Last Night At the Bookstore

A lady walked into the bookstore holding a chihuahua in a shoulder bag while at the same time a monk walked in the other side of the door. I think I can say with a large degree of certainty that this has never happened before and may never happen again. It was an interesting evening. There was also a lady who had a huge tattoo in the middle of her chest(she was was scantily clad in a camisole), that when viewed from far away looked like an enormous lowercase 'e'.

How was your evening?

Anon,

Nancy

At the Bookstore

Last night at the bookstore, I had a customer (he was of middle eastern descent) ask for a book on how to make a bomb from office materials.  We didn't have it...

Anon,

Nancy

Boring Night at the Bookstore

From time to time, it becomes necessary to replenish staffing deficits at the bookstore by sifting through the applications and interviewing new bookseller candidates. This is a task that I believe most of the managers do grudgingly. How do you differentiate between the potential superstar employee and the one who's going to rob the store blind?

The managers were able to find a few applications that stood out and not for good reasons.

There was the person who said on their application that their availability was flexible, but then only marked three days ( and six hours on those days), that they were available. What do they think is inflexible?

Then there was my personal favorite; The guy who marked in the education portion of the application that he was homeschooled and then under accomplishments he stated that he had perfect attendance year round. If you are homeschooled and you have perfect attendance, does that mean you successfully got out of bed everyday? He also listed Movie Club for one of his activities. If you're homeschooled and you're in the Movie Club, does that mean that you're in charge of picking the movies at Blockbuster?

These are the questions that haunt us on a Saturday evening in an otherwise uneventful bookstore.

Anon,

Nancy

Things Overheard at the Bookstore

We use an intercom system to make event announcements, to page a manager for a phone call and to announce that the store is closing for the night. Sometimes employees will use the intercom to ask for back up or assistance on an issue. Earlier in the week when an employee, we will call her employee A was unable to locate a book, she made this announcement to another employee, we will call her, employee B.

"Employee B (name redacted) please call information...(insert very long pause here), You know that Ball Blue Book of preserving, I cannot find it."

We count ourselves lucky that employee A did not transpose the first part of that title. I doubt that would be something anyone would want to preserve...

Anon,

Nancy

Things Overheard at The Bookstore

On the weekends I work at my neighborhood bookstore. It's a pretty fun place to work and the store seems to attract some pretty interesting characters. For lack of another name I give you Scooter Lady

Asst. Store Manager: Ma'am, we don't have that book in stock, but I can order it for you.

Scooter Lady: Well how long will that take?

ASM: Three to eight business days, give or take.

Scooter Lady: Three to eight business days. I could be dead by then.

ASM: Yeah, I'm guessing that's probably not going to happen

Scooter Lady: Really, I was on life support three weeks ago.

ASM: You look pretty good to me.

Scooter Lady: Okay order the book. How much for these? She asks pointing to her stack of books.

ASM: I'll ring those up now.

Scooter Lady: Someone's going to have to take these to my car, 'cause they are not going to get there by themselves.

ASM: I'd be happy to.

So the ASM helps Scooter Lady take the books to her car. He helps her fold up her scooter, which really isn't a scooter more like a chair with wheels. So Scooter Lady goes on her way. She pulls out of the parking lot and pauses for a moment, then drives a few feet, pauses. This continues until she gets to the street. She drives through a red light at about 5 miles per hour across three lanes of traffic, finally turning left.

This does beg the question, should you be running errands if you were on life support earlier in the month? Driving should definitely not be an option.

Anyway, we hope Scooter Lady made it home safely, her book should be in by Saturday.

Anon,

Nancy