Crazy Customer Requests

    Glory gets it.     

As anybody who has ever held a customer service position knows, you can get a lot of crazy requests.  It's not our job to judge, but to help the customer obtain whatever it is that s/he is looking for. So be it. I made it all the way through the Holiday 2014 season without getting much flak, but this afternoon I had a curious conversation.

We get crazy questions at the bookstore all the time, but usually they're prefaced with something like, "This is probably a long shot, but do you have..." or "You probably don't carry X, but I thought I'd check, just in case."  I like these questions.  I LOVE that customers think of our little independent bookstore as a place that might carry unlikely items: frisbees (seasonally), nail polish (sometimes), chemistry goggles (yes, during textbook season), swimming goggles (no), drumsticks (no), glitter glue (obviously), scented markers (usually), wine bottle stoppers (usually), giant carabiners (only recently), or novelty socks (always).  I could go on, but you get the picture.  Bookstores carry a lot more than just books these days, and I can't tell you how gratifying it is when a customer expresses amazement over our non-book selection.

It's when they get really ticked off when we don't carry something that I have to shake my head.  I've been told off for not carrying swimming goggles (see above) or drumsticks (ditto).

Here's a rough transcription of my conversation with a customer today on the phone:

Woman (with a severe case of up-speak): Hi? I'm calling to see what kinds of things you might have on wrestling for kids?

Me: Sure, I can look into that for you.  How old is the child?

Woman: He's five?

Me: Okay, great. So, ah, wrestling...um...did you have in mind something like a book about the WWF, or maybe something more like greco-roman wrestling?

Woman: What?

Me: I mean, do you want something like the kind of wrestling you might see on tv for entertainment? Or more like wrestling as a sport?

Woman: I just want stuff on wrestling?

Me: Okay, let me get your name and phone number, and I'll see what books are out there, and I'll give you a call right back.

Woman: Actually, I want wrestling DVDs.

Me: Oh, I'm sorry, we don't carry DVDs but I will see what I can order for you.

Woman: You don't have any wrestling DVDs in stock?

Me: No, I'm sorry, but our warehouse might have just the thing if you'd like me to research it for you.

Woman: Well, what books do you have in the store?

Me: I'm afraid we don't carry much in stock in terms of wrestling books for 5 year olds, but I can see what...

Woman: *Interrupting me and mysteriously losing her up-speak*  Oh, no.  I need it today. Are you telling me you can't help me at all? I called you because I thought you were supposed to be a good bookstore. I should have just called Barnes & Noble!

Yeah, I'm sure the Barnes & Noble the next town over has plenty of wrestling DVDs suitable for a five year old.  Good luck, lady. I could hear the dudgeon in her voice as she slammed the phone down.

I should have just directed her to the internet to find suitable gifs, for they are a-plenty!

Bookish Things & Bookseller Rants

If you've been a recent reader of my blog, you'd be forgiven for thinking that I write a travel blog and that's that. I don't mean to whine (at least not much), but life has been on the hard side for the last 5-6 weeks.  I've been working 10-14 day stretches at a time with precious little time off.  At home we've battled black mold, power outages, no hot water, no heat, no internet, all topped off with a little flooding in that same time period. We were without a washing machine or dryer for that entire period, so I've had to get a little creative when it comes to laundry. (Hint: that's code for "I washed my underwear in the sink and just kept wearing the same 4 pairs of jeans without washing them.")

And did I mention that my bookstore just celebrated its 50th anniversary?  That's a pretty big milestone for any business, peoples, but for an independent bookstore?  That's practically unheard of.  We had mad fun but it was insanely busy in the long run-up to it. We capped it all off with a 1960s dance party and it looked a lot like this:

Or maybe this:

It's been so long since I've written a book review that the task somehow seems too monumental to tackle right now, so I'm just going to share some bookselling things that have happened to me recently. They range from adorably delightful to a little odd to unspeakable rudeness:

Customer calls and wants to know if we can order a book that she wants to buy that she has checked out of the library.  I ask for the title.  She says, "Oh, I left the book in the other room.  Should I go get it?" No, that's okay.  I've got ALL DAY.  Let me just try to guess what it is.

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Customer calls before the store opens and leaves message on the store answering machine, wondering if we have a certain book.  I call him back about 15 minutes after the store opens and say no, we don't, but I can have the book here in two days if you'd like to special order it.  He says, "Well, that's just a terrible way to run a business." Confused, I ask him what he means.  He actually raises his voice and say, "I shouldn't have to leave a message just to see if you have a book.  When I call Barnes & Noble, I get a real person to talk to." I try to explain that he called after hours.  He says, "Oh, no I didn't!  I called at 9:15 this morning and I had to leave that message." "Sir," I explain, "the store doesn't open until 10:00."  LONG pause. "Well, then I guess that makes me the terrible one," he chuckles.

Most upset customers don't recognize if they're ever in the wrong, so I really appreciated his saying that.  "Well, I'd say 'terrible' is putting it a little too strongly, sir," was my reply and he laughed. And then he ordered the book.

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Customer on phone: Can you get me X book?
    Me: No, I'm afraid that book is out of print, but we have somebody on staff who does those searches. Shall I have her take a look and call you back?
Customer, worried: Oh, dear.  I have to leave the house for a while.  I'd hate for her to be offended by leaving a message.  I have an answering machine.  Do you think that would be okay?
   Me: Yes, of course.
Customer: Are you sure she won't be offended?
  Me: Yes, quite sure.

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For our store's 50th anniversary, we gave away over $50 worth of books & goodies every hour at the :50 minute mark (get it?). We even let people decide whether they wanted a grab-bag of books for adults or children. One woman who won opted for a kids bag, but she called back the next day, quite irritated and asked if she could return them.  When asked what the problem was, she said that one book was too old for her 5-year-old son (the $40 Mo Willems book called Don't Pigeonhole Me) and that the other ones her son wouldn't be interested in because they were about a girl.  Never mind that it was a complete set of Madeline books in hardcover. In other words, picture book classics. We asked if maybe her son had a friend to share the books with, but nope. The woman said if she couldn't return them to us that she'd just throw the books away.  Excuse me?

It is the height of rudeness to call and complain about the free books that you've won, and in this instance it's an extreme case of gender bias. I mean, heaven forbid we encourage our children to read anything that doesn't reflect themselves back in the pages. But to then threaten to just throw those books away?

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But not all of my customer stories are quite so ugh. One of them is, as promised, adorably delightful. A father and his little girl walk into my store for the first time.  When the father asks if we have a children's department, we direct him to the lower level.  There's an interior stairway connecting the floors, with a landing in the middle, from which one can see the kids' department sprawled out below.  When the little girl reached the landing and saw all of the books and games, she gasped, "Oh, this is my paradise!" Except she was young enough to still have a slight lisp, so it came out, "Oh, thith is my paradithe!" I'm sure if I'd ever wanted children I would have wanted to take her home with me. 

She might not have been as cute as this panda ball, but it was close...

How about y'all?  What interesting bookish and/or work stories do you have to share?

Bookstore Rants: Lady, you CRAZY

It is a truth universally acknowledged that an encounter with a  crazy customer must be in want of a blog post.  

If you have ever worked with the public sector, particularly in retail, then you know that the holiday season is a time when the crazy customers come out in full force.  If they're not demanding to know why we don't carry swimming goggles (Hello? We're a bookstore? True story!), they're contributing to the eventual incarceration of their children when said children finally get retribution for crazy parents, or they're making me wonder why they're shopping for Shakespeare when they clearly don't even know their ABCs, for Pete's sake! 

Ahem.  Sometimes I let myself get a little carried away.  I had a customer this week who, while being perfectly pleasant, actually said one of the most asinine book-related things I've ever heard.  To wit:

Customer: I'm looking for a picture book for a child, but it has to be real. 

Me: Do you mean you're looking for a work of non-fiction? 

Customer: No, I want a story picture book for children, but I want it to be real.  Nothing fake.

Me: Do you mean, like nothing in the fantasy realm?

Customer: Well, yes, I don't want that, but I also want to make sure that everything that happens in the book is a real-life thing. Nothing made up. Nothing that couldn't happen in real life.

Me:  Hmmm...let me see...what about the new Jan Brett book called Mossy?  Our children's buyer tells me that Jan Brett was inspired by a real-life tale involving a similar turtle. 

Customer: Well, that might be okay, but you see that picture on the cover? That would never happen in real life.  A garden just wouldn't grow on a turtle's back like that. 

Me: Well, not strictly speaking, no. 

Customer: I just think imagination is dangerous for children. They need things that are real. 

Me: I'm sorry, you lost me at IMAGINATION IS DANGEROUS FOR CHILDREN. Get thee behind me, Satan!

Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores: US edition

I've been a follower for a long time (and by "long" I guess I mean about two years or so) of Jen Campbell's This Is Not the Six Word Novel blog. She's a poet, writer and antiquarian bookseller in the UK, and earlier this year she published a book called Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops. Since bookish people love reading about bookish things, the idea spread across the pond and soon there was an open call for American and Canadian booksellers to submit some of their bizarre encounters with customers. Overlook published it just this last week, and they were kind enough to send me a complimentary copy of the book.

 Jen's original contributions comprise most of the US edition, but it's interspersed throughout with new scenarios from the New World, including two out of the three that I submitted.  One of them was entirely too long to print, but it remains one of my most frequently read blog posts (read it here if you're interested). Here's the more interesting of the two they included:

     Customer: Do you sell swimming goggles?
     Me: No, I'm afraid we do not.
     Customer: And you call yourself a full service bookstore?
     Me: ...

I kid you not.  Now, it's true that we've branched out a good bit, particularly over the last five years, and we sell quite a few non-book items. Some are more of the usual non-book like journals, stationery, and calendars, but we also carry toys, boardgames and locally- or regionally-made crafts. Still, asking for swimming goggles seemed a little, well, weird.

Here's a call I took last week from a customer on the phone. I've submitted it for the next installment of Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores:

    Customer: Yes, hello, do you sell drumsticks?
    Me: Umm...do you mean the kind you eat or the kind you play drums with?
    Customer: The kind you play drums with.  Does that mean you sell them?
    Me: No, actually we don't carry either one, but I was curious which variety you thought a bookstore        might sell.  Try the music shop just up the road.

This is a very funny book, and if you've ever worked retail then I'm sure you'll find yourself nodding along to more than one of these bizarre scenarios.  It's a nice little package, and at only $15 for the hardcover, it makes a great impulse purchase or gift.  

Bookstore Rants, or Lady, You Crazy!

I've been sitting on this blogpost for a few days, wanting to calm down a bit before sitting down to skewer a particular parent I interacted with at the store earlier this week.  Our store is in a pretty smartsy-artsy-fartsy (you like that term?  I just made it up) area, where the population density of people who hold PhDs is higher than average.  Probably much higher than average but I'm not about to spend time researching figures or anything like that.  But anyway, because of where our store is located we're pretty used to parents who come in to buy books for their little darlings who learned to read in utero and are basically culturally sophisticated geniuses who excel in sports, languages, sciences and arts, all in equal measure, and do we have any books that might be good enough for them?

I'm sure you know the kind of parents I mean.  Sure, these parents are tiresome and apparently blind to the fact that their children are frequently nasty little shits in desperate need of a good spanking meaningful time out.  But these parents are completely grounded in reality compared with a mother I was dealing with the other day.

Mommy Dearest: (to me) I'm buying the last book in the Eragon series for my high school daughter because she just loves it, but I need suggestions for my other brilliant daughter. She's nine but she reads on a high school level, so I need a book that will challenge her but also be age appropriate.  (to daughter): Why don't you start looking at the books?

Lowly Bookseller: I understand completely.  Let's take a look over h...

MD (interrupting me): We don't have a television, you understand.  My children have all been readers from a very early age, which is why I've got one daughter at [insert Seven Sisters college here] and another applying to [insert Ivy League college here].  My youngest, though.  She just gets it in her head sometimes that she wants to read something but I won't have her filling her head with crap.  Not like what my students read.  She's better than that.

LB: Uh-huh.  Why don't we look at these books right he...

MD (interrupting again): And don't even get me started on graphic novels.  They're such trash--I can't believe she keeps trying to read those Wimpy Kid books at school. I'd like to give a piece of my mind to the creators of these so-called graphic novels...

LB (hah--interrupting her!): Well, actually, there are lots of great graphic novels, and one that sells well to both children and adults is this retelling of Homer's The Odyssey.  Since your daughter enjoyed the Percy Jackson books, she might enjoy learning more about the classics.

MD (looking down her nose): I don't think so.

LB (to the daughter directly): Sweetie, what others books have you liked besides the Percy Jackson ones?

Downtrodden daughter:  Harry Potter, Emily Windsnap, books about animals, books with f...

MD (interrupting AGAIN): She definitely didn't like those Series of Unfortunate Events books

DD: I thought they were pretty good

MD (to DD): No you definitely didn't like them. And they're too young for you anyway.  (To me):  What else do you recommend?

LB: Well, if you like fantasy stories with strong girl characters, I'd suggest maybe Madeleine L'Engle for a classic or maybe The Emerald Atlas, which is more fantasy-adventure and more modern.  For animal lovers, A Ring of Endless Light is a magical read with all of the dolphins in it, but A Wrinkle in Time is also great--it was a Newbery award winner that pairs well with a recent winner, When You Reach Me.  They both feature smart girls dealing with confusing times in their lives, plus they learn about time travel.

DD: The one with the dolphins sounds pretty good...

MD (to daughter): No, you won't like that one, I don't think.  Too old-fashioned.

DD (to mom): But I like dolphins.

MD (to daughter): No, I said you wouldn't like it.  Keep looking for something else. (To me): What about that Atlas book?  What's it about?

LB: It's a wonderful fantasy adventure about three siblings who are orphaned but come to discover some amazing things in their new ho...

MD (she's the interruptingest!): Orphans?  No, that sounds too much like those other books, those Unfortunate ones.

LB (losing patience): Actually, they're nothing at all alike.  Yes, they are both about siblings who are orphaned, but beyond that they're much more fantastical, with homages to C. S. Lewis, Tolkien, Susan Cooper, and even Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

MD: You mean they're derivative?  I don't want her to read anything derivative.

LB (frustration showing through the cracks): No, actually, I don't mean derivative.  I mean that it uses similar tropes from classical fantasy series in a way that pays homage, but still creates a wonderful story for a young reader to get lost in.  If you don't want books that are derivative and poorly written, you should reconsider that Paolini book for your older daughter.

MD (slightly taken aback): Well.  I didn't mean to offend you.  I just have high expectations for my daughter.  (to daughter): Did you find anything?

DD: This one looks good.  I read the part on the inside cover and then I started reading the first chapter and I really like it.

MD (to daughter): Were there at least six words you didn't know in the chapter?

LB (to mother): Well, if she's reading on a high school level, there's a good chance that she'll know all of the words in this book.  But it's from a very reputable and literary publisher of children's bo...

MD (interrupting again): No, I don't think she'll like this.  She only thinks she will because she's read a little of it so far, but I know her better.

LB (to myself): WTF, lady?  How can you possibly stand there with a straight face, full of righteous indignation, and talk over your child and tell her that you know better, just by looking at the cover of a book, about what she likes to read? You're a monster and a nightmare and I can say these things in a blogpost later, which will make me feel better, secure in the fact that, like Miss Elizabeth Lefoldt in The Help, you'll never recognize yourself.

LB (dejectedly): How about The Mysterious Benedict Society?  Do you think you she would like that?

The lady kept apologizing for her daughter's "talking back" and bad behavior.  I wanted to hold a mirror up to her instead.  She was clearly insane.  And what's more, because it wasn't a school day, there were a handful of children in our kids' area, sprawled out on bean bags and reading graphic novels (mostly Wimpy Kid books, but some of the Origami Yoda/Darth Paper ones, too) while she was talking about how trashy and beneath her daughter they were.

So, gentle readers, have you ever encountered such an overbearing parent, in either a personal or professional capacity?  I've read about them, of course, but dealing with one in person AND still providing good customer service was a difficult row for me to hoe.  

Bookstore Rants

Not my image. Found at JustforScientists.com

Okay, okay, I know that everybody who has ever worked in retail can lay claim to outrageous/stupid/offensive customer stories and that booksellers have no corner on this market, but this morning I wanted to share with you a few recent encounters I've had that might make you smile.

Scenario I

Woman: I'm looking for a bestseller I read about?  [NB: She used upspeak, indicated by the question marks I'm using for her]

Me: Do you know the title or author?

Woman: No, I can't remember?

Me: That's okay.  Just tell me what it's about and I'll bet I can pinpoint it. 

Woman: Umm, it was about these children and then they grew up?

Me (in my head): So, that covers roughly 75% of all of fiction then. Are you an idiot?

Me (out loud): Hmmm, can you be a bit more specific than that?

Woman: I think they were boys?

Me (in my head): Yup, definitely an idiot!

Me: (out loud): Do you remember where or when you heard about this book?

Woman: I think it was in the newspaper a few years ago. 

Me: Can you give me anything else to go on? 

Woman: No, not really

Me: Was it The Kite Runner? It's about two boys in Afghanistan who then grew up. But in different places and under vastly different scenarios. 

Woman: Maybe.  That doesn't sound very good.

Me (pulling hair out): Why don't I just make a few suggestions for you, then?

Scenario II

Woman: I'm looking for that book about cancer.

Me: Could it be The Emperor of All Maladies, the book about cancer that just won the Pulitzer Prize?

Woman: No, I don't think so.  It's old.

Me: Is it a health book or informational books that tells you about cancer and how to live with it?  Is it a novel?  A memoir? 

Woman: I don't know if it's a novel or memoir

Me: Can you tell me a bit more about it? 

Woman: This woman got diagnosed with cancer and then her friends were sad. 

Me (in my head): So basically every book about cancer, ever written?  

Me (out loud): Anything else you can tell me?  That's still pretty broad

Woman: No, I don't remember anything else

Me: How 'bout I just make some great book suggestions for you, then?

Scenario III

Woman walks into the shop.  She's standing between a large stuffed giraffe with a yellow hat (as in The Man with the Yellow Hat) and a shelf of picture books and toys: Do you have a children's department? 

Me: Why, yes.  Yes we do!

Woman: Where is it? 

Me: Ummm, you're standing right in the middle of it.  

For reference, she was standing between here: 

4' tall giraffe with Yellow Hat (photo from store's website)

And here:

Our hard-to-spot children's department (photo from store's website)

It's too long to include here again, but I happen to have a post for Scenario IV that involved a woman looking for Shakespeare who apparently doesn't know her ABCs.  You can read it here if you'd like.