I was thinking about recent criticism I received from an individual about my negative view of some booksellers I worked for and with. And although it’s all true, unfortunately, it doesn’t address how I felt about the job.
Even within the most trying of atmospheres, it wasn’t as though I stood around whining or complaining about the boss, or co-worker. I was far too busy unpacking books and shelving them to bother. Plus, what good would it do–I’d be the one penalized, which finally did end up happening, when I cracked at one store after slipping down dangerous steps and badly bruising my spine. A bunch of books by an ill author who would probably never be in the store again, were supposed to be signed on a day I wasn’t to come in–another person was in charge, and neglected to get them signed. A stupid mistake. But not one I should have blown up over. However, this was but one in a series of screw-ups, and between my frustration and pain, I hissed some disparaging words. Wrong wrong wrong. Doesn’t matter if you are standing next to Atilla the Hun, you don’t insult a co-worker. Especially one who believes they are in charge, and you are a subordinate. Which is what the person thought, because the owner never told them otherwise, and told me I was equal in authority.
Nonetheless, despite the underhanded management style of the owner, my insult and words didn’t make me look like a decent worker, just the opposite.
My biggest problem — I took my job too damn seriously. I really cared about selling books, about increasing sales, about turning people on to new reads and authors, about making sure a first edition was signed and in perfect condition for the collector. About making the customer first priority, and the store as profitable as possible. About promoting writers as far as my role as a bookseller could take them.
But I was only a bookman. I didn’t own the store, had no financial stake, was under the command of someone who did. And who unfortunately, didn’t share the same love of crime fiction as I, or selling books, for that matter.
And that is sad. Very sad. To be part owner of a bookstore with fiction you don’t respect or find compelling, is a crime, no pun intended. A store such as that should be run by a person enraptured with the form, style, and content of mysteries. Should revel in all the different genres, characters, authors. And I did. Soooo much.
I’d done some retail selling earlier in my life–hosiery, clothing, plants, nothing inspiring, nothing to strike an inner cord and awaken excitement. But when I was first allowed on to the floor at Lorry’s an obsession was born. To find the perfect match between book and person. To uncover the perfect fit, the one theme or character that would make the customer go, “yes, that sounds good” as they head towards the register. The satisfaction when that occurred was profound. And rather rare, in the beginning. I couldn’t read people as well early on, didn’t know the right questions to ask to gage their interests and dislikes. But when it did happen, the glow could last a good while.
Later, it became almost a puzzle to figure out–clues, words, interests trickled out of a customer, and I tried to fit them into a pattern that would lead me to the promised land–the perfect book for them. Or if lucky, books, plural. I was succeeding more than failing at that point, and managing a store, with more autonomy.
And I reveled in the ability to choose a title I absolutely went bonkers over, and hand sell it to those I thought would love it too. I certainly did quite well with I Married a Dead Man–I talked about in another article–but I also sold new releases with as much enthusiasm as a classic older book. Studying the customer, checking with my radar that this person would be receptive to a spiel about my latest greatest read, was my first duty. I didn’t thrust every book I loved on to all customers–some will only love serial killers, and no matter how well I waxed on the “cozy’s” brilliance, the customer wouldn’t suddenly slap down the bloody body parts book for a polite drawing room-poison-in-the sugar-bowl book I’m dying for him to read because I simply ‘adored’ it.
No, the book, like a hat, had to fit in terms of comfort, style, and warmth. I’ll admit, sometimes I went off the track a bit. I sold a couple of titles that I believed had an equal chance at pleasing the reader.
Sometimes it did, sometimes not.
But when a customer who normally wouldn’t read a particular type of genre book came back into the store and waxed enthusiastically about the content, characters, and whodunit, a glow and deep seated warmth would grow within, an indescribable happiness or dare I use the word–joy–flushed throughout my head and heart and it could last until the boss reminded me there were others in the store that needed my attention.
I’ve no idea if other booksellers feel like me. But if I were a betting person, I’d say, yes, that a committed lover of books would always have a special reaction to the payoff of a finalized sale, and more important, the positive review from the buyer of a book that was recommended. And that reaction is what kept me and I suspect, others going along and enduring the infighting or customer rudeness, or boss’s misjudgments, manager’s ineptitude, endless repositioning of out of order titles, opening new orders with box cutters and slashing not only cardboard but an index finger, and generally doing the grunt work an independent bookstore requires.
All for that momentary spark of elation when your enthusiasm for the written word translates itself to another, allowing that person a little thrill of their own while devouring the book you so highly recommended. There’s nothing like it, and it’s not possible to describe correctly. I’m just happy I felt it again and again.
Thank you for tempering your remarks about us eccentrics, I, for one, appreciate it.
I admit that I would HATE to be involved in the ownership of a specialty store – of any kind! Unfortunately, when we, in the general books store business, hire someone they are invariably devotees of one genre or another. While their interests are usually mysteries or science fiction and those categories are always among our top 5 sellers by dollar value (during the last 12 months up until yesterday in one of our stores the generated 9.89% and 8.81% respectively) they are only a small part of what running a books store like ours is all about.
Ours is an effort to provide local communities a worthwhile and meaningful service – we therefore consider our sales of Young Adult books (6.92%) and children’s books (7.35%) more valuable in adding to our community.
It takes several months to train an open minded person to work in a general books store but our experience has proven to us that specialists should be let go as quickly as possible – and probably should never be hired at all!
This is a wide wondrous world – if we allow it to be – often the more we narrow our interests, the less interesting we become – so we are always hoping this next applicant will prove to be well-rounded in their interests.
I have had dozens of people (both past and present employees) tell me their “job” with us was the best one they ever had, and for many years I took that remark as a compliment – that it might somehow mean our diligent efforts trying to become the best books store possible was noticed – and appreciated.
It was only when a particularly poor former employee fed me the same line that I realized most of our praise was received because most of them found a way to hide and settle into their own small niche which made them happy to be in the books business – and ultimately added only limited value to our stores or our customers – other than a happy face. The rest of us were left to do most of the heavy slogging required in building a viable business.
Recently one of our new staff was thrilled with the fact she had sold five books to a grumpy teenager who was obviously dragged into the store by his mother. She spent most of three hours with that teenager while another employee dealt with all the other customers and all the other work she was avoiding. When she bragged to me about her ability to sell books, and after talking with the other staff member, she was laid off her next morning as she was entering the store.
Pertaining to this matter, Michael Gerber covered everything of real importance in his book “The E Myth”. The people who are hired to do the everyday work that needs to be done in a business (he calls them Technicians) invariably think of themselves as the only ones who know all that is really important to know in the business – because they think they are the ones on the front lines and deal with all the variables of a business. They are often the face of the business with most of the contact with customers who express their appreciation for what the business does for them (it is understandable, but crippling, that they internalize these messages without giving any thought to all the other factors that went into satisfying that customer – knowing they can pass off any serious complaints to others). It should be needless to say that the management who have to clean up all the messes and mistakes that often occur in busy businesses had something to do with anything good that happens – and the entrepreneur who staked everything he or she had and dreamed all the dreams and worked all the dreams until they could afford to hire someone else who can be placed in a position to get all the credit – and can pass off most of the responsibility to others when things don’t go just right. And indeed, that is how it should be!
These are just a few of some of the things easily overlooked and almost no customers, and very few employees, ever understand – but the employees are important people who would benefit from this type of insight – if we could possibly find the time to reiterate what employers and managers think should go without saying (and mostly does).
Thanks for proving the opportunity that allows an employer to tell a little of the story from his particular perspective.
And here I thought I was being nice.
So your take on it all made me smile!
George, you should be a politician, you can almost, almost write something that sounds flattering but is in reality, criticism.
Your point, if I can wade through, is that booksellers have no idea what managers and owners go through to maintain a store. I would guess that to be true of part timers, or transient workers, but not full time employees within a small business. Everyone knew if we were on hold with some publishers, if we were in financial straits or doing well. At one store, the accountant worked within shouting distance, behind a door. I was kept well informed of the healthiness of business. We knew and appreciated the story of how one owner came to be in possession of his business, how another wasn’t really in possession of it at all.
Your point about the girl selling six books to a teenager and bragging about it, only works because of the time factor. Three hours is a long time to spend on one customer. Especially if others are waiting for help, or boxes need opening and shelving, and all the other tasks required needed to be finished. But I think firing her was quite nasty. Actually, very very nasty. If this had been a repeated offense, well, then sure. But if she was new, and got carried away, a harsh warning would have been a course of action normal employers would follow. Unless, of course, as I said, there were other issues unresolved.
I’m getting the impression you don’t spend much time on the floor with customers and sort of resent the booksellers who do, and get credit for work you and others put into the business behind the scenes. That’s a shame. Actors get the applause, directors get ulcers. I also get the impression that you believe simple booksellers have egos the size of a giant Walmart, when in reality, only managers and owners know a thing about the running of such an enterprise.
And I get more than an impression about your feelings for specialized bookstores. Distain? Disgust?
And what’s more, I feel your assessment of my story was to try to refute it, make it somehow a very bad bad thing to enjoy selling books to people, to get a thrill out of it, to find meaning in it. After all, you put all the money and dreams and etc etc into the business, how dare the booksellers actually LIKE selling the damn things. Shouldn’t they be hunkered over packing slips or on ladders shelving 100 per cent of the time? Oh, with a few seconds to point to a section of very important community building YA lit.
And, naturally, if a bookseller finds fault within the upper classes, when the owner screws up royally when buying more books for himself than the store, or a manager smoking dope all day misses key signings, we as booksellers should realize that it’s you the owners who do all the cleaning up after our horrible mistakes–whatever they may be. And naturally, being of the lower order, we would of course blame anyone but ourselves for any mistakes.
George, your narrow view of what you consider a narrow world of specialization, is dead wrong. For your bookstore, it’s exactly right–a general bookstore should have a generalized stock. But despite what you believe to be a narrowing of perspective by reveling a particular type of literature, is for others a great release, freedom, passion as it were.
You seem to think your stores are there for the education of the masses. I thought higher education was taught elsewhere. Nonetheless, if that is your goal, fine, good luck. Most masses are quite happy living in what you would consider specialization. They spent years finding what interests are more important and now enjoy them. This hardly means their world outlook is any more narrow than someone who reads bios, science, cookbooks, and all type of written word. They simply enjoy their genre more than another.
I must admit, you never cease to amaze me with your elitism. Oh, god, now I sound like the right wing of America. However, that’s the best word to describe your attitude towards anyone who doesn’t have your lofty point of view in regards to bookselling. Lou would have had you for breakfast. My one boss has an even loftier view, but of crime fiction, wow, you two in a room would be worth buying tickets for. And as for me, I find you somewhat annoying, but mostly amusing. Because when it’s all said and done, you are making independent bookstores work they way you know how, and any way an independent bookstore stays afloat is OK by me.
I’ve always appreciated the specialty bookstores and the small independents. Not because I have anything against the general bookstores, but because with the former, I have always left cheerfully with an armful of books. I don’t know if this is due to the employees, managers and owners or to my reading preferences. When I lived in Cambridge MA, I had many many wonderful afternoons and evenings browsing and buying at the several bookstores in Harvard Square…bliss!!
There will always be a divide between employers and employees; each has its own agenda and goals. It’s the rare employer who acknowledges the importance of training employees while accepting each one’s unique strengths. Firing an employee as George describes above is a wretched act; one that I never would have contemplated as a manager. A discussion and review of expectations, yes, but to allow an employee to leave the job one day, flushed with success and perhaps overblown with pride, then to return the next day to encounter dismissal– shame!! I have fired employees so I’m not totally ignorant of the process. I hope there were more reasons, more than the ones described, for the employee’s dismissal.
Yes, George,
‘HATE’ being involved in a specialty store, people with specialized interest should ‘NEVER’ be hired, the more we “narrow our interests, the less interesting we become”, ruthlessly firing a new employee without explaining how she made mistakes actually SELLING books-these quotes are great examples of you’re being sooooooo nice in response to someone writing an article about the SELLING of a certain genre of books.
” They are often the face of the business with most of the contact with customers who express their appreciation for what the business does for them (it is understandable, but crippling, that they internalize these messages without giving any thought to all the other factors that went into satisfying that customer – knowing they can pass off any serious complaints to others). It should be needless to say that the management who have to clean up all the messes and mistakes that often occur in busy businesses had something to do with anything good that happens – and the entrepreneur who staked everything he or she had and dreamed all the dreams and worked all the dreams until they could afford to hire someone else who can be placed in a position to get all the credit – and can pass off most of the responsibility to others when things don’t go just right. And indeed, that is how it should be!”
That entire paragraph is a slam towards general workers who enjoy SELLING books, and what the hell they are supposed to be ‘internalizing’ is a mystery only you understand. You really are a little jealous resentful boss if you are thinking in terms of ‘credit’ at all. What happened to your ideal bookseller by the way, so far your remarks have all been derogatory towards your employees. Aren’t they ‘eccentric’ enough?
And the laughable idea that booksellers, the floorwalkers, per se, have no understanding of the co-operative nature of a business, is insulting to the max.
I don’t believe you LIKE your employees, I think you see them as a necessary evil.
And if that is you being nice, god help us when you’re not.
Apparently I struck a nerve with my original response.
Thanks for the rant.