The Most Retaily Time of the Year...
the bookselling edition
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I added audio again this week - enjoy!
The Most Retaily Time of the Year
The other day I went shopping at the local Super Walmart. It happens from time to time. They are close to my house, and sometimes you just need paper towel or face lotion or whatever it is that would be financially unwise to buy from someplace else. It was the week before Thanksgiving, and the main aisles of the store were completely empty. Usually there are pallets of Easter candy, or Valentine’s candy, or back-to-school supplies, or Halloween candy (Walmart shoppers like their candy I guess). But this day, there were no products of any kind. There was lots of space. It was sort of creepy.
But the scene elicited stronger vibes than just creepy ones. Feelings of anticipation. Of chaos. Of cash registers working overtime. THE HOLIDAYS IN RETAIL.
The empty aisles in Walmart were waiting to be filled with stuff. Instant Pots, dishes, small appliances, toys, throw blankets … stuff, stuff, and more stuff. It was coming, it was going to happen. The tension was palpable. Perhaps not everyone can feel it, the coming crowds and the haphazard purchase of stuff. Maybe I’m more attuned to it because I took part in it.
All of a sudden I was transported back to the nineties.
I worked for Barnes & Noble for seven years, from 1992-1999. I started out at a BDalton in the mall, left there to open the first B&N in Tulsa, left Tulsa to work at the B&N corporate office in Manhattan, then came back to Tulsa to open the other B&N in town.
At least working for Barnes & Noble I got to sell mostly books. When I was there, it was before their company-wide decision to sell tons of other stuff besides books. It was a time when almost the entire store was actually filled with reading material. So in that regard, perhaps it felt a little less retail-y. But the objective was the same. SELL STUFF FOR CHRISTMAS!
In the mornings before the store opened, we’d spend time restocking shelves. I loved carts and book dollies filled with brand-new books, their spines and covers still intact, alluring cover art promising adventure or knowledge. (One of my favorite places to be was in the receiving area in the back of the store, unpacking boxes and seeing what had come in that day). The feeling in the store before the doors opened was one of excitement. People would be going home with cool things and we were going to make some money that day.
I loved the transactional nature of retail. Still do, really. There is something energetically satisfying about the exchange of money for a physical object.
Plus, books.
There was something fun and exciting about a store full—and I mean full—of people buying books and puzzles and cards. Everyone was bundled in coats and boots and sometimes the smell of fresh-baked cookies wafted through the store from the café. I’m not a fan of most Christmas music, but sometimes the stuff that the head executive of the B&N music department back in NYC picked out for all the stores to play wasn’t too bad. (I remember him well because he was actually pretty cute.)
Plus, books. Everywhere.
I loved to work at the cashwrap. I loved to look down the row and see customers waiting in line holding piles of books. I loved to take people’s money and send them home with a bag of reading material. I loved being exhausted at the end of the day. I wasn’t very thrilled when my cash drawer was off, but when you were super busy, it was bound to happen occasionally.
It’s easy to romanticize my time in the retail trenches. Christmas, books, fun! But it wasn’t all fun. Retail is probably right behind food service in the “jobs that can suck really badly around the holidays” category. People stealing stuff. Too much Christmas music. People asking for “that book that was on Oprah four months ago with the blue cover.” And the bathrooms! Sometimes I’d go in there after the store closed and think, dang, if you were feeling that bad, you probably should have stayed home.
The vibe in the store at the end of the day was exhaustion, relief, and let’s hurry up and vacuum so we can go to Waffle House to let off some steam, because tomorrow we have to do it all over again. As part of the management team, I got to work six days a week from Thanksgiving to New Year’s. But as I mentioned, it’s pretty easy to romanticize it all at this point.
A few days ago, I went back to Walmart. This time, the main aisles were crammed with stuff. Traffic was slow, but you could feel it coming.
I worked at my college bookstore for one semester. I loved it. I was in receiving. Opening up crates of books, marking the prices, and then stocking them. I loved it. I got so distracted by all the subjects of all the books from history of ballet to zoology I couldn't help but leaf through them on the sly. Plus we sold lots of fiction from authors I had never heard of, especially foreign language books from places like Portugal and Poland and other places. I looked through those books as well not knowing a word in them.
We had a lot of fun but got yelled at a lot pulling pranks and stuff.
I worked in a bookstore in college, it was absolute heaven!