"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one.'" ~ C. S. Lewis

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

I can't come up with a clever Retail Wednesday title

Sorry this is so late! But it IS here!

First I have some EXCITING NEWS that I can finally share (I had to keep it quiet for a bit, since people I work with read this blog.)

But at this point I've told most of the people at work (Hi Borders people! If you haven't heard this yet, sorry. I was getting around to everyone, honest!)

I received a Teaching Assistantship at the school where I am going for my Masters in English in the fall.

I am SO excited about this. As well as terrified at the fact that there will be 2 classes of freshmen looking to me for guidance on how to write papers (eek!)

However, this means that I am stepping down from my supervisory position and will only be working 1-2 days a week.

Does this mean that Retail Wednesday will be a thing of the past!? NEVER!*

*and by never I mean not right now as far as I can see. But never is a very long time and I doubt I will still be doing this when I am sixty-four.

It just might change format a little.

AND! I have happy news! that paper of notes that I lost like 2 weeks ago?! yeah, I just randomly found it in my car! Sweet muffins! It made me WAY more excited than it probably should have, but... what can I say, I'm easily amused. I am going to save them for next week since I will be GONE from Friday to Monday. This way I will have some funnies for Wednesday!

Now On to the AWARDS!!

BOOK REARRANGEMENT AWARD:

Every once in a while *cough*everyday*cough* a customer will set a book on a shelf where it doesn't belong. As in WAY out of place. Not like, oh, I decided I don't want this mystery book, so I will just set it on one of these mystery shelves. No I mean, I don't want this mystery book, so I will shove it into the middle of the home decorating books where no one will ever find it. (this may or may not have happened this week)
This is how customers often leave our store.

And a lot of times people will put the book on a shelf with the cover out so it looks like it belongs there, but when you look closer you realize it's in front of the spines of like six other books. Well, A was walking past the science fiction/fantasy section when she saw a large family Bible stuck on the shelf. She rolled her eyes, walked over and picked it up. Then she saw another one a little further over. Then another one. By the time she was done she had gathered (NO LIE) 29 Yes, you saw that right 29 Bibles that had been carried CLEAR ACROSS THE STORE and put face out in front of an entire run of science fiction!

1. How did they do this without anyone seeing? A bunch of them were those giant family Bibles, the ones you pass down to your great, great grandchildren.
Like THIS! Except new.
How did no one NOTICE?
2.WHY? Just why? I see no point in this at ALL. A while ago we had a battle where someone would put God is Not Great in with the Bibles and then someone else would put a Bible in the atheism section. That at least has some sort of ideological basis. WHY were they putting BIBLES in the SCI FI SECTION?! Was it a MESSAGE? Was it a PRANK? (my moneys on that last one.)
3. Weird.


SUMMER SCHOOL AWARD:

J approached a couple of high school girls and asked if they needed help. They said they were looking for books for their summer reading lists. J asked what district they were with. The girl's said Elm Street*. J said that most of them were on display and led the girls over.

She gestured at the shelves and said, "Most of the Elm Street books are here."
The girl looked at her in astonishment. "How did you know we were from Elm Street?"

*except not, but the name has been changed to protect me.




OVERHEARD AWARD:

A group of teenage girls and guys were gathered around the large table we have in the back of the store. They weren't being disruptive, but they were having some very ... interesting discussions.

Discussion 1: Overheard by K

They were discussing the pluses and minuses to smoking pot. On the good side, "look at all the great ideas people have come up with! Look at all the great ideas we have come up with."



You just KNOW someone on SOMETHING came up with this...


Discussion 2: Overheard by me

Apparently talking about grandparents.

"My grandma's a BEAST! She goes outside and picks up trees for a hobby!"
Now THAT grandma is a BEAST!


CONTRADICTION AWARD:

I passed a girl wearing a shirt like this:


The only problem was her hair looked like this:
Nuff said.


CAPTAIN OBVIOUS AWARD:

Someone had dropped something like a milkshake or something in the front of the store and it had kind of dried and gotten tracked all over the tile before it was brought to our attention. I grabbed the mop and bright yellow bucket and grabbed some wet floor signs. The area was pretty big, so I wanted to cover my bases. So I'm in the middle, mopping with a giant yellow bucket next to me and there are 2 bright orange pyramid wet floor signs and a bright yellow sandwich board wet floor sign spaced around the perimeter of the area.

A man steps onto the tile about five feet from me and about two feet from a sign and exclaims in a loud and surprised voice,

WHOA! This floor is SLIPPERY!


Tata! See you next week :D

10 comments:

Denise Covey said...

Love today's ramblings and best for the teaching ass't pos..:)

Jessica said...

The things that we see! Those girls were sooo clueless I swear brain fluid was seeping from my head when I dealt with them!

Amber at The Musings of ALMYBNENR said...

LMAO! My faves are the Bibles and the slippery floor, though as usual, they are all good. Weird people. Seriously.

Congrats on the teaching assistant position!

Sarah Ahiers said...

i remember one of the best things that were stolen from our store were the booksafes.
IRONY!

j.m. neeb said...

Congrats on the Teaching Assistantship!!

I am a huge fan of Retail Wednesdays and I've never thought to mention this before, but I am always impressed with the images you find to go along with the stories. Just thought I should mention that... :)

Word Verification Word Definition

Explexpi: A new, more durable form of plexiglass invented for thosee who want to live in glass houses, but are afraid of people throwing rocks.

Hannah said...

I want to roll in that pile of books and get papercuts head to toe so much!! *sarcastafont engage*

JennM said...

Congrats on the awesome teaching assistant position!

I LOVE the conversation about the grandma being a beast! Oh, is it ever okay to refer to one's grandma as such?

LOLOLOL

Blam said...


EXCITING NEWS ... I received a Teaching Assistantship at the school where I am going for my Masters in English in the fall.

Yay! I think I already congratulated you on this over at Nikki's, but... Mazel Tov!

"I don't want this mystery book, so I will shove it into the middle of the home decorating books where no one will ever find it."

See, when I worked in a comic-book store, that's what people would do with stuff that they did want, hiding it so that nobody else would take it until they came back for it later — even though we had a hold service behind the counter and if we discovered such stashes we had to put the stuff back where it belonged (not knowing who'd hidden it, when, or exactly why). How do we know people were hiding it because they wanted it, and not because they didn't, besides the fact that it was hidden and not just put back in the wrong place sloppily? They would complain that their carefully hidden stash was missing.

J approached a couple of high school girls and asked if they needed help.

You really need to remember to hyphenate your compound modifiers...

A group of teenage girls and guys were gathered around the large table we have in the back of the store. ... They were discussing the pluses and minuses to smoking pot.

Or were these the high school girls you were talking about? 8^)

VW: icabblis — State of supreme happiness attained by riding in a WiFi-enabled taxi.

BlackRoseofLight94 said...

The blond chick? Yeah, I think she was a bit too blond.

Ha. The blood pillow. I need that when I write sometimes. It just might scare me into using the pen for words instead of bombs.

vw: Citic - a critic of the city

Rebecca T. said...

@L'Aussie: Thanks! Glad you enjoyed yourself!

@Jessica: Yup!

@aLmYbNeNr: Thanks and Weird is just the beginning!

@Sarah: HAHAHAHAHAHA! Who steals a booksafe?!

@j.m. neeb: Thanks! And I love finding the pics to go with them, so I'm always glad when they strike a chord with all y'all too :D

@Hannah: sarcastafont FTW! We SERIOUSLY need to invent it!

@jenn: thanks so much! I don't know what was up with the grandma conversation. Strange.

@Blam: hehehe... I totally missed that and even when you put it up, I'm thinking, what's wrong with high school girls? Oops! And I don't know if they were the same, but I would have laughed my head off if they were!

@ElvishVampireHobbit94: Yes. And I kinda want one of those pillows too. But then I think, no.