Sorry. Took a couple of weeks off. I actually have another blog, if you can believe it, and about twenty other time-wasting hobbies. And, hey, it's sort of dispiriting when large sections of my intended audience just vanish in a cloud of Turnover. But I know some of y'all are still checking, so I'll keep it going.
I'm officially part of the problem, aren't I? They're starting to depend on me more, because they're getting desperate and I know how to read a merch chart. And I smile and cooperate--there's no use pretending I'm some kinda subversive. I'll take their money.
Still, I keep the passive aggression coming, when I can. A dialogue:
(The multimedia cage. Me, learning. Harried-and-Frantic Sales Manager trying to teach me in little bursts, in between running around the store putting out completely meaningless fires.)
SM: ...and make sure you look at this. (Points at list on the wall of absurdly specific Loss Prevention Policies regarding keepers and chiclets and whatnot.) We really got dinged on this in that LP audit.
Me: (Still cooperating. But sarcastic cruelty stirring.) Dinged?
SM: Yeah. All that keepering stuff cost us twenty points.
Me: (Politely amused.) Points?
SM: Yeah, twenty points we would've had, otherwise.
Me: What would we have done with these "points," had we hung on to them?
(Silence, for a moment. Then he gives up, ignores it, and moves on. He knows my uses, but he also knows when I'm mocking him. We're both trying to believe we're getting the better end of this deal.)
But seriously, man. Please, by all means, tell me what to do. Somebody's got to. I will absolutely follow Loss Prevention policy to the best of my ability. But please don't try to explain why we're doing anything, because the reasons are invariably idiotic and I'm just going to laugh at you. I do the job right because it's my job, not because I give a damn.
Points. Saints preserve us.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Thursday, September 4, 2008
From Beyond The Grave!
People in general have such a weird, distorted view of the sorts of things they're going to find in a store like ours, don't they? Righteously indignant when there aren't any children's books about Millard Fillmore. (The report is due TOMORROW!) Overwhelmed with gratitude when it turns out we actually have a copy of The Iliad or Tuesdays With Morrie. There's no predicting it.
But here's a funny one. I approached a forty-something white woman, all help and concern. She seemed thoughtful and a little spacey. Well, I'm looking for this philosophy book, she said. You probably won't have it.
I tried to play it at my most soothing. Just tell me what the problem is, and we'll make it okay...
Well, it's by Ayn Rand, she said. Ah, I said, nodding. The situation became clear. Rand fans are a Special breed--convinced that they're on to something, that they've found the Secret. They all read Atlas Shrugged at age sixteen, or whatever, and were overwhelmed to learn the truth--that people just like them are really the Good people, the ones who should be running the world, instead of the whiners and do-gooders and commies.
But of course, these folks are an awful long way from being any kind of Underground. Those books are really popular; they've never been out of print. They tell wannabe self-made millionaires exactly what they want to hear. So I just started taking this woman to the Philosophy section, pretty much without comment.
I don't know, she said. It's kind of old. She's dead, you know.
Huh. Didn't quite know what to say to that, but I know I couldn't help smiling as we walked. Yes, I said, she certainly is, isn't she? What I didn't say was how could we fail to stock the complete works of somebody who has a plausible claim to be the Worst Writer of the Twentieth Century? I mean, Hitler was pretty lousy, but he was far less prolific! Instead, I handed her Philosophy: Who Needs It? and moved on.
But you know, actually we carry quite a surprising number of books by people who are No Longer With Us! Sidney Sheldon! St. Augustine of Hippo! Kurt Cobain! Bill Shakspeare! Death absolutely doesn't make you commercially unviable!
Can you imagine if that actually was some sort of Inventory Guideline? For God's sake, get out there with a V-Cart and get Norman Mailer's books off of the shelves! Don't you read the papers? We're clearly in Non-Compliance with the Living People First Act!
"O, heavens! Die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's a hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year!"
(Some sarcastic guy.)
But here's a funny one. I approached a forty-something white woman, all help and concern. She seemed thoughtful and a little spacey. Well, I'm looking for this philosophy book, she said. You probably won't have it.
I tried to play it at my most soothing. Just tell me what the problem is, and we'll make it okay...
Well, it's by Ayn Rand, she said. Ah, I said, nodding. The situation became clear. Rand fans are a Special breed--convinced that they're on to something, that they've found the Secret. They all read Atlas Shrugged at age sixteen, or whatever, and were overwhelmed to learn the truth--that people just like them are really the Good people, the ones who should be running the world, instead of the whiners and do-gooders and commies.
But of course, these folks are an awful long way from being any kind of Underground. Those books are really popular; they've never been out of print. They tell wannabe self-made millionaires exactly what they want to hear. So I just started taking this woman to the Philosophy section, pretty much without comment.
I don't know, she said. It's kind of old. She's dead, you know.
Huh. Didn't quite know what to say to that, but I know I couldn't help smiling as we walked. Yes, I said, she certainly is, isn't she? What I didn't say was how could we fail to stock the complete works of somebody who has a plausible claim to be the Worst Writer of the Twentieth Century? I mean, Hitler was pretty lousy, but he was far less prolific! Instead, I handed her Philosophy: Who Needs It? and moved on.
But you know, actually we carry quite a surprising number of books by people who are No Longer With Us! Sidney Sheldon! St. Augustine of Hippo! Kurt Cobain! Bill Shakspeare! Death absolutely doesn't make you commercially unviable!
Can you imagine if that actually was some sort of Inventory Guideline? For God's sake, get out there with a V-Cart and get Norman Mailer's books off of the shelves! Don't you read the papers? We're clearly in Non-Compliance with the Living People First Act!
"O, heavens! Die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's a hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year!"
(Some sarcastic guy.)
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Finally, Some Action!
Commenter Dave is a veteran of the Competition, as well as the independent bookstore world that I came out of. So he knows what he's talking about:
This is, of course, absolutely true. This is the model honed to ruthless perfection by Wal-Mart, but it's the basic system now in any big retail operation. It's the only way to make any money in a business like this. Full time, minimally competent staff are a luxury that they don't think they can afford. So Dave tells us, basically, not to expect any help or sympathy from anyone at any level of the company--As far as they're concerned, the System is Working!
But of course, it's not. They're getting increasingly desperate, hoping they can wait out this rough period by cutting every possible corner. (How long does it take us to re-order bags? Or hand soap?) But even if the economy and the industry turn around, there won't be anyone left who cares. Every store will be run by part-time twenty-year-olds, and no one will ever know where anything is.
I still, for my own part, hold out some hope that there are still some people somewhere Above us who have some institutional memory of the way things used to work, and that these people have done what they've had to do to get along, but they secretly feel horrible guilt. And when they see the startling trend at our store, they'll be sympathetic to us--because we'll be saying what they've been afraid to say.
Barring that, hopefully we can collect enough personally damning material on Our Particular Problem to insure that he won't be able to just run the store into the ground and walk away from it. He'll go down with it.
But if Dave's right, and no one who cares about the sorts of things we care about can possibly have lasted this long at the corporate level where they could make any difference, well, that just means that We're It. We're the Institutional Memory. All the enthusiastic kids coming in to replace the old and bitter people being driven out, well, they're gonna assume that this is just how things are. They're obviously going to be aware that their boss is a hideous grotesque, but they'll assume that anybody who runs a store is like that. Right up until we sit them down and explain it to them. Then we'll see.
And finally, an insider speaks. Anonymous assures us from experience that even our company can't keep things like this all of the time--we're in a uniquely inconvenient location and have uniquely awful bosses. And gives us eyewitness testimony suggesting that the war on our old store culture was and is completely intentional. Read the whole thing.
Judging by the perpetual state of understaffing and inventory problems at every major retail store...this is the way they like it. It maximizes profit and employee turnover. Yes, you're being pushed to quit, of course. An entire staff of part-time, no-benefit college kids is what they want. With maybe a couple weary, 55-hour-a-week managers at the top on the verge of suicide.
This is, of course, absolutely true. This is the model honed to ruthless perfection by Wal-Mart, but it's the basic system now in any big retail operation. It's the only way to make any money in a business like this. Full time, minimally competent staff are a luxury that they don't think they can afford. So Dave tells us, basically, not to expect any help or sympathy from anyone at any level of the company--As far as they're concerned, the System is Working!
But of course, it's not. They're getting increasingly desperate, hoping they can wait out this rough period by cutting every possible corner. (How long does it take us to re-order bags? Or hand soap?) But even if the economy and the industry turn around, there won't be anyone left who cares. Every store will be run by part-time twenty-year-olds, and no one will ever know where anything is.
I still, for my own part, hold out some hope that there are still some people somewhere Above us who have some institutional memory of the way things used to work, and that these people have done what they've had to do to get along, but they secretly feel horrible guilt. And when they see the startling trend at our store, they'll be sympathetic to us--because we'll be saying what they've been afraid to say.
Barring that, hopefully we can collect enough personally damning material on Our Particular Problem to insure that he won't be able to just run the store into the ground and walk away from it. He'll go down with it.
But if Dave's right, and no one who cares about the sorts of things we care about can possibly have lasted this long at the corporate level where they could make any difference, well, that just means that We're It. We're the Institutional Memory. All the enthusiastic kids coming in to replace the old and bitter people being driven out, well, they're gonna assume that this is just how things are. They're obviously going to be aware that their boss is a hideous grotesque, but they'll assume that anybody who runs a store is like that. Right up until we sit them down and explain it to them. Then we'll see.
And finally, an insider speaks. Anonymous assures us from experience that even our company can't keep things like this all of the time--we're in a uniquely inconvenient location and have uniquely awful bosses. And gives us eyewitness testimony suggesting that the war on our old store culture was and is completely intentional. Read the whole thing.
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