Gah!!! Pay Attention and Think.

[Mark Healey]

Ok, people. Used book stores rarely have the latest and greatest in tech gagetry. For example, if you sell and want trade credit instead of cash, we write it on the back of a business card, sign and stamp it. Because this is time consuming and a pain in the ass I ask if they would like a credit slip or if they would like to find something now. If they say they would like to find something now I just scrawl the offer on a post-it and stick it to the pile, instead of going through the whole credit slip rigamarole.

Half the time when they say they want a slip they immediately start shopping and use it 10 minutes after I wrote it. Dumbasses!!! Pay attention to what I am asking.


P.S. As I was writing this some nimrod asked me where the non-fiction section was.

[BookstoreEscapee]

P.S. As I was writing this some nimrod asked me where the non-fiction section was.

I always wished I could slap those people.

[AnaKhouri]

People do that ALL the time where I work. Here's the thing: our store is huge. Fiction is a small, clearly marked section in a red-carpeted area. (All the other carpet in the store is green).

So when people ask, I say, "See that spot that says 'Fiction'? Non-fiction is everywhere else." >sweeping gesture that takes in both floors< "Now, what subject did you need?"

[RetailWorkhorse]

"Now, what subject did you need?"

RW: Gay Literature, please!

Meanwhile, the bookstore attendant I just asked is having a seizure....before being saved by the Owner because he held onto the few that comes in for me.

[Mark Healey]

RW: Gay Literature, please!

"Twelve B"

[Fenrus]

RW: Gay Literature, please!

I always feel dirty when I paruse the Gay section in my local B&N... I think it's because they put it on the same shelf as the LDS books... (Gay on one side, religion on the other)

[Chromatix]

Oooh, I like that placement.

[HowMayIHelpYouToday]

I'm sorry but I don't get why is "Where's the non-fiction section?" a stupid question at a used bookstore... since the store makes less per book it may not want to spend the time sorting, but I don't get why the question itself is annoying or out of place...

[Chromatix]

Non-fiction could mean textbooks, biographies, reference, documentaries, travel guides, maps...

Many bookstores specialise in one or more of these areas, so would separate them into their own section, rather than having a generic "non-fiction" section. The campus bookshop I used at university had several textbook sections, approximately grouped by faculty.

[Mnemjian]

Hey Mark~~ People do this to me a lot, too. What also weirds me out is when people just kind of grab a handful of business cards and stuff them into their bag when they're leaving. I mean, unless they plan on handing them out as advertisements for us because they love us so much, I really don't think anybody needs twenty of our business cards. We DO pay money for those.....

And yeah, the non-fiction section in our store is about 80% of the store so you can't really point to it, you can only gesture widely. Thought I think that in Borders and the like, they have a huge fiction section and much smaller non-fiction ones so they might group them all together as "non-fiction." (Just a guess )

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I'm sorry but I don't get why is "Where's the non-fiction section?" a stupid question at a used bookstore... since the store makes less per book it may not want to spend the time sorting, but I don't get why the question itself is annoying or out of place...

Depends on how the used bookstore chooses to sort its books.

I'd consider it not specific enough. Non-fiction can means reference books, biographies, reference books, and so on as stated before. It's not the suckiest thing a person could ask, but it does get annoying.

It would be like coming to my store and asking for a chair. We have office chairs, we have kitchen chairs, we have recliners, we have barstools that some people like to call chairs, we have metal folding chairs, we have folding chairs in sporting goods that fold into their own carrying bag. And sometimes when I ask these people what kind of chair they're looking for, they get all huffy and say "You know, a CHAIR! That you sit on!"

[Pagan]

P.S. As I was writing this some nimrod asked me where the non-fiction section was.

Well, where is it? *ducks and runs*

Non-fiction could mean textbooks, biographies, reference, documentaries, travel guides, maps...

Many bookstores specialise in one or more of these areas, so would separate them into their own section, rather than having a generic "non-fiction" section. The campus bookshop I used at university had several textbook sections, approximately grouped by faculty.

What he said.

It would be like coming to my store and asking for a chair.

Or coming into Wally World and asking for "Equate" (that's the store brand for all the drugs).

Which some meth head did do the other night. And then wouldn't say Equate *whatever it was he wanted*.