"Customer Appreciation Bat."
This baffles us booksellers: "I don't know the title, or the author, or what it's about, but it's blue, and I saw it at another bookstore." Can you be any more vague? Sure, I'll help you. Let me lead you to the infamous "blue book" section. Or better yet, let me lead you to the door so you can buy it at the store you saw it at....if you remember which store it was.
Please finish your conversations before you come up to pay. Nothing is more annoying than being reminded of how insignificant we are. Try to remember there are other people in the world than you, and we don't care about your boyfriend problems.
Please have your form of payment ready when you reach the counter. I don't know how many times I tell the customer the total and I get a blank look. What did you think you were standing in line for? Did it just look fun?
To continue on the previous point, don't spend 10 minutes digging through you change purse for two pennies. Exact change is not required, and do you really want a line full of impatient people angry with you?
When asked if you want a bag, don't say, "No thanks. I'll save a tree." And if I reply that the bags are plastic, don't follow up with, "I'll save a plastic tree."
If something doesn't scan, by far the most annoying thing to do is to say, "Oh, then it must be free."
At the airport, we had bookmarks of fake bills in denominations ranging from $100 - 10,000. We kept them at the register, and at least 20 times a day I'd have a customer hand me one and ask, "Can I pay with this?" I finally moved the bookmarks off the counter to keep my sanity.
Don't assume we have read every book in the store. We're not allowed to read while on the clock, and we do have lives outside of work (well...some of us). Either way, there are far more books going through that store than I can read in a lifetime.
What is it about Oprah that turns people into robots? I know she suggests some great books, and she's a God and all that, but why do her followers forget how to think for themselves? There's more to the bookworld than what she recommends. Try it sometimes.
