Lessons Learned from Info (Desk)

Hello.

There is a moment in every Grunt's life as a book clerk when he or she raises one eyebrow (or, if he or she cannot raise one eyebrow, he or she raises both; unless he or she has a unibrow, and then he or she raises his or her eyebrow-band) at comments that are made.

It is not something that usually occurs in the first few weeks of work, because one is still getting used to this thing called "Booth and Noble." No question is too idiotic in your first few weeks (unless you get a "Do you have any Charles Dickens?" and you answer 'Yes, we have many, including A Tale of Two Cities' and then the reply comes "No, I meant CHARLES Dickens.").

In fact, I would venture to say that the old axiom "There are no stupid questions" was not invented by a book Grunt.

No, the cocked eyebrow (or brows, or brow-band) comes later, after you've mastered the delicate art of figuring out what the customer wants.

(Minor diatribe here: this is not the same as figuring out what the customer asks for. What the customer wants and what they request are very often not the same thing. For instance, a customer will come in and ask for "Oprah." What they want is the latest "Oprah book club book," which is usually to be found in the bestsellers, or the trash. If they come in and ask for a particular book by a particular author, you can usually be assured that they have either the name of the author or the title of the book wrong. Flags of Our Fathers was not written by Peter Jennings, as one customer recently asked).

The cocked eyebrow/s/band comes after you've discovered that you have reached your full level of customer antics. Customers, it must be said, should never ever ever try to be funny. There are a number of reasons for this:

1) Customers, like most people, are not as funny as they think they are; in much the same way as drunk people are not as good at dancing as they think they are, middle-schoolers are not as old as they think they are, and Creed is not as talented as they think they are.

2) Chances are, we Grunts have heard this joke before. The book doesn't scan the first time past the laser? If you think it's original to claim "if it doesn't scan, it must be free," then you should take a long, hard look at yourself in the mirror and then beat yourself over the head with it.

3) There is no reason why we Grunts will laugh. We barely have the energy or desire to take our plates from the breakroom to the Cafe, and we don't even have to clean them. Laughing just saps us of our energy. No joke is that funny.

4) Even if we do find your joke amusing, we will automatically look at what books you're holding in your hands, and chances are, that will kill the joke for us. You make us laugh and then we see that you have the latest Dan Brown? Then the joke's on us. And that ain't funny at all.

So you see, there should never be reason to make pointless jokes to us humorless Grunts. (Much like there is never any reason to make pointless conversation with us weary Grunts).

I will give you a pertinent example from my day today at the Information Kiosk. It is Mother's Day, and on top of that, it is a beautiful day outside. There was almost no one in the store. It was like a ghost town, filled only with the decaying laughter of a thousand empty hearts. A child ran past the Information Kiosk with her father close behind her:

Father: Do you want to get Harry Potter?
Child: No, Harry Potter is boring.
Father: Oh.
Child: ...and scary.

I didn't want to point out that it's rather contradictory to be boring and scary, unless (as was pointed out by another Grunt), it is algebra class. Besides, it was just a child, and they are notoriously stupid.

Then, another customer comes up to me. She is crinkled, and seems barely able to move her joints. She is like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz before Dorothy can give him the "Oil Can" to lube him up. She licks her dry, cracked lips with a sandpapery rubbing and coughs.

"Can I help you?" I ask, momentarily taken aback by this animalistic visage.

"I am looking for a book about Pysanka. P-Y-S-A-N-K-A. Pysanka."

"Ok, ma'am I'd be happy to help you look for that." I looked in the computer. Nothing came up. "There's nothing with that name in the computer. What is this? Can I look it up by a different name?"

"No, it's just pysanka. P-Y-S-A-N-K-A."

"Yes, I spelled it correctly," I checked. "But there's nothing. What is pysanka?"

"Ukrainian Decorated Easter Eggs."

"Ok...um...I looked that up and nothing popped up either."

"Ukrainian Decorated Easter Eggs. Are you sure? U-K-R-A-N..."

"Yes, I know how to spell Ukrainian, ma'am. Are you interested in a book about decorating them?"

"No."

"In a book about collecting them?"

"No."

"In a book about their history?"

"No."

"Then I'm afraid I don't know what to look for, ma'am."

"But you have so many books here. People can find anything here."

"Obviously not pysanka, ma'am."

"Oh," she said, gearing herself up for The Joke. "But I thought there were books about everything. People collect Dinosaur Crap!"

There was a stunned moment of silence. Even the soft tinkering of someone's cell phone was silenced. I slowly raised one eyebrow, as she turned and walked away, smiling the inner smile of one content.