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Page 2 Unlike other segments of the retail industry, book stores have a certain romance. There's a whole persona and identity that goes with the book business; education, intelligence, sophistication. I'm not entirely sure why this is, because book stores attract as many schmucks as any job (you may have shopped at the downtown Bookland and decided that I was one of them), but somehow the glow of the written word remains untarnished. Now that book stores have entered into a symbiotic relationship with the coffee industry, the romance reaches unparalleled heights. It was precisely this romance that drew me to Bookland in the first place. Fresh out of college, I had just moved into an apartment on Grant Street but I had no job. When well-meaning people (read: my family) asked me what I planned to do after graduation, I said, "Oh, grad school eventually, but first I'd like to take a couple of years off and work in a book store." I had been picturing myself at Books Etc.; the exposed brick, the high windows, a cup of coffee behind the counter while I chatted with customers about writers and poets, all against the backdrop of the quaint architecture of the Old Port. Alas, they weren't hiring. Bookland, on the other hand, was hiring and they snatched me right up; I interviewed the day after I applied, and they hired me the following afternoon. There was health insurance in the offing, and since health maintenance organizations hadn't yet proliferated the plan offered good, affordable coverage. Employees got a twenty-five percent discount on all books, which brought even the obnoxiously overpriced hardcovers into buying range. None of this, however, could top the mother of all benefits: I could borrow any book in the store. All of this combined with a virulent terror of joblessness to obscure the starting pay of $5.25 per hour and the prospect of one year without a paid vacation or a raise. Besides, I said that I wanted to work in a book store, and it would mean a great deal if I could show some follow-through in my first months of post-college life. Sound crazy? If it doesn't, that means we share the same outrageous addiction: books. Fiction, essays, and especially poetry. Written language in all its glorious forms. The aforementioned romance of the book store. Drug dealers aren't users because they can't afford to be hooked on their own inventory, but retail booksellers aren't as wise.
So, I began my first job in the so-called "real world," and
acquired the first nail in my self-esteem; the customer greeting. •
"Good morning, can I help you?" I ask, approaching an amiable looking man in a leather jacket. "Could you show me where the newspapers are?" he asks. I notice that his eyes ignite with a disproportionate amount of expectation.
"Sure," I say, allowing the syrupy slide of retail friendliness to ooze
into my voice, "Follow me." I walk the gentleman up to the front
corner of the store and point to piles of The New York Times, The
Boston Globe, The Portland Press Herald and, of course, The
Casco Bay Weekly. Customers rarely introduce themselves, and I'm caught off-guard by the sudden presence of genuine human interaction. "Oh, I'm....I'm Jesse. Nice you meet you." "Very nice to meet you, too," he says. His hand lingers a few moments longer than a typical handshake. Then he walks off. I'm titillated, but as I'm already involved with someone, I'm not interested. I find myself hoping that he doesn't come back. I'm disappointed. I glance up from a shelf in the poetry section to the counter where Diane, the assistant manager, is working the register. She tilts her head in Cameron's direction, indicating that I should go and greet the customer who just came in. I weigh my obligation to approach each customer in a friendly and engaging manner against the knowledge that I'll have to fend off an unwanted romantic interest. Under the searing gaze of Diane, the latter loses. "Oh, hi Jesse," croons Cameron as I step out of the stacks, "I was wondering...would you like to have lunch with me sometime?" Out of the corner of my eye I see Diane cover a smirk. People who were absorbed in browsing stop and look up. I walk Cameron into the children's section. "Uh...look, I'd love to have lunch with you, but you should know that I'm already involved." His smile fades slightly, and I feel bad. "Well," he says, "That's what I wanted to find out." He pats me on the arm and walks away.
The friendly retail greeting might help to sell books, but customers
whose motives don't include buying books often take that greeting as
confirmation of attraction, or even as an advance. Cameron's
overtures were pretty classy and respectful, but others were not so
tasteful. There was the time that a customer asked me for
directions to an Old Port bar, and slid a slippery finger down my spine
while I showed him the map on the wall. And then there was the
strange woman who put her hand on my cheek and wouldn't take it away,
even when I took a step back. My female coworkers were subjected
to much, much worse, with greater frequency. While people are
subjected to this kind of thing in all kinds of environments, the first
line of defense is unavailable for a retail employee. He or she
is unable to step out of the way of an incoming advance. Over
time, this can turn the rule of "always greet the customer" into a
bizarre form of exploitation and, in the worst cases, abuse. • It's the lunch rush on a sunny Thursday afternoon. Customers from all of society's corners come into the store, filing in off Monument Square; well dressed businessmen from One City Center with their ties dashed over their shoulders; lawyers from across the street, students from the high school out on their lunch break, holding hands and flipping through issues of Spin, Raygun, and Rolling Stone. Johnson fends off the occasional minor who tries to lift a copy of Penthouse. I'm working the register, enjoying how quickly the clock moves when the store is so busy, finding the rhythm in turning over a book, typing in the ten-digit ISBN into the register, reading off the price, taking the money, handing over the change, 'Would you like a bag?' It's a pleasant sensation, and it's always a bit of a letdown when the line of customers is gone and the rush is over. On this particular afternoon, one of the customers is fishing change out of his wallet and putting coins down on the counter. A large gold-colored coin catches my eye. "Can I see that?" I ask the amiable looking man. "Sure, go ahead," he says without looking up from his wallet. It's heaver than a quarter, and the weight feels nice between my fingers. The words To Thine Own Self Be True are engraved around the circumference. "Aha! 'This above all,'" I begin, "'To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not be false to any man.'" The customer smiles and pushes exact change across the counter. I'm proud of myself for remembering my Shakespeare, and I hand him his back his coin. "Gosh, you're like, the most educated cashier in Portland," announces the next customer, a spiky-haired young woman in an army jacket.
It wasn't a compliment. My ego deflated instantly. • Passion is part of personal identity, and the love of books is no exception. Book store employees love books, and they love thinking and talking about books. The typical book lover will draw conclusions about someone's personality based on their favorite authors, and woe unto the wretch who doesn't read books at all. A recent college graduate who has spent the last four years in an environment where reading and ideas are taken seriously gets a considerable shock when he or she learns that the rest of the world doesn't feel this way, and that outside of education, there are very few arenas where discourse about books is supported and rewarded. A book store takes advantage of this fact. The book selling environment is a place where an ability to discuss books in a knowledgeable and articulate fashion is useful, and it provides a kind of post-education community. At Bookland I found myself surrounded by like-minded people who laughed, joked, discussed, and argued books . They proudly declared their tastes and preferences; authors were recommended or condemned. Once a conversation of this nature begins, it never really ends. Rather, it gets put on hold and picked up at the next available moment, easily lasting a lifetime and becoming the foundation for a long friendship. "Many of our customers have favorite salespeople," I was told in my initial interview, "They come in to find out what we're reading." I looked forward to cultivating these sorts of relationships, and I certainly ended up with a few. My love for Jeanette Winterson and Michael Ondaatje endeared me to more than one of our regulars. My undergraduate degree in philosophy brought me the regular visits of a local lawyer, and a handful of kitchen enthusiasts regularly sought my knowledge of the cookbook section.
The fact is that Bookland makes its sales because its employees are
educated in books, and the book selling institution does not reward
this education financially. By offering minimum wage to people
who have expended time and energy (and often a ton of money) on their
education, the retail environment continues to hack away at the
self-esteem of its employees. • Precise statistics are unavailable, but I have heard that most retail establishments make half of their yearly revenue during the Christmas shopping season, which lasts from the Friday after Thanksgiving until closing on Christmas Eve. Preparations often begin well in advance of winter. At Bookland, boxes of Christmas merchandise sometimes appear at the end of August. Christmas is challenging for all retail employees. Vacations are forbidden during that time, and almost everyone is expected to work longer hours. The days go faster with so many customers in the store, but those customers are more impatient, more insistent, and less likely to accept the often recited, "I'll be with you in just a minute." Everyone's back aches, everyone's feet burn, and everyone would rather be at home with a cup of hot cocoa, or out starting a snowball fight, or anything but answering one of the three ringing phones, or placing another special order that won't come on time, or wrapping yet another pile of books for a customer who keeps shifting his weight and looking at his watch. For me, the Christmas rush becomes more complicated by my ethnic background. It's easy to deal with outside of work; I've never had a problem explaining that I don't celebrate Christmas, or that sending me a Christmas card is somewhat inappropriate, or that "Happy Hanukkah" sounds better to me than "Merry Christmas." In the context of a retail environment, though, this becomes a completely different plate of latkes. Next • Back • 1 • 2 • 3 • Back to Readings Copyright © 1999 Jesse Loesberg |