Smell You Later

So this post really falls under the heading of General Retail/ Life Rules. I actually wrote it a few years ago, so the two of you who read it then are in for a re-run.

This post was inspired by my new retail job as I have left BookWorld and am temporarily back in Fancy Cooking retail. What really inspired this post is not so much the job as the citiizens of the town I currently work in. Glendale, California is a wholly unique retail experience that I had pretty successfully repressed from the last time I worked there. In the past few weeks it has all come rushing back to me in wave after unpleasant wave. There is a long list of things I have only experienced or experienced on an EXTREME level there. So, without further ado-

BookWench's Retail/Life Rule of the Week -

                     It's A Perfume Spray, not a Marinade

That's right folks - this week's lesson is inspired by the overwhelming number of inconsiderate people I am forced to interact with on a daily basis who feel the need to announce their presence with scent, often minutes before they themselves arrive.  Seriously people - a little dab will do you.  Now that we, as a people, have access to regular showers, deodorant and a dizzying array of bath products the need to douse ourselves in cheap perfume is no longer necessary.  In fact it's kind of aggressive and rude to the people forced to inhale your nauseating stench.  This goes double if your bottle of perfume cost less than $5 or contains the words "Designer Impostors."  Triple if I can smell your perfume from more than a foot away or can still smell it more than a minute after you leave.  Quadruple annoyance points if everything you own, including the credit card you hand me is saturated with your scent.  It's plastic people, it should not be saturated with anything.  And, finally, I should be allowed to ask you to leave my general vicinity and bestow the highest order of annoyance on you if I can TASTE your fragrance if I come within a foot of you.  (I actually had to rinse my mouth out with strong coffee the other night because I could taste a gentleman's cologne on my tongue for a solid hour after he invaded my personal space.) 

Remember - a good perfume should be used as an allure.  A subtle whiff to catch the attention of those around you and create a positive sense memory they can connect with you.  The secret to creating interest is to always leave your audience wanting more. Not to leave everyone in your wake gasping and rushing for the nearest source of fresh air. You do not want the people around you to associate you with funeral homes, Great-aunt Gertrude, or a pounding headache and the fervent hope that lunch stays down.

Please - as a fellow human being I implore everyone, especially the majority population of Glendale, CA*- go easy with the fragrances.  I promise people will still notice you even if they can't smell you coming and going.  Buy better perfume and use just a little, the world will be greatful for your restraint.  And pass this information along to any perfume abusers in your life.


*Proof that it's not just me- After posting this I watched a recent episode of Chuck - "Chuck vs the Frosted Tips" where they make a joke about a character smelling like the Glendale Galleria.  I like it when the TV proves I'm not overly judgmental.

Bard Rage Part 2

           To begin I would like to apologize for taking another break in the blog. I've been working on another writing project, one that you'll be able to watch on your magic internet devices in early 2012. It's a really exciting project, and it even ties back in to BookWorld, and I'll be updating about it here as it gets closer to realization.

         As I return to this world I thought I would end the suspense from this previous post*, and present Shakespearian Pet Peeves numbers 4 and 5. I'm so kind, the two people moderately interested in this information are going to be pleased. I decided to combine these two since they don't really warrant an entire post each, but they still fill me with a significant amount of Bard-Nerd rage.

So with out further ado-

BookWench's Shakespearian Pet Peeve # 5 – 

Twilight Re-Branding.

So this exists-

            I understand the business logic- people will pay money for ANYTHING (seriously, anything) provided it says Twilight, Edward, Bella, or Jacob, or if it has the now distinct black, red, and white cover design and font style seen above. And I wasn't that upset when the co-opted Wuthering Heights since both books involve overbearing, controlling men and the women who are slavishly devoted to them, unconcerned with whomever else they hurt along the way. (I told you I had some Bronte issues.) But when you go for my Romeo and Juliet, I'm going to have some issues.

            The only way this becomes okay with me is if you retroactively make the main characters of Twilight kill themselves in the same number of pages given to Romeo and Juliet. (Though that almost seems too nice and quick, as I would like them to die slowly, preferably at my hands.**)

           Seriously Twi-hards, you make my book retail life miserable enough, leave the things I love alone.

BookWench's Shakespearian Pet Peeve #5 - 

“Why isn't Shakespeare in non-fiction with the other history books?”

           I'm sorry foolish customer, but the PLAY about the deposed duke who becomes a wizard and lives on a magical island and controls the spirits there is not a history book. It's a make pretend story. And I know it's written in “that old-timey language,”*** but it's still not a history book.

           Even the History Plays aren't a very factual account of what happened. Shakespeare was writing revisionist history to please the monarch currently on the throne, partly because he needed aristocratic patronage, but also because he liked his head firmly attached to his body. So Richard III gets a made-up hunchback and an extra veneer of evil because his defeat allowed the Tudor (and later Stuart) dynasties to exist. So no matter how you slice it Shakespeare does not belong on a shelf with meticulously researched, very dense tomes about the actual history of England. We don't keep Sophocles over there either, and his plays are even older than Bill's.****

           So there you go – two more Shakespearian Pet Peeves (and a Bronte/Twilight peevish bonus!) shared with the world (i.e. the 10 of you who read this blog.) I'm saving the last two for days when I've had more to drink so I don't die of a rage stroke on my keyboard.  Seriously, I've hung up on people, left the room, and yelled at the TV for things related to the top two, unforgivable Shakespeare transgressions.

*Now edited to include a picture of one of the dumbest tattoos ever.

**Yes, I am aware I cannot actually murder fictional characters. But I really want to.  Having said that I am probably now on some sort of Twilight enemies list.  Someone will find me dead with Team Edward Forever written in my blood next to my dead body.

***Actual customer quote

****That's right, we have a friendly nickname-y relationship.

I'll Stick With Leeches and Magic...

In this post I talked about one of my (and my co-workers) least favorite customer groups, the Spoiled Bride. I've decided to expand upon that into a five-part series – BookWench's Least Favorite Customer Types. Before we continue I would like to offer this disclaimer: I realize that not everyone who falls into the groups I discuss are as dumb/ rude/ lazy as the individual examples I'm discussing in these articles. In fact, the reason a lot of these groups stand out or are particularly disturbing is how far to the negative extreme they fall in comparison to the hard-working, intelligent people who share their profession.

And on that note- Annoying Customer Group #4- Clueless Nurses.

I think the reason this particular group stands out so much and becomes so grating on the booksellers' nerves is because talking to someone who deals with life or death situations, but can't figure out how to get to the second floor of a building while standing in front of a staircase and an elevator is kind of terrifying. (Still not making this stuff up.)  It terrified me so much that I while working at the Borders in California I told my friends that under no circumstances was I to be taken to the hospital closest to the bookstore. I would rather take my chances and head to a different hospital then run the risk of being treated by the nurse who couldn't remember the name of the big test you had to take in order to become a nurse. She was convinced it was the RN-SAT, and could not be convinced that is was, in fact, the NCLEX. I can at least take a little comfort in thinking that she wouldn't find a place to take the imaginary test she was looking for and therefore wouldn't become a nurse.

I'm also concerned when I run across a nurse who has found the Health & Medicine section but cannot narrow down which shelves have the nursing books on you. For those of you who don't frequent the section- they're the ones that say NURSING. Or sometimes NURSING REFERENCE. Something with some form of the word “nurse,” clearly typed in large letters affixed to the shelf in question. What do these people do when confronted with the complexities of the human body? They are aware that people aren't labeled, right?

When I step into a medical facility I want to be assured that everyone treating me is much, much smarter than I am where matters of human anatomy and medical treatment are concerned. Which is why it is so troubling when I know more medical terms and references than the people who are studying/ working in the medical field.

The final straw that plants them so firmly in the Least Favorite Customer list is a trait they share with the Spoiled Brides and, in fact, all the groups on the list, they almost always leave a huge mess. And, since a lot of study materials come with flash cards, they leave a huge mess that we then have to take off the shelf and dispose of because we can't sell the open, damaged set of flashcards, or the study guide that they've written in/ spilled coffee on. I understand that school and textbooks and study guides are expensive, but again, try the magical library place, or skip a couple of fancy coffees and buy the book.

Before the lynch mob forms – I have the utmost respect for nurses who are good at what they do, as it an incredibly demanding and often thankless job. And those who do it well are amazing, and I am very impressed by the friends I have who have chosen this profession. They are much nicer people than I am. And I think they should be first in line to shame/ reprimand the people in their profession giving them a bad name by going out in public and asking for the Cliff Notes to Gray's Anatomy - “Because I don't understand the regular version.”

"[Hamlet] didn't say that. That Polonius guy did…"

As a self-professed, permanently inked Shakespeare nerd it comes as no surprise to anyone that I have quite a few, very specific Bard-related pet peeves. I was going to do a multi-part series of my top five, building up to number one, but this week made me jump straight to number three*: People who quote Polonius as a philosophical role model.

The feelings of rage surfaced this week as I was looking through the archives of fyeahtattoos, because I'm unemployed at the moment and spend far too much time looking at the internet. I started noticing an unhealthy number of people walking around sporting a line from a wholly unlikeable character in an attempt to seem deep and introspective. Two thing Polonius is not.

Polonius is a political animal through and through. He passes his devotion to whomever can give him the most power. He is a professional toady, willing to sacrifice his daughter to help a murderous king get rid of his pesky nephew (and rightful heir to the throne). He gets killed while eavesdropping on a conversation between Hamlet and his mother, which Polonius set up to chastise Hamlet into good behavior. So really people, this is the guy you turn to for your life's philosophy? I'm not saying Hamlet's a much better option, because he's kind of unstable and for a thirty-three year old, acts rather immature at times. Really only Horatio and the Ghost seem to be stable enough to really take direction from. (Laertes has been poisoned by being raised by Polonius, and Fortinbras doesn't really have enough lines to base any life choices on. Though I imagine Elsinore became much more stable and less bloody after he took over.)

Polonius is best known and referenced for the scene in which he is giving advice to his son, Laertes, as he leaves to study abroad. The entire thrust of Polonius' advice is to be selfish, look out for number one, and never let anybody know too much about the real you. Excellent advice for a future sycophantic courtier, but unless you want to become a ruthless CEO (or ruthless CEO's butt-kissing underling), it's maybe not the best advice to follow in your day-to-day life in the modern age.

So- before you throw down at least a hundred bucks to get “To thine own self be true” permanently and prominently placed on your body, consider the source. You're not actually proclaiming to be the most real and honest version of yourself, you're saying I'm always going to put myself first. And that I don't understand what my tattoo actually means, or where it's from, but so many other people have it, it has to be all deep and stuff. (I also have a pet peeve about people getting stupid, generic, flash tattoos.) Anyone with a basic understanding of Shakespeare, Hamlet, or the Queen's English will not be impressed with your professed philosophy. I personally would back away with great haste.

I'll leave all of you with a different option to express a desire to be true to your own morals, philosophies and ideals: go with the Oracle of Delphi and “Know Thyself.” Still classic (in fact it pre-dates Shakespeare), still uses that fancy English, and doesn't reference a nattering buffoon of a character.

Edited to add- I found this tattoo a few days ago.  Misspelled, HUGE, and quoting Polonius.  That is a truly hideous waste of your time and money, and it's there forever. My brain hurts.

*I'll probably go back to four and five, and you will DEFINITLY hear about one and two...

Imaginary, My Dear Watson?

Way back at the beginning of this blog I mentioned that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle may, in fact, be the greatest author ever. Now, I'm not saying this as a huge Sherlock Holmes fan. I enjoy the stories, I love the new BBC series , I enjoy the Robert Downey Jr. version and I like the show House (House/Holmes, Wilson/Watson- connect the dots and you end up back on Baker Street), but it's not one of my personal literary obsessions. I still posit that Doyle is an amazing author because of how many people are unaware he exists.

I have spoken to a significant number of people who truly believe that Sherlock Holmes was a real detective, and that either he or Dr. Watson merely transcribed their cases into a narrative format. Much like when an actor loses themself so completely into a role you don't even recognize them from movie to movie, so Doyle loses himself in Holmes. Doyle has managed to imbue his character with so much depth and personality that people forget he's a fictional character.

I even helped one customer who refused to believe that he was fictional, and then looked at me liked I kicked his puppy when I showed him the wikipedia entry talking about Doyle and the character he created. The poor kid was writing a report on Scotland Yard and wanted a biography of their most famous detective, Sherlock Holmes. So, not only did I have to explain that people don't really write biographies of fictional characters (and what fictional means), but also that that character was more of an independent contractor than a permanent member of staff at Scotland Yard. It was a long night for both of us.

I also had another customer get mad when she couldn't find any of the books shelved under Holmes in the mystery section. When I explained that we kept the books under the author's name, not the main character's, she informed me that Sherlock Holmes was the author. In fact, Sherlock Holmes was her favorite author. She seemed very subdued when I showed her to the Ds and pointed out the actual author's name. I don't if she was sad because she had to find a new favorite author, or because she was thinking about how many people she had told that her favorite author was a fictional character. I imagine there were some awkward pauses in conversations as people tried to process that information.

So, on that note, I commend Sir Arthur and the amazing longevity and power of his character. Since the public outcry that forced him to resurrect the character from death through the (literally) hundred years of film and TV versions, Sherlock Holmes has never been out of the collective public knowledge. I highly recommend taking a literary trip to Baker Street and revisit an amazing character and his faithful friend. (Then go watch Benedict Cumberbatch bring Holmes to the modern age, because it's amazing.)

BookWench is currently reading Furies of Calderon by Jim Butcher. If you're a SciFi fan and you haven't read his Harry Dresden series I cannot recommend them enough.

Pet Peeves

I realize that with what I am about to type I am not going to make many friends, and in fact may make some people angry. However, one of my most annoying personality traits is that even if my opinion will make me unpopular, I'll still voice it. Feel free to yell at me in the comments...

We're a Bookstore, Not a.....PetsMart

One of my biggest pet peeves is animals in people places. Unless that place is specifically designed to cater to animals, or has expressed some sort of pro-animal, pet-positive attitude, I really feel that the furry things should stay outside.

Now- to clarify – I do not hate animals. I currently live with a cat, and my roommates and I are puppy shopping. I tend to make ridiculous, high pitched noises in pet stores at the various small furry things that I want to take home and cuddle. I regularly shopped at a bookstore that owned one very well-behaved cat, and I liked browsing the bottom shelves with the shop cat on my lap. And I enjoy seeing dogs out on walks and playing in the park. It's adorable. So please don't think I spend my spare time kicking puppies and throwing things at kittens. I don't.

However- when I am at work in a bookstore I should not have to clean up dog poop. I shouldn't have to shout over the sound of your dog barking, or on one occasion, someone's parrot squawking from their shoulder. And if your dog is being carried around in a purse that cost more than I make in a month, I should be allowed to openly laugh at you. Then perhaps kick you. Not everyone likes animals, and most people assume that going in to non-pet related stores means that they won't have to deal with the huge dog in the cooking section getting too close. I had one little girl leave the store I worked at in tears because she was scared of dogs and the other customer refused to leave her “baby” giant lab out in the car.

The incident that turned this annoyance into a rage-inducing pet peeve was when a customer came up to me for help with a giant snake wrapped around his body and slithering out of the neckline of his shirt. I am not ashamed to admit that when the snake popped his head out and started angling towards me I screamed like a little girl and ran to the back room as the snake's owner laughed at me. I refused to come out until he was gone and have had a strong(er) resentment towards animals in people places ever since.

Now- I will make an exception for service animals. That's a completely valid reason to have a dog with you at all times. I will also allow any animals that possess the ability to read for themselves. If your cat needs a copy of Crime and Punishment to round out his Russian collection, then by all means bring him in. (Then explain to me how you haven't capitalized on your pet's amazing abilities.) However, I have yet to find a justification for Princess FiFi, your incessantly yapping pet cotton ball with legs, spending time in a bookstore.

And – in case it was unclear – there will be no (non-service) animals allowed in Bibliophiles. (Except for the basement full of attack ponies.)

BookWench just finished reading Throne Of Fire – The Kane Chronicles 2 by Rick Riordan, and I'm now in the library looking for more books on Egyptian mythology.

I Come to Bury Caesar...

Before we get into the thrust of the post I want to apologize for taking the last couple of weeks off. I have been packing and moving myself across the country. I'm back on the west coast, living in a reverse Three's Company situation. I'm sure the trials of living with two guys will come up later, or possibly spin off into a new blog called What is That Smell?. I'm still a little stressed and out of sorts, but I'm ready to hop back into the world of BookWench.  And now back to our regularly scheduled program...

As anyone who's looked at any sort of book/business news in the past few months well knows Borders Books filed for bankruptcy and is now in the process of shutting down their hundreds of stores across the country. It's caused a lot of mixed emotions for me, as I worked for that company through college and for many, many years afterward. I worked at three of their stores, in three different cities, and it played a significant part in my adult life. And, as awful and annoying as most of the stories I tell from those stores are, I am sad to see it all come to an end.

I am not, however, surprised. As I got higher up in the management echelons of the company the cracks in the logic and flaws in the plan became larger and clearer. It's never a good sign for a business when one of their employees with a Theatre degree can point out their poor fiscal decisions. (Seriously, I haven't taken a class that involved math since my senior year of high school, and I could see that the numbers were not adding up in a positive way.) We all knew the ship was sinking, it was only a matter of when the final wave would take it under, and honestly, it lasted much longer than any of us really expected it to.

As with any company I saw a lot of things go wrong (most of which have/will appear on this blog.) I worked for some truly terrible managers, saw some really bad decisions being made, and saw the company drift away from the love of unique books and intelligent staff that had made them a success in the first place. But despite all of that, it had moments of being a great place to work.

I made so many amazing friends at those stores, even dated a few, and now live with two more. So I owe Borders a debt of gratitude for that alone. I don't think the company ever learned how valuable an asset they had on their sales floor. Every store I worked at had a really unique, weird, crazy staff that loved books. And between the lot of us you could usually find one staff member who had an insane amount of devotion and knowledge for a specific section of the store making for a better resource than Amazon's algorithms could ever hope to be. I'm not saying every staff member in every store was brilliant or patient or hard-working, but a significant number of us were, and the shift away from hiring smart people to hiring anyone really hurt them. And it was a clear shift. You could almost pinpoint the date they did away with asking book questions during the interview process. Occasionally a good one would slip through, but the awesome quirky book nerds were slowly replaced with generic retail drones.

And those people managed to infiltrate the corporate end as well. Borders was founded on this weird combination of large chain and indy bookstore ideas. They prided themselves on being quirky, and having a move varied and interesting stock than their major competitors. And it was awesome. The ease of a large store, but one that carried that weird Bukowski book, or had an extensive philosophy section. But when the plague of generic took over, and someone decided to dismiss everything that made Borders unique, it became just another place to drink coffee and pick up the latest James Patterson novel. Instead of taking pride in offering over 100,000 different titles in each store, the goal became to pack in as many copies of the 100 most popular titles. And at that point, why bother? If I can't tell the difference between one chain and another, why would I go out of my way to remain a loyal customer? There's a reason we have so many fast-food burger places existing together, and it's because I can't get McDonald's fries at Wendy's, and I can't get a Whopper at Sonic. Instead Borders took the path most travelled by, and it unfortunately led them to their demise.

I feel fortunate to have spent a few of the better years there. I learned so much, and I met such amazing people. As I sat in my new living room last night and looked at the three amazing people there with me I was saddened by the thought that the place that brought us all together didn't exist any more. And it's sad that the world lost a place to go and buy actual books. So I felt compelled to write this eulogy of sorts, and say goodbye to the company that led me to the place of writing this blog.

As always, I encourage everyone to support their local, three-dimensional bookstores. Find an awesome independent bookstore and go and enjoy a place where knowledge is readily available for purchase, and where the quirky weirdos with random arts, history, and English degrees go to find work and create a unique collective of ideas. Otherwise, we'll just be out on the streets making trouble, and the books will sit unread, and the Idiocracy will creep ever closer..

If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. 

- Haruki Murakami