from the diary: “December 30, 1984
“Bot Asimov’s New G. to Science at Books, Inc. today. Last day. Not on the new schedule. No more money. Damn. Oh the injustice of it all.”
Books Inc was my first and so far only bookstore job. Mom knew one of the clerks and this friend said Books Inc was hiring for the Christmas season, so got me an interview. I remember bragging that I already knew the layout of the store. After I was hired and the manager asked me to go get a book from a particular section I said, “Where’s that?” And she said, “I thought you knew the store’s layout.” To which I replied, sheepishly, “I knew all the areas I was interested in.”
They didn’t want me once the Christmas buying season was over. I took advantage of my employee discount to buy the Asimov book, thinking it one of those fat reference books that was really going to come in handy one imaginary future day that would turn out never to happen.
I didn’t dislike the bookstore but I was surprised to discover working there didn’t require one be bookish. For all the literary knowledge it required the inventory might as well have been widgets or shoes.
1 comment:
Your book knowledge would have come in handy at Half Price Books. Without a computer inventory I really valued the employees' knowledge of book trivia. It helped me find books for customers and it helped me know what books were desirable when buying from customers.
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