Ways to anger your bookseller (long, sorry)

[Dalvenja]

1. Place a soggy, partially eaten chunk of food on my counter, tell me it was really good, but you dropped this piece on the floor.

2. Decide you don't want to actually tell me you want to start a new frequent shopper card until the transaction is over, then yell at me, because I didn't tell you to start a new card.

3. Place your hands behind the sneeze guard in the cafe, and, when asked nicely to not put your hands there, proceed to push your hand further past the glass.

4. Don't use your words to communicate what you want, instead, point at a sign that I can't see, as I am behind it.

5. Yell at my co-worker, because the free frequent shopper card is a "rip-off", because it doesn't give you a dicount every time (trust me, the weekly coupons, in store deals, and other benefits outweigh a flat 10% discount every purchase).

6. Hand me a frequent shopper card that looks as though it's been living in the sewer for the last year.

7. Ask me questions while I am in the bathroom.

8. Order nothing but free water and then throw a fit when I give it to you in a glass, instead of a plastic cup.

9. Hand me your dirty dishes as I am trying to garnish a drink. I am busy making someone's food, would you want me handling partially eaten food whilst making your order?

10. Insist that the computer is lying, the customer has looked for the book and couldn't find it, so, obviously, I won't be able to find it, either. Let's not take into account that I've been here a year, and you've been here two weeks...

11. Stand at my register when I'm not there, wait for me, don't say anything indicating that you're done wandering aimlessly and want to be waited on.

12. Take five minutes to order, mostly because you end every word with a period. Please, also, make it sound like you're done ordering three times within your order...and get frustrated with me when I don't realize you're actually done ordering.

13. Order when A. I'm grinding coffee and can't hear you B. I'm making drinks and can't hear you C. I've told you I'll be with you in just a moment and finish taking the order of the person in front of you (the fact that you have to speak over me to make yourself heard should be a good indicator that I'm not ready to pay attention to you).

14. When given directions to the gift wrapping, look at me and ask, "Oh, it's outdoors?" If it were outdoors, I would have said "go out the doors" instead of "go past the doors.

15. Walk up to my register before I call you. There may well be a reason I haven't told you to come on down, like, I'm going on my break, going home, going to another department, or, like dogs can smell fear, I can smell SC's from a mile away, and don't want you.


I think I've gotten all my Black Weekend angst out, thanks.

[Luna]

I'm lonmg gone from the bookstores but I still have horrible flashbacks that have me shaking with rage over the stupidity of bookstore shoppers:

15)Don't scream at me over the price - it's printed by the PUBLISHER on the book itself.

16)Don't order 5 venti fraps one minute before closing.

17)Out of Print means just that. It's not being printed any more. Which means we can't get it. No I don't know why - there could be hundreds of reasons. I don't decide what goes out of print - stop yelling at me.

18)Don't complain about the cost of books when your wife then walks up and says she spilled her latte all over a stack of them. THAT's why we can't afford to discount them!

19) The coffee tables are for books and coffee. Not your stanky feet that you peeled sweaty socks and shoes off and now have them propped up on display for the world to smell. You are not at home. You are in a retail establishment.

20)Just b/c I work(ed) in a bookstore, does not mean I am fair game for all men to hit on.

21)Don't tell me you didn't read the book you're trying to return when the damn spine is so creased it looks like you opened it backwards and used it like a party decoration.

22) No you can't return last years highlighted and underlined SAT books.

23)No you can't use your elementary educator discount for the Kama Sutra, Maxim, and John Grishams' latest novel.

24)Stop pissing and vomiting in the big comfy chairs and sofas. You can do that in your own furniture thanks.

25)Stop painting the bathroom walls, stalls, mirrors and ceiling with toilet paper and chunks of your own feces. I am only ever impressed with how you shot it up that high, but that lasts for maybe 30 seconds before I wish you dead.


Oh how I could go on & on...

[Antisocial_Worker]

26. Do not attempt to rush sex education by taking the marital aid books and distributing them among the childrens books or study aids. Five year olds do not need to look at the photoillustrated Kama Sutra.

27. Do not snag a compilation of the Penthouse Letters and wander the store casually reading and apparently attempting to scratch an itch on your inner thigh through your pants pocket.

28. Do not, if you are a 10-year-old boy, double, triple, quadruple dog dare your similar in age friend to remove the plastic bag from Playgirl, then scream at the sultry, naked male horror that unfolds once you open the cover.

29. Do not turn your child loose in the noisy books section to press the little button that says "Elmo needs to go potty!" again and again and again and again and again and again as though it were some sort of passive electronic babysitter.

30. Do not insist that the bookseller in the tight sweater that shows off her enormous hooters, and the short little skirt that can be easily looked up be the one to climb the ladders to get an overstocked book for you.

31. Do not, if you are carrying a K-Mart bag containing scented candles, bath oils, and baby lotion -- especially if you are a middle-aged male -- discuss the contents and your plans for the night with those contents, with the college-age female bookseller.

32. Do not allow your 5-year-old daughter to drop trou in the kids books, take a dump on the floor, and then jump up and down in it, leaving clear shoeprints in the feces that, if one were so inclined, would be the perfect sort of shoeprints of which to make a plaster cast like they're always doing on CSI.

33. If you do allow your 5-year-old daughter to do the preceding, do not flee from the store clutching said daughter by one arm, causing her to flap like an airport windsock in the breeze as you run from the scene.

[DesignFox]

To all of those.... Esp. the bathroom related stories....

After talking to Luna, and now hearing the additional comments...I will NEVER work in a bookstore!

[Hraesvelg7]

So it isn't just my store that gets the feces-on-the-ceiling thing. Peeing/pooping/spitting/ejaculating/etc in the chairs and on the floor seems to be a universal theme in booktsores. What is it about bookstores that makes people so eager to spread their various excretions around in public?

[powerboy]

I can be considered a book seller, since, we sell Mangas at my store.

34) Do not remove a book from a section and walk around the store, and plop the book down in another section.

[Fera Festiva]

Another bookstore veteran here!

35) Do not show up to the Harry Potter launch party stoned, eat ALL THE SWEETS, and freak out the kids.

36) Do not ask the assistant if she can sell you some pot.

37) Please, please, when you ask for the special interest gay photography magazine (read: soft porn, although "soft" is hardly the word) we keep under the counter - remove your hands from your overcoat pockets. Please.

[Imogene]

I can be considered a book seller, since, we sell Mangas at my store.

In that case, 38) Do NOT come into my store with the tiny aisles, walk right up to the manga, and grab the newest edition of whatever series you've been reading, and plop down on our dirty, disgusting floor, blocking foot traffic, paying customers, and the like, to read. I will pick you up by the shoulders and throw you out of the store.

39) Same for a manga series you've never read that now has some thirty books to it, and attempt to read them all in one sitting.

[Bliss]

Number 32 makes me want to curl up and quietly die

[Primer]

40. If you see me leaving the register, and somebody else come back in, please do not wait for me to get off my hour lunch break just so that I will be the one to wait on you. The other cashiers are perfectly capable of helping you, too.

41. If I tell you that the book you want to special order in February will not be released until December, please do not call me back every day asking if it's come in yet.

42. Please, please, please, have more of a description of the book you want me to find than "It's blue, and it has a woman's torso on the cover." (Yes, I found it. No she did not want me to hold it at the counter for her. It turned out to be a secret shopper over the phone. That was in 1981, and I still remember the title: Callanetics.)

[Threesidedorchid]

Dalvenja I'm at the same chain... and you're so right about the coupons etc. = more than the 10% flat discount (esp. w/ the holiday credit).

just adding a couple:

do not 'order' a doubled cupped large hot water, split the water into two cups, and then reach over my counter for the cocoa powder (incidentally spilling the syrup bottles all over the place) so that you and your husband can have free 'hot cocoa'.

do not dispose of your half finished pasry/drink by stashing it on a shelf, behind the books -- that doesn't make it magically disappear.

don't walk past 6 displays of the bestseller you're looking for just to ask me where it is.

oh the list goes on and on...

[Antisocial_Worker]

46. Do not meticulously comb the store for any book that might ostensibly contain an image of boobies -- including Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book and then remove said books from shelves, and proceed to meticulously comb through the books in search of the aforementioned images of boobies.

47. Especially do not do the preceding if you are a middle-aged man who bears a marked resemblance to Toad of Toad Hall, wearing thick, bleary, Mr. Peepers spectacles that warp your appearance even further. And especially do not do the preceding while allowing your tongue to flick in and out as you search for boobies, as though you are attempting to snare passing winged insects.

48. Do not remove the naughty magazines from their plastic bags, open them to a particularly hot page, and prop them open among the childrens magazines.

[Cedophile]

32. Do not allow your 5-year-old daughter to drop trou in the kids books, take a dump on the floor, and then jump up and down in it, leaving clear shoeprints in the feces that, if one were so inclined, would be the perfect sort of shoeprints of which to make a plaster cast like they're always doing on CSI.

I now perfectly understand the fabled "cat face" that SC's do. Because this reading made me do it. EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

[Jester]

30. Do not insist that the bookseller in the tight sweater that shows off her enormous hooters, and the short little skirt that can be easily looked up be the one to climb the ladders to get an overstocked book for you.

Pardon me, but can you direct me to the bookstore in which said young lady works? Just out of curiousity, mind you.

33. If you do allow your 5-year-old daughter to do the preceding, do not flee from the store clutching said daughter by one arm, causing her to flap like an airport windsock in the breeze as you run from the scene.

This made me laugh my silly little ass off. Literally. I no longer am a possessor of an ass. I am now sitting on my spine. No ass. Thanks to you.

Airport windsock indeed.

[Kusanagi]

In that case, 38) Do NOT come into my store with the tiny aisles, walk right up to the manga, and grab the newest edition of whatever series you've been reading, and plop down on our dirty, disgusting floor, blocking foot traffic, paying customers, and the like, to read. I will pick you up by the shoulders and throw you out of the store.

I'm a little guilty of this one