We made a 15 minute announcement and a 10 minute announcement and walked the floor and reminded people we were closing in 5 minutes and then made a closing announcement!
At 6:05 the store was clear... except for my FAVORITE CUSTOMER! I went downstairs to help the associate and try to speed them along. They are asking about the exact procedures for framing the diploma and i walk them through it as quickly as possible. Then they can't decide which frame, M is trying to help them and move them along and I need to run upstairs and help them close out the registers so they can get home. It is now 6:22 and I see the customer coming up the aisle and moving toward the door, but then he stops and looks at a table of shirts. I go down and ask him if he needs anything, and I notice that he has no frame in his hand.
Son of a bitch, what a waste of our time, I payed to have people help this ass for three hours and he didn't buy anything. His consultants that were with him didn't buy anything, they just wasted my time. I just can't imagine why they spent three hours in my store. I also just can't imagine how long it would take these guys to decide on what car to buy, or a house! Their poor realtor!
I was doing quite well for a majority of the day and then at 4:00 I got paged up to the customer service desk, E was helping a customer with a ring and apparently this had been going on for a half hour and showed no sign of being finished. Class rings run upwards of $700.00 and there are a few different things you can get, so I understand it being a long transaction. But at 4:30 this transaction was becoming a bit excessive, and at 4:40 they "left" without buying a ring.
Around 5:00 I finally break away from the register and go down to the lower level and run into the ring people that I thought had left. They are talking to one of my sales associates about graduation regalia, this is also a big purchase so they once again had a lot of questions. My sales associate who is helping them breaks away for a moment and comes up to me in the back room and says that she is going to kill these people because they have been asking her every question imaginable for close to a half hour. I told her that she has at least 40 more minutes to look forward to if the ring was any sign.
Yes, it was about 5:30 when they decided to not buy regalia at this time but took some information and moved on to the diploma frames. At this point I am getting frustrated because if they took an hour on each of the previous non-purchases then this non-purchase could put us well over closing time and on day 16 I was not going to let it happen. We made a 15 minute announcement and a 10 minute announcement and walked the floor and reminded people we were closing in 5 minutes and then made a closing announcement!
At 6:05 the store was clear... except for my FAVORITE CUSTOMER! I went downstairs to help the associate and try to speed them along. They are asking about the exact procedures for framing the diploma and i walk them through it as quickly as possible. Then they can't decide which frame, M is trying to help them and move them along and I need to run upstairs and help them close out the registers so they can get home. It is now 6:22 and I see the customer coming up the aisle and moving toward the door, but then he stops and looks at a table of shirts. I go down and ask him if he needs anything, and I notice that he has no frame in his hand.
Son of a bitch, what a waste of our time, I payed to have people help this ass for three hours and he didn't buy anything. His consultants that were with him didn't buy anything, they just wasted my time. I just can't imagine why they spent three hours in my store. I also just can't imagine how long it would take these guys to decide on what car to buy, or a house! Their poor realtor!
Books Books Everywhere
Okay, it is official I have too many books so I am exploring other options to get rid of some of the books that I am not going to read again. I am not sure what the best way to do this would be, especially since all online sites require some shipping. I posted a few general "crappy" books on http://www.ebay.com/ and I am wondering how they will sell and I posted a list of about 15 books on http://www.bookmooch.com/. This site allows me pretty much to trade books that I am not going to read for books that I am going to read, but this doesn't solve the problem of having too many books.
Any other ideas?
Oh, and if you are wondering what books I am getting rid of please just ask and I can post.
Any other ideas?
Oh, and if you are wondering what books I am getting rid of please just ask and I can post.
At Least My Patrons Are Not...
...drunk!
I was reading some blogs the other night and I came across (http://standingonthebox.blogspot.com/) the man who writes this blog not only has to deal with the general public, but he has to deal with the drunken general public. He is a bouncer at a club, it is kind of funny!
I was reading some blogs the other night and I came across (http://standingonthebox.blogspot.com/) the man who writes this blog not only has to deal with the general public, but he has to deal with the drunken general public. He is a bouncer at a club, it is kind of funny!
What Did I Want to Write About
I was sitting at work today and remembered something I wanted to post. I know it had something to with my job, and probably graduation weekend, and the crazy customers, and the fact that they make such a mess while shopping, but I am really not sure what it was...
But let me discuss messy shoppers for a moment...
Is it seriously necessary to throw things on the floor, do you need to pull the large out from the bottom of the pile and unfold all of the smalls and mediums above it? Do you need to move items from one rack to another rack, I mean they are right next to each other? When you try something on, is it really that hard to put it back on the hanger?
Messy shoppers drive me nuts, it makes no sense to me, when I walk into a store I never make a mess, I am careful to put things back if not perfectly then at least neatly. Do you seriously want to buy a sweatshirt that has been trampled on because the customer before you discarded it on the floor?
Please it is basic decency, be neat and respectful in any store to the staff and the merchandise. We would really appreciate it!
The same rules apply to books, especially since books are made of paper and get damaged easily, so if you walk by and knock a book on the floor please at least pick it up and put it on a table, don't step on it and don't kick it. If you decide that you don't want a book please put it back where you found it and do not shove it violently between the shelf and the wall. I have seen all of this and it makes me crazy!
That's all, and this was not what I was going to post about but it is what I posted about, still have no idea what I was thinking about posting though!
But let me discuss messy shoppers for a moment...
Is it seriously necessary to throw things on the floor, do you need to pull the large out from the bottom of the pile and unfold all of the smalls and mediums above it? Do you need to move items from one rack to another rack, I mean they are right next to each other? When you try something on, is it really that hard to put it back on the hanger?
Messy shoppers drive me nuts, it makes no sense to me, when I walk into a store I never make a mess, I am careful to put things back if not perfectly then at least neatly. Do you seriously want to buy a sweatshirt that has been trampled on because the customer before you discarded it on the floor?
Please it is basic decency, be neat and respectful in any store to the staff and the merchandise. We would really appreciate it!
The same rules apply to books, especially since books are made of paper and get damaged easily, so if you walk by and knock a book on the floor please at least pick it up and put it on a table, don't step on it and don't kick it. If you decide that you don't want a book please put it back where you found it and do not shove it violently between the shelf and the wall. I have seen all of this and it makes me crazy!
That's all, and this was not what I was going to post about but it is what I posted about, still have no idea what I was thinking about posting though!
Two More
I was at my old store today (which looks amazing) and while I was looking at the tables I came across two more books that I wanted, and since the discount was still going on I decided to buy them. The two additions are:
A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage and
The Know It All by A.J. Jacobs
A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage and
The Know It All by A.J. Jacobs
A Big Book Shopping Spree
The joy of working for a bookstore is that every once in a while we get out extra discount which brings our regular 35% discount to 45%. The one saving grace of this graduation weekend was that we also got our extra discount. Back in the winter around Christmas I bought myself 12 books on this discount, well this time I didn't get twelve book but i came close (11). Now I have some more reading to do in the next six months.
Non-Fiction Purchases
Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson
The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson
The Sex Lives of Cannibals by J. Maarten Troost (Its travel writing dirty people)
Complications by Atul Gawande
American Vertigo by Bernard-Henri Levy
The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman
Fiction Picks
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
Everyman by Philip Roth
Blindness by Jose Saramago
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Terrorist by John Updike
Oh yeah, and in other book news I finished Blink and I was pleasantly surprised. I am now reading Founding Brothers and so far so good.
Non-Fiction Purchases
Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson
The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson
The Sex Lives of Cannibals by J. Maarten Troost (Its travel writing dirty people)
Complications by Atul Gawande
American Vertigo by Bernard-Henri Levy
The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman
Fiction Picks
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
Everyman by Philip Roth
Blindness by Jose Saramago
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Terrorist by John Updike
Oh yeah, and in other book news I finished Blink and I was pleasantly surprised. I am now reading Founding Brothers and so far so good.
Learning From My Temper
I just got off the phone with my ex-bf who lives in NYC. He called me because he just got my text message from Saturday night and wanted to know what happened. We got caught up a bit and then talked about Saturday night. Of all the people in my life he really knows me the best, not only because we dated for 7 months and have been friends ever since but because he is a lot like me.
C is a few years older than me and has been through a lot of things. He works retail as well and has a strong personality with my temper. Hmm, I wonder why we are no longer together! We talk on a regular basis and when I was stranded in the City because I was being a bitch I sent him a text, unfortunately he was away with his new bf and didn't have his cell phone.
The first thing out of his mouth when we started talking about Saturday was "What did you do?" He knew that I must have lost my temper and blown a gasket. We talked about things and had one of those rare heart to hearts about life, blah blah, full of cliches. It was a very Oprah and Dr. Phil discussion (he played both of those roles) and I was the dysfunctional guest. The one thing that he did say is that, "I need to learn from my temper." I don't need to learn from my mistakes in this case, I need to learn from my temper. The difference is that I need to know that I have a temper and I need to know what is going to trigger it. I also need to learn to walk away and take a deep breath. I need to do what I do at work and try to make a rational decision about my behavior.
Yes, I was aware of what I need to do, but I needed to hear somebody smack me upside the head with it. And it was better that it was somebody who has had the same problem as me. I know he has bad trouble with his temper and he is much more under control now. I need to learn from my temper and learn how I can control it. A walk a deep breath and removing myself from the situation a bit. Each experience (good or bad) gives us a chance to learn and grow. I need to use this as an opportunity to become a better person.
Thanks to C, who yelled at me in a loving way I get it now, its going to be hard work but it is something I need to do.
C is a few years older than me and has been through a lot of things. He works retail as well and has a strong personality with my temper. Hmm, I wonder why we are no longer together! We talk on a regular basis and when I was stranded in the City because I was being a bitch I sent him a text, unfortunately he was away with his new bf and didn't have his cell phone.
The first thing out of his mouth when we started talking about Saturday was "What did you do?" He knew that I must have lost my temper and blown a gasket. We talked about things and had one of those rare heart to hearts about life, blah blah, full of cliches. It was a very Oprah and Dr. Phil discussion (he played both of those roles) and I was the dysfunctional guest. The one thing that he did say is that, "I need to learn from my temper." I don't need to learn from my mistakes in this case, I need to learn from my temper. The difference is that I need to know that I have a temper and I need to know what is going to trigger it. I also need to learn to walk away and take a deep breath. I need to do what I do at work and try to make a rational decision about my behavior.
Yes, I was aware of what I need to do, but I needed to hear somebody smack me upside the head with it. And it was better that it was somebody who has had the same problem as me. I know he has bad trouble with his temper and he is much more under control now. I need to learn from my temper and learn how I can control it. A walk a deep breath and removing myself from the situation a bit. Each experience (good or bad) gives us a chance to learn and grow. I need to use this as an opportunity to become a better person.
Thanks to C, who yelled at me in a loving way I get it now, its going to be hard work but it is something I need to do.
Si Hablo Un Poco Espanol
My mother is from Cuba and I studied Spanish in High School and Spanish Literature in college. I can write a ten page paper on El Poema de Cid and carry on a fairly basic conversation in Spanish but today was a bit hard. About 5 minutes before clothing I get called to the book information desk as the manager on duty. It appears that the bookseller had a customer who needed a book to help her learn English but she spoke no English at all.
She shyly ask, "Hablas espanol" and I reply "Si you hablo un poco" (Do you speak Spanish, yes I speak a little). She immediately brightens up and launches into a full fledged explanation of the book she is looking for. At first I was able to get the gist of the conversation but as she felt more comfortable with my ability to understand she began speaking faster and using some vocabulary that was above my head so the interaction began more difficult.
Twenty minutes later I think I had exhausted all of my decent (not rude) words and directed this woman to the Boston Language Institute, no for those of you who know me, you know I am awful with directions in English, can you imagine where she will end up after I gave her directions in Spanish!
I think next time a customer asks if I speak Spanish I am going to have to say no because, Yo hablo un poco espanol, no mucho! (I peak a little Spanish, not a lot). But I guess it was good practice.
She shyly ask, "Hablas espanol" and I reply "Si you hablo un poco" (Do you speak Spanish, yes I speak a little). She immediately brightens up and launches into a full fledged explanation of the book she is looking for. At first I was able to get the gist of the conversation but as she felt more comfortable with my ability to understand she began speaking faster and using some vocabulary that was above my head so the interaction began more difficult.
Twenty minutes later I think I had exhausted all of my decent (not rude) words and directed this woman to the Boston Language Institute, no for those of you who know me, you know I am awful with directions in English, can you imagine where she will end up after I gave her directions in Spanish!
I think next time a customer asks if I speak Spanish I am going to have to say no because, Yo hablo un poco espanol, no mucho! (I peak a little Spanish, not a lot). But I guess it was good practice.
When Good Nights Go Terribly Wrong
This is a warning right from the top that this is not a happy nor really funny post, it is rather introspective and it is giving me a chance to sort out things in my own brain.
For the past month or so I have been grumpier than normal, work has been hard for me (a new feeling), I haven't been in a relationship for close to 10 months and lately I just feel very alone in Boston. It sounds like a crazy thing to say but with S moving away and the new job demanding more then I expected I feel like I am hanging on by a thread. I have been in what I guess I will call a funk (not quite depression but not happy either). I never want to wake up and get out of bed, but I can never fall asleep either. I am sure it is a number of things that are putting me in this tailspin but I need to gain control of them before I ruin the relationships and friends I still have.
This weekend was supposed to be fun, we were going to get together for S's twenty-tenth birthday in NYC, get together as a group minus P and have some drinks and celebrate. It has been a long time since we have had a chance to get together and this should have been nothing but fun. I will spare you the evil details of the evening but I managed to ruin what was potentially a great night. I inexplicable began getting pissed, I can't identify the reason all I know is that my bitchy meter went from 1 to about 50 over the course of two hours. At about 2 am S was screaming at me in the middle of Union Square and he was right in doing this I was being an uncontrollable bitch and I managed to ruin his Birthday. Not a good thing for a friend to do, especially since on a lot of days I feel like I am going to be lost without him in Boston.
Why am I pushing away those people who support me when I need them? I can't imagine surviving the things that I have gone through in the past 3 years if I didn't have S by my side for all of it. Deep down do I feel like I can deal with him living so far away better if I am mad at him? Rationally this doesn't make sense, things aren't going to change very much, we won't see each other as often, but if we do begin talking again, we will talk at least as much on the phone. Then again, I was in no way being rational last night, and I couldn't stop, I just got bitchier and I wanted to stop and calm down but I was furious. I was furious at nothing and I continued to be furious at nothing all morning.
I can't possibly be this self centered that I am ruining his birthday because he is no longer going to be in Boston. It was like a break, I saw myself doing these things and I couldn't stop and at the same time I felt horrible for doing them. I was disgusted at what I was doing to a friendship that has been building. Over three and a half years S and I have fought three times and all three have been in the last three months (two in the last two weeks).
Now I need to make it up to him, and promise that I will act like a respectable human being, but I wish I knew where all of the anger came from. Am I really that unhappy with my life that I am acting like a 2 year old? How can I control feeling that I can't identify the source to? Seriously, what is wrong with me?
For the past month or so I have been grumpier than normal, work has been hard for me (a new feeling), I haven't been in a relationship for close to 10 months and lately I just feel very alone in Boston. It sounds like a crazy thing to say but with S moving away and the new job demanding more then I expected I feel like I am hanging on by a thread. I have been in what I guess I will call a funk (not quite depression but not happy either). I never want to wake up and get out of bed, but I can never fall asleep either. I am sure it is a number of things that are putting me in this tailspin but I need to gain control of them before I ruin the relationships and friends I still have.
This weekend was supposed to be fun, we were going to get together for S's twenty-tenth birthday in NYC, get together as a group minus P and have some drinks and celebrate. It has been a long time since we have had a chance to get together and this should have been nothing but fun. I will spare you the evil details of the evening but I managed to ruin what was potentially a great night. I inexplicable began getting pissed, I can't identify the reason all I know is that my bitchy meter went from 1 to about 50 over the course of two hours. At about 2 am S was screaming at me in the middle of Union Square and he was right in doing this I was being an uncontrollable bitch and I managed to ruin his Birthday. Not a good thing for a friend to do, especially since on a lot of days I feel like I am going to be lost without him in Boston.
Why am I pushing away those people who support me when I need them? I can't imagine surviving the things that I have gone through in the past 3 years if I didn't have S by my side for all of it. Deep down do I feel like I can deal with him living so far away better if I am mad at him? Rationally this doesn't make sense, things aren't going to change very much, we won't see each other as often, but if we do begin talking again, we will talk at least as much on the phone. Then again, I was in no way being rational last night, and I couldn't stop, I just got bitchier and I wanted to stop and calm down but I was furious. I was furious at nothing and I continued to be furious at nothing all morning.
I can't possibly be this self centered that I am ruining his birthday because he is no longer going to be in Boston. It was like a break, I saw myself doing these things and I couldn't stop and at the same time I felt horrible for doing them. I was disgusted at what I was doing to a friendship that has been building. Over three and a half years S and I have fought three times and all three have been in the last three months (two in the last two weeks).
Now I need to make it up to him, and promise that I will act like a respectable human being, but I wish I knew where all of the anger came from. Am I really that unhappy with my life that I am acting like a 2 year old? How can I control feeling that I can't identify the source to? Seriously, what is wrong with me?
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