Can't I Just Go Home?

Wow! It's been almost a month since my last post. Either I'm extremely busy or I'm running out of material. Hmmm... luckily, I managed to have another brain dropping (RIP, George Carlin) thanks to Independence Day.

I was one of the lucky few scheduled to work on July 4th at the media mecca where I'm employed. The store, which normally closes at 11 pm on Fridays, was closing at 7 pm for the holiday, and my shift was noon to close. I clocked in at 11:59 on the dot (punctual as ever, that's me!), walked out to the front of the store, and asked myself, "What the hell am I doing here?" It was a beautiful summer day -- the storybook July 4th, a perfect day to spend watching the local parade, swimming at the beach or doing yard work. Needless to say, the store was empty. Of the eight people in the store, six of us were being paid (barely) to be there. Perhaps the other two were looking for soundtrack music for their amateur fireworks display? Whatever their situation, I felt sorry for them. There's something very lonely about someone spending a holiday in a store when they should be spending time with friends and family. At least it wasn't Thanksgiving. The best, though, was yet to come. Normally, we spend fifteen minutes or half an hour after the store closes straightening the bookshelves and replacing merchandise. Not that night. The manager was determined to get us out that day no later than 7:05. There were no customers between 6:30 and 7:00, so we were looking good and all set to make a clean getaway. Not so fast! Sure enough, as we're getting ready to walk out the door, someone is approaching from outside. The manager pointed to the sign, which displayed the holiday hours plain as day. The potential customer gives him a dirty look, shakes his head, and gets back in the car. Of course, this raised a few questions in my mind:

1. We work in a bookstore. What book, movie, or CD could possibly have been so important that this fellow felt the necessity to get it on July 4th? Why couldn't it wait until, say 9:01 am on July 5th?

2. Why wait until 7:00 pm on July 4th? Why not make this critical purchase at 9:01 am on July 4th? Or better yet, 9:01 am on July 3rd?

3. Why wasn't this person in his back yard enjoying a barbecued hot dog and a beer and getting his kids ready to go watch some fireworks?

Assuming the customer in question is a normal, well-adjusted individual with a steady 9-5 job and his own desk and secretary, I wonder how he would react if I called his office at 4:49 pm on a Friday afternoon. See, I've been on the receiving end of that. I've been at that desk, primed and ready for the weekend, counting down the seconds until I can make a mad dash out the door. Sure enough, the phone rings because someone has no sense of time management. They realized right then that this phone call must be made RIGHT NOW. To hell with anyone else involved, to hell with their personal plans, to hell with that train leaving the station in fifteen minutes when the next one doesn't leave for another half hour after that, to hell with common courtesy.

Inconsiderate swine.

Hold the Line

Hacking Netflix ran a post last week about experimental text-message marketing in movie theaters, which predictably resulted in a few not-so-mild rants about the unfortunate combination of cell phones, rude/ignorant cell phone addicts, and the havoc they tend to cause in a darkened theater. We’ve all seen the friendly public-service announcements prior to the movie asking us to please silence (not turn off, but “silence”) our cell phones. The AT&T commercials featuring the late Sydney Pollack and Martin Scorsese are hilarious:

Unfortunately, no one has bothered to make a commercial asking people to silence their cell phones while interacting with other people. Here’s something that happens pretty much on a daily basis at my store, and probably just about any location where goods and services are sold:

Mr. Self-Importance – another frequent customer, I should add, and will inevitably be mentioned again and again in various incarnations – comes into the check-out line yapping away on his Bluetooth headset and plops his purchases in front of me. He’s sending a clear message to me even though he hasn’t acknowledged my presence. He’s telling me, without actually telling me, that I’m not important enough to warrant a civilized greeting. When I ask him how his day is going, he can’t be bothered to reciprocate, assuming he’s even heard one word out of my mouth. The planning stages for his son’s 11^th birthday party are so vitally crucial, he doesn’t dare pause for a moment, not even to notice his latest issue of Sports Illustrated or Playboy costs more than the amount of cash he has carelessly tossed on the counter. So now Mr. Self-Importance is holding up the line and I’m not the only one giving him a dirty look. He tells the person on the other end of the call to “Hold on a sec,” hurriedly fishes out a couple more bills from his wallet, and then resumes discussing the merits of Chuck E. Cheese vs. GameWorks. He holds out his hand; I hand him his change and receipt. He’s so oblivious to his surroundings that I could just as easily hand him a box of Trojans without him noticing. Mr. Self-Importance grabs his purchases and exits the store, completely unaware of how socially inappropriate he is.

Argument

“The opinions of bookstore people, who are both cynical and divinely hopeful – often at the same time, which makes these battle-scarred veterans of the culture wars totally engaging schizos – are not to be sneezed at. Men and women who work in bookstores are like E.F. Hutton: When they talk, I listen.” – Stephen King, writing for Entertainment Weekly

How to Make a Bad Gift Even Worse

Here are some notes and observations about Mrs. Cheapskate – a character I'm sure will have a recurring role here at SWFS – who took up thirty minutes of my time yesterday. The reason I took so long with her was partly because she never shut up and partly because she was generally a pain in the ass. She was apparently buying some poor slob a wedding present:

1. Just because the groom is graduating from culinary school does not mean that a bunch of cheap cookbooks (I was able to dissuade her from including 365 Easy Chicken Recipes) make an ideal gift. One of my co-workers, who is also attending culinary school and also receives her fair share of cookbooks as gifts, raised an interesting question: if she was a stripper instead of a future chef, would people give her g-strings and platform shoes on her birthday? I’m sure the happy couple, like most people in the area, registered for their wedding at Crate & Barrel or Macy’s. Heaven forbid Mrs. Cheapskate gives them something they actually want or need.
   

2. She should never buy a wedding present from a bookstore’s bargain shelf. Spending $23 on five books is no way to show some love for a bride and groom, especially if she drove to the store in a Lexus.
   

3. A wedding is supposed to be all about the bride, no matter how much the groom thinks otherwise. Yet Mrs. Cheapskate was buying gifts that were clearly targeted at the groom. She could have made an effort to get them a gift they would both enjoy by purchasing something off of their registry.
   

4. Items on any store’s bargain racks are placed there for a couple of reasons: a) nobody wants them and b) they make terrible gifts (because nobody wants them).
   

5. I had meticulously added gift receipts to each of the books so that they could easily be exchanged for store credit when they inevitably boomerang back to the store. Yet Mrs. Cheapskate, in a fit of old world, flat-earth reasoning, grumbled “Young people return too much. That’s why they never have any stuff!” and then pulled all the gift receipts from the books. When I asked politely if she was certain this was how she wanted to proceed, this scion of generosity arrogantly stated that if they needed to return the books, they could let her know and she would forward the receipt. I had to bite my tongue; if I were the recipient of such lame gifts and haughty attitude, I would have been livid. My mother-in-law “doesn’t believe in” gift receipts, and it drives me bonkers. Not to beat a dead horse, but there wouldn’t be an issue one way or the other if Mrs. Cheapskate had simply given the couple something from their bridal registry. Of course, that might require that she spend more than $23…

To Card, or Not to Card? That is the Question...

Here’s a fun little conundrum: Last week, I was chatting away and having a very pleasant conversation with a customer and her young son as I was ringing up their purchase. As I was extolling the virtues of one of the books this lady was purchasing, she snaps at me (interrupting me in mid-sentence, as a matter of fact), “You know, for a hundred twenty dollars, you should really be checking ID!” and shoved the back of her credit card under my nose, so that I could plainly view the signature plate where “ASK 4 ID” was somewhat illegibly scrawled. So much for the pleasant conversation we were having. Her tone was so nasty that her kid noticed how heinous his mother was being and called her out: “Mom, you don’t have to be so mean about it!” Yeah! Ok, I actually refrained from adding my own editorial comments about her behavior. I’m pretty sure my once cheerful customer now blamed me for her son’s insolent outburst, so that didn’t exactly improve her mood. I made a feeble apology, and she stalked away to her huff parked outside with her kid in tow. To the customer’s credit, if she had been nice, politely pointed out her lack of signature, and asked that I take more care in the future, I probably would forgotten all about it and not learned my lesson. As a result of her sneak-attack bitchiness, though, I’ve been vigilant about checking ID ever since.

A couple of nights ago, I’m in a similar situation where I’m talking with a different customer as I’m ringing up her purchase. She hands me her credit card, and since I have transformed into the Signature Nazi, I notice that it’s unsigned. I politely ask to see her ID, but judging by her reaction, I could have been asking to see her voter registration, social security card, and a list of any known aliases. I get a sigh and a big roll of the eyes before the ID is produced, and then she mutters, “You know, it’s not like I’m going to bother stealing thirty bucks of merchandise.” She then snatches up her books and stalks out of the store. Coincidentally, she also had a huff parked outside!

Apparently, I can’t win. I get yelled at for not checking ID and guilt-tripped when I do. As far as I know, there’s no rule that says that if the purchase is under a certain amount, it’s ok for the credit card to not have a signature. My McJob certainly doesn’t pay enough for me to think on my own. Either way, I’m sure it’s my fault.

My Pet Peeve Wears Sunglasses

“Oh, and if you wear sunglasses indoors, you deserve to be punched.” – Will Leitch, author and creator of the Deadspin sports blog

The above quote, from Will Leitch’s very entertaining and informative book God Save the Fan, is in reference to the World Series of Poker, where competitors are frequently in the habit of wearing sunglasses. This blog has nothing to do with poker or sports (unless, of course, I feel the need to bring up something poignant, such as the fact that both of the professional baseball teams in Chicago are currently sitting at the top of their division standings), but I felt Mr. Leitch’s quote so closely echoed my own sentiments that I had to include it here. Don’t get me wrong: I have nothing against sunglasses or people who wear sunglasses. I even have my own pair and they get plenty of use. In fact, most of my friends and family wear sunglasses. But damn, it annoys the hell out of me when someone is talking to me indoors, and I can’t look them in the eye. Why? That’s right... because they’re wearing sunglasses. We’re in a darkened lobby, it’s raining outside, and the loser complaining to me about the two-inch diameter carpet stain that positively ruined his stay in my hotel thinks he’s P. Diddy on his way to a White Party.