Rocket Bomber

Costco + Japan = Oh My Gods why aren’t I living in Japan?

My poor fevered brains conjure up images of buying 12-packs of figurines, whole pallets of anime on DVD (“Hi. Can I borrow that forklift?”) and not just ramen by the case (we buy that here) but actual edible ramen, authentic even, by the case.

I had no idea there was even a single Costco in Japan. This renders my world view null, void, and moot. I need… I need a few minutes. I may need months.

Does Costco Japan sell Eroge? Can I buy a Peach Princess multi-pak or something? The mind boggles…

Re: the commentary to date on the posting ‘The Seven Types of Bookstore Customer’, see also the first follow-up, the second follow-up, the third (and I had hoped) last time I revisited the topic, and also the recent posting (incl. reader comments) The Eight Types of Bookseller.

Reader Spiff was asking (and I’m paraphrasing) “If you didn’t want to reap the whirlwind, why did you sow the wind?”

and so:

if any of it really bothered me, I could delete the negative comments, or even go so far as to delete the original post.

I’m pretty thick-skinned, actually, and I’ve a fair sense of humor, and am mostly agnostic about it all.

Obviously, I invite comments (since there is a comment function) but the beautiful thing about the web is that one can also comment to one’s own space, with a link to material. — in fact, the vast majority of readers first discovered this blog by reading about it [with commentary, both good and bad] on someone else’s site.

What surprises me is the number of people who feel compelled to comment here, like I posted this to a public forum or on their website. The original post, and this one, constitute My Opinion on these topics and if I’m so inflammatory or offensive or outright wrong — then why did you read it?

There must be something true in it, or no one would have linked. None would have commented. No one would have bothered to read the post all the way to the end. (and certainly, if the overwhelming response was all negative, that’d be one thing, too, but what of those who posted in agreement or support?)

I’m guilty of bias; I suppose I’m guilty of posting flame-bait, too. Fine.

But the internet is all about bias and flame bait — which internet have you been reading?

My objection to negative comments is like a host objecting to guests pissing on the carpet: sure, there’s nothing wrong with the behavior per se, it’s fine in context — but there is a forum for that sort of thing and most people do it behind closed doors, & at home.

One could slander my character and rebuff all my points and arguments or tear apart my ‘arguments’ as plainly false on their face and question my suitability for my job (or any job) or even wonder aloud how long it will be before my neighbors band together to remove me as a blight to the community —

I’d just ask that you not do it on my blog, and to me that’s just as sensible as a host asking people to stop pissing on his living room rug.

The proper html is <a href=“http://www.rocketbomber.com”>THIS GUY SUCKS ASS!</a> (or your own pithy commentary) and you can post it to a web forum, or a social networking site, or to a blog of your own devising, where you pay the registration fees and hosting out of your pocket.

Just stop asking me to pay for and support your negativity. Just because it’s the internet doesn’t make it free, and I get the bill for this site.

Numerous readers of the now infamous post that I’d like to respectfully put aside as there are other things worth talking about on the internet have sarcastically commented something-along-the-lines-of “Well, let’s post the seven types of bookseller, that’d show him, Har Har Har. And then we can tell him which type he is, the snarky bastard, hoist ‘im on his own petard and all that.”

To date, no one has posted the seven types of bookseller.

I feel this is because they

1. lack the requisite experience: Shopping at a bookstore and knowing anything at all about the bookselling business are two separate and totally different things. Like, on different continents kind of different.
2. don’t know what makes bookselling different from other retail: Anyone, just about, can run a register or stock shelves. We don’t expect them to know the difference between Hegel and Heidegger, or between Palladio (an architect) and the Palatine (just a hill, but with significance) — unless of course they work at a bookstore.
3. don’t even pay attention at their local bookstore: We’re all interchangable drones, equally competent (or incompetent, depending on your POV)
4. are just talking out of their ass. “Oh yeah, well… There are seven types of bookseller too, Mr. Blind. You’re nothin’ special. quit pickin’ on me. [*sob*]”

You don’t have the knowledge, experience, frame of reference, or the right to post a “seven types of bookseller”

…and you’re lucky I’ve all four — and a sense of humour.

The EIGHT types of booksellers:

Students.

Some of the students are still in high school, even — students are a core part of any retail work force; their salary expectations are low and their work hours (by necessity) are flexible — they can’t work during the day [classes, natch] but we’re open all hours and a large chunk of our evening staff is going to be students.

Students have some advantages: they are open to learning, the knowledge gleaned from classes usually contributes to their ability to help customers, at the college level they tend to be marginally smarter than the customer base; and they work for cheap.

They lack experience, so a manager has to be more aware and more ‘on task’ when herding a gaggle of students, but an actual dust-up with customers is rare. And they rarely make the same mistake twice. The students I’ve hired (with only one exception) have all been keepers — the only drawback is that eventually, they graduate, and get ‘real’ jobs.

Slackers.

A Slacker looks a lot like a student… just a tad older. And without the urge to graduate.

For some folks in retail, even if they otherwise claim grand goals & ambitions, it just never works out. A part time job becomes the only job.

It’s hard to say who will become a slacker, or why they stay in a low-paid retail job when other opportunities beckon, just out of reach.

A slacker isn’t doing a bad job, per se; or at least, not so bad a job that I’d fire them — they do just enough to get by. Customers who have to deal with slackers may feel vaguely put out, but not like they were slighted. They’re just a tad disappointed — like maybe someone else would have known the 15th century French poet, that starts with a P, or maybe an N? if only… Not that another bookseller would have known, but a slacker is quick to shut a customer down if there isn’t an actual question in the offing: “I’m sorry, I can’t find that. Is there anything else I can help with?”

As a manager, the trick is to pair slackers with other employees on a shift, or if there isn’t the opportunity for that, to make sure slackers don’t work long shifts by themselves.

Librarians.

The bookstore isn’t a library.

Let me repeat that: The Bookstore Isn’t a Library

There is an overlap in the public perception (“you both have books, don’t you?”) and yes, in fact, we both have books

But the goals are vastly different. One is a conservator of Knowledge, looking to preserve Ideas and to make the same accessible to the public — to ensure that the Wisdom needed by the public to participate in both the general discourse and the proper functioning of democracy is available to all regardless of financial means or education —

And the bookstore is looking to make a buck.
We’ll make a buck off of your ignorance if we have to.

When staffing a bookstore, of course we look for people who love books, but occasionally we’ll come across (and hire) a librarian by mistake. Librarians love books, and up to a point they make excellent booksellers, but for a bookstore the needs of the sale come before the books themselves. We need mercenaries, not librarians. Nothing in the store is sacred, every book is up for sale — the whole of global learning and culture, the sum of human experience, is just a feature we offer for purchase, with a cup of coffee.

That isn’t to say that a librarian is a bad bookseller: they know more than most and can provide excellent customer service. We just have to train them to adjust their mindset a bit.

Idiots.

Occasionally someone makes it through the interview process with all the boxes checked, with the right references, seemingly proficient and personable enough that hell, I’d hire them.

Only after a week or so, do I realize: they’re an idiot.

Idiots proliferate in every workplace; just good enough to get hired, apparently ‘getting hired’ is their only skill. We’d like to fire them, but it’s a litigious world out there and to fire anyone, even a corpse, it takes time. (“I realize you’ve been dead for three weeks, but as this is our fifth time revisiting this topic, I feel those circumstances are no longer a reasonable exemption for your recent drop in performance — this is your last warning; if we don’t see improvement I’m afraid we’ll have to let you go.”)

I apologize if you’ve had to deal with an Idiot. It’s hard to fire anyone, even idiots. The most we can do is correct them (multiple times a day, often) and hope that corporate legal lets us fire them soon.

Your Mom.

Ha ha. “Your Mom” is a punchline to so many jokes, you likely think I’m making funny.

No, in fact, given the need to staff a storefront for 14 hours a day, we hire quite a few atypical employees, some of whom can only work, say, from 9am to 3pm, while their kids are in class. If I’m lucky, I can also con them into working a weekend shift. And if I can hire your Gramma, that’s even better — unless she needs to babysit the grandkids, her schedule is wide open and actually, she looks forward to the engagement with customers and the opportunity to do something outside of the house.

I’ll hire Your Mom any day of the week. And I’ll ‘put her to work’ in as much as I’ll, um, put her to work. I like your mom, she’s one of my better employees.

Booksnobs.

Booksnobs are to bookstores like mold is to bread. If you sell books, you’re going to get booksnobs even if you don’t hire them to run the store. Turn your back, and they’re there.

In the best case with a booksnob, you’ve a passionate employee who knows the stock and can sell it.

In the worst case, you’ve an employee who knows everything but is so busy being a snob they can’t be bothered to deal with customers. — Just so you know: We fire people like that. We’re not snobs at the bookstore, we’re mercenaries. We take your money. That’s what we do, and we like it.

If you read the ‘seven types of bookstore customer’ and somehow came away with the impression that we hate money, let me disabuse you of that now: Bookstores want your money, even if you’re an idiot. That’s the retail business, and we’ll work doubly hard, especially if your an idiot, to separate you from you money, and we’ll have you thank us for doing it

That’s our job. Some of us are good at it.

Lifers.

Maybe they like retail. Maybe they like books. Maybe they’ve just exhausted other options, and have ended up at the bookstore.

Maybe they started with other retailers, but are now running a bookstore because we hired them for their retail expertise and have taught them bookselling in the interim.

Maybe they really like books and have been with the company for years, even before they graduated from college, and are still here because book selling is a calling for them.

They know the job. They know the product, and our shelving system, and all the tricks and hiccups in the computer search software, and the local market, and hell: odds are good they also know (first or second hand) what book was just on Oprah.

Booksellers like these are worth their weight in gold. Unfortunately, there aren’t quite enough of these mythical booksellers to staff the store all the time. If you show up 15 minutes before we close, you just might get a Slacker or an Idiot. I can’t say that’s my fault; you could try visiting the store during the other 90 hours a week that we’re open.

What do you want at 10:30PM on a Saturday? And why is your unreasonable expectation [every other retailer has been closed for a half hour — or for four hours] suddenly my fault?

Me.

So maybe there are only seven types of bookseller.

Fine.

…but then there’s me.

Not only do I know enough to do the job, I think about it on my own time.

I’m someone who is studied in history, philosophy, literature, classics, and current events; who can spell mis-pronounced titles in English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Latin, or even Japanese, who knows the difference between Hegel and Heidegger, or between neoclassical Palladian architecture and the classical palaces of Palatine hill. I can direct you to one of the one hundred thousand different items, and I can do it all before breakfast. Where are you going to find an expert on Shakespeare, Sci-Fi, history, sociology, psychology, mythology…

Heck, I was a physics major; you’d need real skills to trip me up on science and math…

You’d be lucky to have me on a team for Bar Trivia.

You should be so lucky as to shop at my store.

##

I know tens of thousands of internet readers saw the ‘seven types’ post. Despite all those who sarcastically said there should be the same for booksellers, no one bothered to follow up.

I think about my job every day. I don’t just show up. I don’t just go through the motions. Sure, it’s retail: but retail isn’t a condemnation of my character or a limitation on my goals. It’s business. And apparently, I think more about my business than all of you.

I know my staff at least as well as I know my customer base. I don’t expect an acknowlegement from the detractors, but I hope at the very least (unless you have something to contribute) you’ll shut the hell up.

Some consideration of the skills needed of your local bookseller, especially considering the typical tenor of your stoopid questions, is all I ask.

This isn’t the grocery store. Kindly recognize that we’ve skills, and they’re skills you rely on.

Dana Blankenhorn on Steve Jobs: “For daring to steal fire from the Gods, it is said, Prometheus was chained to a rock and sentenced to having his liver pecked out by birds.”

Geeks are prime, and easy, targets. Be careful, my brothers & sisters: they are gunning for our tech.

Cary Tennis @ Salon: “We are the music makers, we are the dreamers of dreams.”

##

Wait. What the hell is the Splash Page, why is it affiliated with MTV (you lost all cred with the fan base when you cancelled Daria, nerfwads) and given that there are many, many blogs who were reporting on the rumours a full month in advance, and at least two sites had the full story the day before, what the hell makes this an ‘exclusive’?

Oh, the ‘exclusive’ is that Fraggle Rock will be the first Henson property to see ink. (Tokyopop’s Labyrinth and Dark Crystal, Marvel’s ’80s efforts, and the recent — and excellent — Boom Studio’s Muppets aside.)

This is so far from an ‘exclusive’ I can only imagine that the only site that could get away with it is one that caters to the most casual of comic fans who are really only interested in the movies — who have never bought an actual book and who waste their days watching the worst in reality programming on basic cable…

Oh. hi, MTV, didn’t know you were listening.

The ‘journalism’ involved is even lower than my lax standards, which is especially galling given that fact that someone is paid to update their site, and I’m only giving this the merit of a link because I love Fraggle Rock, I love Henson (I consider Jim to be my third parent, and a small part of my soul died on 16 May, 1990) and just about anything that advances the Fraggle/Muppet cause has to be good news.

Don’t bother to click the MTV link, go read about it here. — and, um, if I was able to find a second, nearly identical story posted to a different website on the same day (and if timestamps are to be believed, 40 minutes before your article) what, exactly, makes your report exclusive, MTV? Hm?

aside: ooooo… Farscape Comics… [*homeresque gargle*]

and not so much an aside, but the music has been running though my head for the past three days reading all these fraggle articles

“Rethinking the Box” is a collection of my ruminations on retail, ostensively to outline my ideal [graphic novel] bookstore, but it’s a rough and twisted road I’m travelling to get there.

Part One — Part Two — Part 2½ — Part Three — Part 3½ — Part Four

##

So. You want to open a bookstore.

Are you nuts?

Let’s recap some salient points that you’ve forgotten

1. We’re looking at a break-even proposition. That is to say, meeting payroll and paying the bills (on average, over the long term — some years will be awfully lean). You might not even make enough profits to take a modest vacation. Ever.
2. You can’t beat Amazon or any of the major retailers on price. You have to find another way.
3. You need to be willing to work 80 hours a week. Of course, a lot of that is just manning your retail storefront 12 hours a day — and if you’re not busy, it isn’t going to be a hard 12 hours, just a tad boring and depressing.
(from Part Four of this series, as linked to above)

Let’s take a step back and try to get a ‘big picture’ view of what it is and what you want. (and after we seriously consider those two questions, the answer may not be your own bookstore).

Motive

I love books. If you’re still around reading my stuff at this point (many commented and linked, but I think The New Yorker put the final nail in the coffin on that one. And ‘Matt Blind’ is now a tag on their books blog; I hope I never merit the honour of its second use) odds are good you love books too.

Wouldn’t it be grand if one could work in an environment where one was surrounded by books every day? Imagine the conversations you’ll have, the satisfaction of helping people find the books they want and need, the joy of introducing the uninducted to the world of scholarship, literature, and the arts; the intellectual engagement possible when your clientele is made up of the book buying public, rather than the more pedestrian sort of retail customer.

[I’d advise against clicking the link to the article above — even though I wrote it — if you want to keep your cherished illusions about the business intact]

A lot of people who love books and think they’d love running a bookstore actually want a library. A personal library, with a lock on the door and the opportunity to restrict access to only those people they like. “Here is my collection, which I offer for ‘sale’ in as much as I’d like you to compliment my taste and insight in selecting these titles, and only these titles, which are worthy of my efforts and your consideration.”

Out and out snobbery of this type (and to this extent) is rare, but it exists in the back of the mind of every independent. It is a gross stereotype to characterise our model small bookseller as nothing but a judgmental prick peering over his glasses at you, aghast at your temerity for asking about Grisham of all people. “I’m sorry sir, I think you’ve mistaken us for the Big Box Bookstore out by the mall.”

Here’s the thing: If you want your own store, you’re going to need a little bit of that attitude to succeed.

—

Anyone (well, almost) can get a job as one of the drones working at Big Box Books. That isn’t to say they’ll be able to keep said job past a single Autumn, but in the build-up to Christmas (and other winter holidays of course, but Christmas is the headliner) we need warm bodies to run registers, shelve books, and stand at an information desk — the computer systems are good enough to enable your average youngster, with his or her years of internet experience, to handle routine searches and we’ve enough experienced staff (including a few ‘lifers’ like myself) to step in and deal with the hard cases.

That is to say: at any given time there are likely 60,000 to 80,000 people working in the trade (and that bumps up to 100,000-120,000 in November; in a normal year, anyway) [source1: pg 8 — source2: pg 65 — source3: pg 6 — source4; number of stores cited at 150 but without employment estimates.]

And the whole is so much bigger than just 1500 or so ‘superstores’ — some estimates say there are 11,000 bookstores in the US. [source] Even Mom & Pop stores have to employ someone. So maybe we should consider a round 100,000 employed in Bookselling retail, with another 50,000 seasonal employees (possible seasonal part-timers; not last year, obviously — or this upcoming Xmas season either for that matter).

That is to say, there are a lot of booksellers out there. Heck, anybody could do my job, why do I insist *I* have something new to contribute to the process?

—

To take that next step, past merely ‘working it’ and on towards ‘running it’, you need an ego. You need to be a snob. Else, you could just take your weekly check as a happy little wage slave and thank the customers & shareholders for the opportunity to answer questions and continually seek for the ‘Oprah’ book week after week after week. There’s the employee discount, after all, and health insurance and dental and a 401(k) and all the rest… why take a chance, why rock the boat?

Why?

If you plan to open up a bookstore, you’ll have to sort out your own ‘why’.

A consideration of motive is important. Hell, why do I want to open my own store?

Because you’re all doing it wrong, that’s why.

—

If you stand on the corner of your town square or commons or the intersection of Elm & Main and you see this same lack, the same failings, this opportunity and if everything I’ve posted about the slimmest of operating margins and the joys of customer service can’t dissuade you from your dream of owning a bookstore, then we may have something to work with.

##

Alongside motive, as any good mystery bookshop owner will tell you, is method and opportunity.

The Method is plain: You either start from scratch, or you buy an ongoing operation — a currently-operating bookstore that is either what you want or close enough that you can get there without breaking the bank with new investments, or breaking clean with the existing customer base. (if you’re changing so much that you lose the regulars, what’s the point of buying the business?)

Buying In seems to have obvious benefits, as the store will already have fixtures, inventory, community recognition and goodwill (and a decade or two of goodwill is priceless) and hopefully also a dedicated customer base — but half the time a business is up for sale because the current owner can’t make a go of it. They tried, they’re failing… slowly failing, else the store would be shuttered rather than sold, but still it’ll bleed you dry over time (same as the last owner) unless you can figure out something he or she didn’t/doesn’t know.

So, research, due dilligence, all of that: don’t just buy because a happy-looking little store (so cute! and it’s a bookstore!) happens to be on the market.

Starting from scratch is more difficult; starting from scratch may be the only way. That’s where I’ll pick up the topic again next week.

Found:
No images yet. Few details forthcoming to date. But listed everywhere as

Fruits Basket — The Complete Series Box and More!

isbn 9781427816955
List Price: $149.99, but none of us is going to pay that much, Amazon has it currently listed for under $100 and between the sale price and memberships and special offers and coupons, no matter what your retailer of choice, everyone should be able to buy this for less than a c-note. ~$4.35 a volume or less.

So if you haven’t read Fruits Basket yet (which while unlikely is possible) (or if you read it by borrowing it from the library — which is a lot more credible now that I think of it — and wanted to own a set) here’s your opportunity to pick up the series for a song, with some unnamed-but-exclamation-point-emphasized extras, and likely, a container to keep it all in. Should be a nice counterweight to my Naruto Shadow Box.

At time of posting it’s scheduled to street on 29 September; given their recent track record I’ll only believe a Tokyopop release date two weeks after it’s actually been delivered.

More: www.rocketbomber.com/category/found/

Glen Weldon, writing for the Monkey See blog over at the NPR website scores multiple times by

1. Covering the return of Captain America,
2. ironically,
3. noting that Cap #600 is available in stores now (quite a few media types are missing/forgetting/didn’t know that),
4. inventing the term “spandexhumation” to describe the phenomenon of routine return of dead heroes back to ongoing series, and

5. also giving us a “Deathspan” Index from Current Champ Barry Allen (and I’d say his record is safe because if anyone else gets close DC can just off him again) down to the single year we were without Superman. (It only seems longer because of what they subjected us to in the interim.)

Glen’s is the best take on CapBack [or is it ReCap?] that I’ve seen so far. Go, read:
“See how far down he is on the list? Relatively speaking, Cap’s two-year wormfood sabbatical just isn’t that big a deal. I don’t care what the CNN ticker says.”

(aside: Just about anything would be better than the 40s outfit — though the chain mail half-tee-shirt [or would that be scale mail?] would actually be a cool hold-over if it weren’t a half-tee-shirt. Judge Dredd has a better outfit, for crying out loud, and that’s one of the most miserable pieces of kit I think any hero has been burdened with — and also: that bullet wound to the stomach? Ya might not have been dead at all if you bothered with proper tactical gear. If I were to come back from the dead under similar circumstances, I’m thinking full-torso-and-crotch protection might be pretty high up on my shopping list)

image © Marvel, 2007, from the last big Cap event they were shilling.

It’s been a great ride, kids. 60,000 readers (and counting) and I know out of that, at least a couple dozen will stick around and become regulars — so long as I can update on some sort of regular schedule for the ‘regulars’ to follow.

The Seven Types of Customer are now a part of the internet (no take backs) and even if I retracted and rescinded the post now, well it’s far too late.

As an antidote to my sarcasm, let me just note here that Seth Godin thinks You Matter.

I’m still pretty sure that You Suck.

I can’t keep up with this mess forever. I’ve responded, twice in full posts and have tried in limited fashion to also keep up with the comments on each post. It’s not that I have better things to do but I’ve definitely other things to do and this fleeting adventure with internet popularity (however limited) has stalled a lot of projects.

The original posted two weeks ago. In ‘net terms, that’s like, forever. Thank you for stopping by and reading (especially if you’re still reading) but there are other things I’d like to talk about now.

“Since when am I a spokesman for a $25 billion dollar industry? Take your head out of your ass, exchange insults with me, and then figure out what your relationship is with your local bookseller.”

A number of the comments on a recent Rethinking the Box column have taken exception to the characterizations I made of bookstore customers.

This is, perhaps, my fault. Though I was merely describing general types in the piece, not specific customers and of course no one by name, I addressed the reader directly throughout with the pronoun ‘you’.

I apologise if you felt one of my less-than-laudatory profiles was specifically aimed at you.

I don’t even know you. There’s no way my account could apply to you, as I’ve never met you and odds are exceptionally good that you’ve never shopped at my store. Also, you don’t know me. I can be certain that even if you have shopped in my bookstore, I’ve never said anything or provided less than my best effort in helping you find your books.

You can, of course, take exception to ‘my best effort’ if that fails to meet your expectations. I invite you to write something on your own blog or other public fora describing my failings as an idiot bookseller who doesn’t even know what the Red Book is, even though it was prominently featured in a surprise, previously unpublicized segment on the extremely popular Oprah programme not more than 20 minutes prior to your bookstore visit.

You can even comment on my own site and call me an idiot, or call into question my continued employment, or the health of my store in particular or the industry in general, or the questionable value of ‘customer service’ in retail at large or in bookstores especially.

[…even though I have the ability to delete your comments and ban your IP. I can even go back and edit your comment to completely reverse the meaning of it, and you won’t even know because you’ve been banned and can’t come back to read it. It’s not something I’d do, but isn’t it amazing that I could.]

Here’s the thing: I don’t know you. Unless you’re a customer at my store you haven’t even contributed to my perception of the shopping public, and there is nothing you have done or could have done that I could possibly depict in any of my posts. There is the distinct possibility that I just happen to be employed at the worst neighborhood bookstore in the history of the world, located between the mission soup kitchen and the sanitarium, across the street from the bus station, and down the road from Bedlam.

No, instead of considering that I might just be unlucky, your first reaction and one so strong that it compels you to comment even though dozens have said the exact same thing on the same post before you, is to immediately feel insulted and to take my general comments as a personal attack,

You (and by ‘you’ I mean ‘those of you who have commented negatively’ and in the last post ‘you’ meant ‘those of you who exhibit these less-than-helpful behaviours’ — but perhaps you now understand that’s cumbersome to type all the time and I use the shorthand of the unadorned pronoun both in the pursuit of brevity and in the service of my extended argument) encourage others to boycott all bookstores because of what one bookseller said about some customers; you call into question my dedication to my job, or my suitability for such, or stand agape at my lack of gratitude that my store does any business at all.

Here’s the thing:

My Job is to Sell Books. If you want to boil my working day down to its essence, then at most, I should be at a register for a full eight hours to gladly and happily take your money or other tender in exchange for books. Perhaps we go so far as to put them in a bag for you.

When you shop at the grocery store, or a sporting goods store, or a hardware store, or a liquor store, or a clothing store, or a convenience store, or a furniture store, or even a car dealership for cryin’ out loud — that’s all you want. In fact, the Salesman in many of those locations is an impediment to your shopping experience & your enjoyment of the same.

Books are a different business. We stock (at my local outpost of Big Box Books) at a minimum, One Hundred Thousand different items. We can order millions more.

Stop and consider that for a bit. How many people went to your High School? Did you know each and every one of them well enough to describe them to a complete stranger? Do you remember who was on the football team, who was in the chess club, who dropped out, who transferred in; the rumours about the couples making out under the bleachers, the buzz about who did what with whom when; who had a car and who rode the bus; where they all went to university, or if they didn’t go on to further educational opportunities: where they enlisted, or are employed, or what?

There were around 1700 students at my school, a shade over 400 people in my graduating class. I couldn’t tell you about more than 50 of them.

One Hundred Thousand. Why, or even How am I supposed to know — off the top of my head — something about each and every one? Even If I had read a book a day every day that I’ve been alive, I’m not going to have personal knowledge of more than 10% of the total. Of course we rely on the computer.

But every customer that comes in expects the Bookseller to, of course, have an intimate knowledge of each and every last one of the Hundred Thousand Books on the shelves. Else, why are they working there?

We have an information desk. Pray tell, what other retailer has an information desk? I know we’re good at our job, but occasionally we’re going to fail. Why does our failure at a service we provide over, above, beyond, besides, in addition to and on top of any other retailer’s reasonable customer service expectation bother you people so much?

Instead of being grateful that we do invest so much in computer systems, and in finding and hiring enthusiastic book-lovers, and in organizing the Hundred Thousand Books on hand in numerous categories, and in attempting to maintain the stock in some semblance of order despite the concurrent need of customers to remove and relocate stock in their perfectly-understandable-efforts to shop the same,

You get all persnickety because I occasionally get frustrated at my own inability to satisfy customers due to a lack of information, or a lack of consideration, or because there is just no way that I can meet their expectations given the realities of retail (or the laws of physics) — and then I had the temerity to blog about it.

Sure, any one of you is well within your rights to cease shopping at any and all bookstores, or to limit your purchases to online retailers. You could do the same for your local supermarket.

I mean, it’s scandalous that your supermarket doesn’t employ clerks who can satisfactorily explain the difference between apples grown in Washington and New Zealand. That no one can recommend one brand of canned corn over another. That none of the associates can help us shop all the Mexican, Asian, & Kosher selections on offer; I mean, if they can’t properly direct us, why do they bother to put them on the shelf? And why do they seem so put out when I take the filet mignon over to the pharmacy, unwrap it, and start grilling? I have to know what it’s like before I buy it, right? That’s only common sense.

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I’d like to take a moment to thank all the readers who felt compelled to make a comment on the post in question. Rest assured, I will consider all of your suggestions in the spirit in which they were offered. In exchange, I’d ask that some of you stop and consider what makes bookselling different from other retail.