Closing in on 20 for me, I still have flashbacks about being asked “I’m looking for a book, I don’t know the title or author, but I know it’s blue and was on the table by the cafe last Christmas, do you know that one?” And then hating myself for knowing exactly what they meant half the time
One year, right around Black Friday, I was working registers and we had a line of people out the door… we were all just trying to get people rung up as quickly as possible.
I’m in the middle of helping someone when this woman jumps the line, interrupts me while I helping another customer, and goes “Excuse me, I just have a question?”
So I turn to my first customer, “Do you mind? She just has a question?”
Ok, fine, what’s the question?
“Where are your etiquette books?”
ಠ_ಠ
“They… they’re on the reference wall. Right hand side, about 1/2 way down.”
That night, cleaning up the store, I found a pile of 20 etiquette books just sitting on the floor.
There seems to be some confusion, and rightly so.
This is “Farmer’s Almanac” which, yeah, started in 1818 and is 207 years old.
But “The Old Farmer’s Almanac” started in 1792 and is generally ‘the one’ you think of when you hear ‘Farmer’s Almanac’. That one is still running:
https://www.almanac.com/about-us
Interesting history here:
https://www.almanac.com/history-old-farmers-almanac
Edit Used to sell both and man people would get PISSED if they asked for “the farmers almanac” and you grabbed the wrong one!
I am so glad because I use The Old Farmers Almanac website all the time. They have the best gardening advice. Bullet dodged
Barnes and Noble? Cause I feel you
30+ years ago, man I could tell you stories… 😉
Closing in on 20 for me, I still have flashbacks about being asked “I’m looking for a book, I don’t know the title or author, but I know it’s blue and was on the table by the cafe last Christmas, do you know that one?” And then hating myself for knowing exactly what they meant half the time
I would show up to b&n with a list of isbn Numbers ao i would get exactly what i wanted
I don’t even belive in god but bless you, your local bookseller is infinitely grateful to you even if they don’t say it.
True story:
Dead Wednesday. I was working the front by myself.
“I don’t know why I’m here, you can’t help me.”
“Well, I know a lot, and I have a computer for our inventory and one for our distributor, if you can remember 1 or 2 words, we have a good shot.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know the author, you can’t help me.”
We went round and round like that for 10 minutes, finally dragged it out of him and found it in the distributor system:
“How to Have Confidence and Power in Dealing with People”.
“Ordinarily it would take a couple of days to get this, let me expedite that for you, it will be here tomorrow.”
He never picked it up. 😟
“It’s that book with the picture of the woman on the front.”
“The Stories of Eva Luna by Isabel Allende?”
“Yeah…”
Co-worker: “How did you do that?”
“Every time I walked by it I thought ‘oh, hey, it’s that book with the picture of the woman on the front’.”
It was “The Art of Racing in the Rain” for a solid 7 months
settles in for story time
I don’t know why but retail horror stories are some of my favorites
One year, right around Black Friday, I was working registers and we had a line of people out the door… we were all just trying to get people rung up as quickly as possible.
I’m in the middle of helping someone when this woman jumps the line, interrupts me while I helping another customer, and goes “Excuse me, I just have a question?”
So I turn to my first customer, “Do you mind? She just has a question?”
Ok, fine, what’s the question?
“Where are your etiquette books?”
ಠ_ಠ
“They… they’re on the reference wall. Right hand side, about 1/2 way down.”
That night, cleaning up the store, I found a pile of 20 etiquette books just sitting on the floor.