yes. i hate chapters. i not only hate chapters, i hate the "customers" of chapters.
let me explain one thing now.
i use the term "customers" very loosly. "customers" refers to the people i will be talking about, but i will mention and make a point of now, THE MAJORITY DO NOT BUY ANYTHING FROM CHAPTERS! and here is my rant.
the early riser
this is the group of people who expect us to be open at 7am, at 8am, at 8:30am and complain when we opened the doors at 9:03am instead of 9:00am. i am sorry, we work on earth time, not the fucked up time that their watches have been giving them all their lives! they all immediately rush to the newspapers to get their morning paper, then head to starbucks for their morning $5.00 cup of coffee. to which they will read every article, laugh at every comic, cry over every sad piece of news, curse and praise the stock markets, and read the personal ads. then they will also continue to fill in the cross words, circle job oppurtunitites, circle personals of others, write down phone numbers, dates, times of engagements with friends who have called them on their cell phones, make notes of the movies that will be playing where and what times, and procede to steal the part of the paper that they need for future reference. of course spilling coffee on whatever is left of the paper and leaving it in 50 pieces for the chapters magazine (i.e. ME) person or starbucks people to pick up and ME to piece back together. then when there are no more full copies of the newspapers for OTHERS to read and enjoy to it's fullest with the morning coffee, they'll complain because "indigo would have more copies of the newspaper"
the entertainment crowd
these people will be the ones who arrive before the movie starts because they don't want to hang out in the theater lobby for an hour, oh no they can't line up for popcorn and drinks and go to the bathroom before the movie as to not interupt others DURING the movie, no they must hike over to chapters and sit at starbucks drinking their $7.00 cappichinos and latte's while reading every copy of YM, YM Teen, YM Prom, Cosmo, Cosmo Girl, In Style, Vanity Fair, People, Teen People, U.S., Marie Claire, Vogue, Vogue UK, Vogue Italia, Vogue Espania, Teen, Teen Beat, Teen Machine, Teenybopper, Teen Dream, Teen Scream, Teen Scene, Smash Hits, TOTP, Star, Sugar, BB, Bop, Big Bopper, Popstar, PopGirl, PopBoy, BoyBand, BoyPop ect. ect and squeal over Justin Timberlake's new hairstyle and Britney Spears' new navel ring (yes. she WILL never show her navel ever again because men think of her as just a sex object, she ISN'T dating Justin Timberlake... she DID have knee surgury!!) and Backstreet Boys AJ new Laberet stud and his latest of tattoo's (just to put something of body modification onto this rant!) before leaving their 50 magazines in a nice pile spread out all over the MyBooks section (childrens books of the store), on the floor where they sit and on the tables at starbucks. They will then complain when we ask them nicely about 20 times to please leave because we close at 11pm and have since we opened and will continue to do so (we now even close earlier!) because their movie doesn't start until 11:30pm or 12:15am and after all, they don't want to be losers and sit there waiting for it to start now do they??
the study group
the collection of customers who bring in their notebooks and textbooks for a session of study while still being able to eat lunch/dinner and drink coffee and pop. for the most part this so far sounds alright. they're quiet, studying and doing homework, they brought their own textbooks and workbooks and are only using the tables and chairs. the only big problem would be crumbs and spills of sticky substances all over tables and carpets and themselves and the piles of magazines other people have left. but THEN we get into research, they take out all the books they need to research their projects and make their pointform notes to do a research paper, risking spilling food and drink all over sometimes $80-200 books. and of course they must leave them right there on the tables and floors for us to pick up. but even more amazing are the people who bring in laptops! yes. they will bring in laptops and power them using CHAPTERS electricty, then WRITE THE ENTIRE paper here. people making pointform notes is almost excuseable when i see FRICKING LAPTOPS there! although i must admit, the people with laptops ARE more careful about their food and drink! (after all what's a few hundred dollars worth of books if you have a few thousand dollar laptop!)
the babysitters club
this colourful group of parents who decide to use chapters as a babysitter service. yes in mybooks we have story time where we read stories to children and we do hold crafts and activities with children, is IS to promote the selling of our products we carry! but either way, that's when it's an organized event and we know of it! we have parents let their 3 and 4 year old terrors loose into the store while they read their 15-20 magazines and actucally sit for 3-4 hours reading novels (obviously dogearing the pages and leaving them on benches and couches while taking their kids to the potty) and the children are very hyper and running around playing tag and screaming with each other and pulling books apart, shoving entire shelves of books onto the floor and playing on the computers, typing in nonsense, trying to break it all up and so on and so forth. we also have parents who will drop off their kids, then not only leave our store but leave the whole mall area while this 9 year old has been instructed to stay put and not make a scene. which would work if the kid wasn't scared out of his mind since his daddy is 3 hours late picking him up. people this is child neglect. this is abandonment, THIS IS A FEDERAL OFFENCE! not only that, when you're sittin' your ass in jail for leaving your kid at chapters and engandring his/her life, the other inmates are gonna have a field day raping your ass day and night because even the hardened criminals know it's just REALLY wrong to be fucking up with a child's life! it is illegal to leave a child unsupervised if under the age of 12, and although there are people at chapters, WE ARE NOT HIRED AS BABYSITTERS!
the field trip people
ah.....the importance of family time. family is important to chapters. we understand ya'll like to have time together and do things as a family. but why must you make it chapters? why must a family of 5 come in with their picnic basket and set up dinner on a display table? then again back up to the babysitters club. much of that is repeated here so i won't write as much. but at the same time they will spend the evening here, anywhere from 3 to 5 hours, and leave only at the end of the night when we kick them out.even then, you will have the mother who must stay inside the store with her child/children while the father gets the car, because the child is sick with a fever and the flu and a cold and rabies (ok ok not rabies...or that i know of) and can't be standing outside in the cold. yes. PEOPLE IF YOUR CHILDREN ARE SICK WHY ARE YOU BRINGING THEM INTO SUCH A PUBLIC PLACE? not only are you keeping your child from getting better, you're making everyone else sick, LIKE THE CHAPTERS WORKERS!
the shameless lazyasses
these would be those who know there is a person to put away their magazines.
they know there is a special area where i sort out the magazines into categories (mens interest, womens interest, sports, home decorating ect ect) and since the don't read the labels or understand that there's a SPECIAL spot for magazines....they do one of two things
1. they will nonchalantly stroll over with their pile of 15-20 magazines and look around making sure no one's watching, then quietly slip their pile into one of the emptying slots hoping no one will see their dirty deed of not putting away what they took.
2. the VERY shameless will walk right up to me while i'm sorting out over 1000 magazines that are piled what would be kneedeep if they were on the floor, and put their 50 magazines ontop of the ones already there, mumble something almost resembling a "thank you" then proceed to walk off quickly, maybe in attempts to hope that i didn't see the addition of another 5-6 inches of magazines to the pile on my left or catch their face so that next time i can reem them out for being such jackasses.
yes. it's taken me a good 20 minutes to type this and work it but i have yet to read it.
please, read it and tell me what u think, also vote in the poll... and remember, THIS IS JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG!!!