Information Day = Overrated

Hello.

Working as a Grunt at the information desk has its ups and downs. With every customer that comes up with a rude question or a muttered curse, there is a customer that arrives with the type of question that just makes you smile.

Booth and Noble is full of wonderment, juxtaposed with complete bafflement.

Let me give you an example of this dichotomy. We Grunts have very few duties to perform when we are working at the information desk, other than working with customers. One of these few duties is to pick up the piles of books that litter the tables and walkways of the store. As one of my fellow Grunts pointed out, customers feel that it is our job to clean up after them. We are there, after all, to babysit. It is not our job to put new fixtures of the latest Oprah book. Instead, we are on clean-up duty.

So imagine my shock when first thing in the morning I discovered a large pile of books on a table. No one was sitting there -- no one was close by whom I could ask if they were the possessors of this book.

The timing of this discovery matched almost exactly the time when the children's reading hour ended. Every Monday we have a children's reading hour, where a storyteller comes in and reads a book or two, a cartoon character or two arrives, and little children scream and shout for an hour.

So, the children and their mothers exit the children's department at the same time as I clean up a pile of books.

I place the books at the information counter.

Children walk past me, oblivious to the world because they have their fingers up their butts.

I put the books back on the shelves.

The mothers tell the children to stop picking their butts. The children scream.

I arrive back at the information desk, only to see a woman on the other side of the store, where I just removed the books. She looks around: obviously, they were her books. She had decided to leave for a little bit, and did not take the books with her.

I start to feel bad. Perhaps I shouldn't have moved those books. Perhaps I should have left them. Then I hear it:

"WHERE THE FUCK ARE MY FUCKING BOOKS?"

Children stop picking their butts and stare, slack jawed, at the woman. Mothers cover their ears and weep. I don't know the best way to deal with this situation, so I simply walk over to her and say, "I put your books away, and please don't swear in front of the children." I give her the books back.

As the children and their mothers file out of the store later, I hear one of the children yell, "Mom, what's a fucking book?"

This terrible incident was offset by the amusement of the phone call I received a little bit later. One woman called and wanted to order a book. I placed the book in the shopping cart and started to ask the questions that were necessary: name, address, etc.

Then I ask, "do you have an email address?"

She replies, "Yes."

And there is a long pause.

"Do you want it?" she asks. No, no ma'am I don't. I was just curious to see if you were in the 21st century.

Perhaps what was the most rewarding experience of the day came towards the end of my shift. I had been answering the phone an exasperatingly high number of times. It seemed to ring continuously from the minute the store opened to the minute I left.

This call, however, was amazing.

"Thank you for calling Booth and Noble. This is Paul speaking. How can I help you?"

"Hey Paul, this is Jimbo." Why do they insist on telling me their name? Are we buds? Are we friends? Do we go out for drinking buddies ?

"Hey...Jimbo. What can I do for you?"

The voice on the other end of the phone spoke like a man rising from the grave. The gravel in his voice betrayed his age, but this sprightly effervesce of his tone revealed a hidden jauntiness.

"I'm looking for a book on how to win the lottery."

"Wait...you want a book that tells you about the history of the lottery?"

"No, I want a book that details the way that I can win."

I go to the computer and type in the words "win" and "lotto" in the keywords box. Surprisingly a number of books come up, including one in the New Age section.

I look at one book and ask, "is this what you're looking for?"

He responds, "no, no I read that one already. It didn't work."

Needless to say, I ordered him another book and barely hung up without laughing. I didn't quite succeed when a customer ordered a book and claimed his last name was "Buttz."