People who sit in Barnes and Nobel and read/mutilate whole books

[The_Casual_Observer]

all day, don't buy anything, get in the way while I am browsing to actually buy and messing up all the stock, particularly the expensive art books. Same thing with the coffee bar area, completely filled with high school students either doing homework with a piles of text books, or using the store's books as if it were a library, again, not buying anything, no seats for paying customers.

I guess B&N likes all this and encourages it, but I find it a pain in the ass, I'm done with the place.

[NMMNG]

1. I used to work in bookstores

Two different Waldenbooks and a Reader's Market (which is now defunct). They weren't like the B&N and Borders where browsing/lounging for hours is encouraged by chairs and coffee bars but we'd still end up with customers who would hang around for long periods of time doing just that. Sometimes people would even sit on actual displays of books that we had piled on the floor as if they were seats :grr:. Then when I asked them to "please don't sit on the merchandise", they'd look at me either as if it had never occurred to them that it was improper, or as if I was being rude to ask them to get off it. :eyes: I don't even want to remember having to clean up the children's section with the dozens of different sized and shaped books. :scared:

I'm glad I no longer work in retail.

[Syrinx]

2. we don't have a Barnes and Noble yet

But I understand one is planned soon.

We have a Books-A-Million which I guess is similar.

I like that they don't mind me coming in and hanging out. I don't do it much, but sometimes when I'm bored out of my mind, I'll go hang out for an hour or so and check out some obscure magazines that I've never heard of before.

I try not to damage anything, and sometimes I even buy something!

What IS sad, is I don't think there is a true independent book store left around here -- and this is a university town!

[BreweryYardRat]

3. It's called being a broke student.

Although I do my best not to "mutilate" the books.

[Phillycat]

4. Oh, dear.

I love spending hours in a bookstore reading. Why else would they put those squashy armchairs in there? :)

[hyphenate]

5. I, too buy my share of books

But sometimes I need a rest and will pull out a book that I'm not really likely to buy (usually reference books that are 5 inches thick!) and peruse it while sitting down.

I don't mind people sitting and reading--it's definitely comfortable in some of these places, and the idea of a book store-coffee house appeals to the sense of freedom for me. In the old days, and still with some chains, the bookstore is merely that--a store to buy books. Barnes and Noble, Borders, and a few others offer a certain ambience that gives folks a chance to relax and read. Most of the time, I would prefer that to a library because a lot of libraries now aren't as cordial or as enjoyable.

[Richardo]

6. Try putting that shit away.

That's what I do part time.

I don't get that part of the B&N 'model'. The mags are bad enough, but a $75 art book? C'mon people.

When I get people (especially students) coming in looking for something very esoteric ("Do you have any books on Keynesian economic theory?") I tell them to go to the library.

And I've suggested a nightclub-like '2 drink minimum' to keep a seat in the cafe. Deaf ears.

[blondeatlast]

30. My brother in books... I remember oh, so very well, the woman who came

in, sat down at a table, spread out her stuff and proceeded to pickl off EVERY travel book on the Carribean.

From opening until about 5 o'clock she did this.

I had to put the crap away--and most of it was more than a little shopworn so we had to pull some of it.

Don't even get me started on the Anne Hooper books (we kept one out and the rest in the back), The Mayo Clinic Health Book, and various others.

We had a handy bottle of Purell located at the wrap stands--especially for the Anne Hooper, etc books!

Yanno--the library I work for pays well for pages and circulation attendants--have you ever checked that out (no pun intended) in your neck o' the woods?

It's a MUCH better job than B&N--and even B&N wasn't too shabby for me.

Just remember--you can be the very first to get Helen Thomas' new book (maybe even an advance--sa-WEET!).

[Richardo]

36. My sister in books!

:patriot: :pals:

(I really like the B&N gig, actually. One of the best perks is bitching about the customers) :thumbsup:

And remember, B&N officers contribute 100% to Democrats. See buyblue.com.

[blondeatlast]

37. I actually enjoyed it too--and plugged them in in GD/P here

But it's really a plug for our Helen Thomas' new book...

[Richardo]

38. I saw that: nice post!

I'm excited about it too :bounce:

[NMMNG]

53. The shopworn stuff

I wanted to scream the way things would get shopworn because people would read them in the store for hours at a time, then people would want to get them for virtually nothing because they were "damaged". When I told them we couldn't do that they'd get all bent out of shape (the reality was that we could get more sending them back to the publisher for credit than we'd get giving the customer the sort of discount they wanted).

And then there was the problem of chasing away the teenagers from the sex manuals and porn mags a brazillion times a day. :eyes:

[Blue_Tires]

56. " "We had a handy bottle of Purell located at the wrap stands..."

"--especially for the Anne Hooper, etc books!"

ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww:scared:

[hfojvt]

51. Keynesian economic theory is obscure?

Certainly you would have some Galbraith. That's almost the same thing.

Speaking of deaf ears. Hard Rock cafes increased the loudness of their music so people would not hang out so long at their cafes. They don't make money if people just sit and talk.

[HughBeaumont]

7. I read like a fiend on the chairs at Borders.

I've also given them several thousand dollars of my money over the past ten years, so I'm allowed. I sure haven't given my own library that much in tax dollars. Or have I?

[Left Is Write]

21. I feel the same way...

I spend a ton of money in Borders. If I want to, say, sit down and page through a cookbook before deciding whether to buy it, I feel like I'm entitled to do that.

I'm always very careful with the merchandise, of course.

[blondeatlast]

31. As a public library employee familiar with how money is expended--no,

you probably haven't given the library alone that much unless you've made a private donation.

But thank you for your consideration--I work for one of the best library systems in the country and am very proud of it.

I did my time in retail, too. Libraries pay MUCH better from the grunts on up.

[CBHagman]

8. It's not just Barnes & Noble.

Don't get me wrong here. I realize that people use shopping or browsing to kill time and to amuse themselves, as well as for serious questions of buying. No good sales clerk or store manager would want potential customers to feel unwelcome.

But I am completely sick of people who regard the products for sale in stores as their personal property to be used, exploited, damaged, given to their marauding children, etc.

In the town where I live, there's a Borders, and when I pass the window, I can always see a magazine section filled with people who have glued their rear ends to the seats and are hunched over magazines and reading as though there is no tomorrow. The magazine section generally looks ransacked, and it's extremely off-putting.

A friend of mine used to manage a bookstore with an in-store cafe (managed by a different company), and a "customer" would come in with a cup of coffee from another store, grab a few books from the shelves, and glue his worthless rear end to a seat in cafe (where he was not a paying customer, I need to add) and just treat the store as his library and office. Surely there must be a ring of hell for people like that.

I have no problem with people spending time reading, and I was always okay with the homeless woman who would hang out quietly in the store where I worked, or the homeless guy who ate his lunch once at the back of the store. But don't park yourself in a chair forever. It's a business, people. Enjoy visiting stores, but don't abuse the merchandise and don't regard it as a playroom for your kids and don't spill food and coffee all over everything.

[YankeyMCC]

9. It's entrapment is what it is

Coffee, bran muffins, reading material...I mean come on. :)

Seriously I have to confess, although I haven't done this in a long time, I've done this - I mean I would go and sit in the coffee bar and read. I tried not making a mess and put the books back when I was done.

[terrya]

11. It's that "Seinfeld" episode...

:-)

I imagine the employees of B&N don't like it. I don't blame them. I'll stand and thumb through a book for a little while, but I won't sit at the coffee bar unless I knew I was going to buy a book.

[Richardo]

25. Feel free, terrya - we'd rather have a paying customer take the table

...than a 10-student study group for 4 hours.

[terrya]

65. Thank you, Richardo

That's greatly appreciated. :-)

[XemaSab]

22. Coffee+Bran Muffins= a need for reading material

[Inland]

48. But the coffee's too expensive. I just bring in a thermos. nt

[LSK]

10. i dont have a problem with it

I hardly feel like im squeezed by people or books are damaged all over. And if they have a coffee bar area, most people do their reading there and actually buy coffee.

I dont see what the problem is.

Borders is the same as B&N.

[underpants]

12. When I was a young man I used to go and look at the photography books

they had nude women in them

[CBHagman]

13. And we all knew what you were doing, too!

It was always fun to have to shelve something near the people sneaking peeks at the erotic books. They wanted to sink into the floor.

[blondeatlast]

34. Was that pre- or post-Purell?

As I mention upthread to Richardo, that one copy of Anne Hooper's latest work seemed to move by itself sometimes, I swear...

Ugh, I need a shower just thinking about it!

[tigereye]

14. it's cuz the booksellers really want people to go to their stores

instead of the library. Think about it. (I worked in libraries for many years)


At the same time and with empathy for the folks who work there, I'm just glad people read. If the owners of these places didn't want people to read the books, they wouldn't have places to sit.

[Southsideirish]

45. Many libraries are changing into B & N's - not good, in my opinion.

Loud talking, eating, cell phones going off, goofing off at the computer stations - its the new academic library.

[tigereye]

58. I think that they are afraid people won't come to the library

unless it has food and expensive coffee!!! ;) It's very funny in light of how unusual it was in the late 70s and early 80s to see bookstore/cafes.

Which in itself is very strange. They have modernized our local libraries over the last few years and there are some positive aspects - more light, more user friendly, more varied places to sit. So it's hard to argue with some aspects of it.

[JVS]

15. Reading/ damaging books at B&N is a way to "stick it to the man"

[CBHagman]

18. Oh, please.

I've worked in an independent bookstore for years and don't feel there's anything noble in trashing a corporate bookstore. Please.

[JVS]

20. Oooohh! Independent! What a nice way of saying "Petite bourgeois"

If the Borders is going to leave to books out to read, why pay for them? If they happen to be slightly damaged when I am done, who cares?

[ProudToBeLiberal]

27. what's wrong with capitalism?

[JVS]

29. What's wrong with ignoring its rules and treating merchandise poorly...

when given an opportunity?

[ProudToBeLiberal]

32. I think Petite bourgeois is important to our society

Mom and pop stores are an essential part of the American Dreams. I think it's part of our fabric of culture and it's an emblem of opportunity. Why else would immigrants come to the United States? They seek the American Dream.

When you deride small business owners and farmers, I think you are essentially trying to suppress what it is to be an American.

[JVS]

33. I think that mom and pop stores are part of feeding a delusion

Furthermore, I've worked for a "pop" and he was a fucking slave driving bastard. Fuck him and his dreams.

Mom and pop don't want to pay a living wage either. Smaller piggies, same greed.

[ProudToBeLiberal]

35. I'm taking more along the lines of equal opportunity

not equal outcome/distribution. Our society is not a caste system where you have no mobility to advance oneself. You don't have to like it, but people see the U.S. as a land of freedom and opportunity and people are wiling to risk their lifes just to enter the United States.

In addition, I have many socialist friends at the University I attend. They talk about have a "social revolution" and dream of the day when it will happen. But history shows that no revolution/reform and etc will never happens without the help of middle class/oppressors. For example during the French Revolution, many of the aristocrats helped the "masses." Women would not have gotten the right to vote, without the help of men. Slaves in the U.S. would not have gotten freed without the help of "pops and moms." History shows that you need the moderates to enact change.

So I wouldn't be too deriding if I were you, unless you don't care about instituting reform.

[JVS]

62. I refuse to kowtow to the sacred cow of small business

[CBHagman]

57. This is how I know you've never run a business.

You cite precisely one employer and make generalizations about literally thousands of local businesses.

There is so much inaccuracy in your post that I almost don't know where to start. Suffice it to say that almost everyone I know in retail (and I've held retail jobs on and off for two decades) would dismiss your comments about greed with a laugh, and that includes the operators of independent stores (perhaps especially them).

You regard it as acceptable to damage products for sale at a store. Might it have entered your brain that other people are going to those stores to purchase said products and aren't wild about your plans for the merchandise?

You regard people who run small businesses as "greedy." Yeah, 16-hour days, seven days a week, and then getting driven out by a large corporation amount to the lap of luxury.

Who precisely is being helped by your attitude and stereotyping? Certainly not yourself.

Your fantasy of "sticking it to the man" is just that. You're hurting the people you claim to represent.

[JVS]

64. Thank you captain obvious! A person of even subpar intelligence...

would have no need to deduce that I haven't run a small business. My contempt for small businesses, who somehow seem bent on convincing the world that their shit doesn't stink, makes it obvious.

I would say the fact that there are mom and pop businesses run so harshly that people would prefer a wal-mart job is an indictment of the fact that small business escapes regulation because politicians like to kiss their asses.

To hell with them, let the corporations do what they were designed to do and eliminate these archaic businesses. Only then will people look forward instead of backwards.

[ghostsofgiants]

16. You should ring up Bernard Black.

[The_Casual_Observer]

42. The "antiquarian bookseller" world IS Bernard Black.

[ghostsofgiants]

43. Every antiquarian bookseller is a surly Irish drunk?

Man, I need to go to used book stores more often.

[The_Casual_Observer]

44. I'm not talking 2nd hand bookstores, I'm talking "Antiquarian"

The biggest collection of mean spirited thieves and bastards outside the correctional system.

[nemo137]

68. "I'd like to buy this book"

"Sorry, you can't, we're closed, good day."

Great series.

[Craig3410]

17. Hey, I just read Dave Barry and Dilbert.

:)

[Nikia]

19. Sometimes, I hang out at Barnes and Noble

Our closest Barnes and Noble is a rather big store with a large assortment of books. I am careful not to damage anything and usually end up buying something.
I usually put my books back if I don't buy, but they do seem to have enough employees that they do have time to restock for people who don't put stuff back.
They get better sales by encouraging people to hang out there. Not only does it encourage you to take home the books that you read, but it also makes the place look more popular. A lot of people want to go where other people want to go.

[Richardo]

23. The employees are *there* to restock...

...in fact, it's often better if you just let them do it so the books get back to the right place.

(Spoken as a bookseller my own bad self)

[XemaSab]

24. The local B&N is the closest thing to a youth scene in Redding

There are always young, hot guys there talking about Camus.

[JVS]

26. Yeah the whole, read what you want thing is a scam to get you to spend...

time and money there. Especially when people are at the Coffee bar. It's not a free read if you've spent fucking $8 on coffee!

Go to the library instead.

[quiet.american]

28. There's always those who abuse things and mess it up for everybody.

Some people don't seem to be able to differentiate between their living room and being in a public space. It still makes me blanche to see people kick off their shoes in Starbucks or a bookshop and sit barefoot with their feet up on the table or tucked onto their seat. Yech.

[Mojambo]

39. I work at a magazine stand sandwiched between a Starbucks and a Cold Stone

All fucking day long it's housewives reading gossip magazines cover to cover and then at night it's the hipster couples on dates stuffing their Oh-so pretty faces with Ice Cream and reading music magazines. It never once occurs to these yahoos that we might have to actually earn some money by selling the product... My most used work phrase is, "You know, they put prices on these things for a reason."

I really despise freeloading losers. It's one thing to do it to a giant corporation like Barnes and Noble, but PLEASE don't do it to small independent places.

[The_Casual_Observer]

40. After an abusive creasing read-through or two, the magazines

are unsaleable. Might as well give them away to start with. I hate having to come at an aisle of books from both directions because there is some woman sitting cross legged on the floor in deep concentration over a cover folded back paperback.

[Mojambo]

46. Coverfolding pisses me off beyond belief.

And so does sitting down on the floor to read. Both are generally an easy ticket to getting kicked out.

I may have to let you "browse" the magazines, but I don't have to let you get comfortable doing it.

[Book Lover]

55. Do magazine publishers have the same returns deal as book publishers?

When my company sells a book, we have to accept any returned copy a wholesaler decides they can't sell (as I am sure you are familiar with). Do magazine publishers have the same deal?

[bigwillq]

41. Blame the store not the customers.

I've done that before.
The employees allow it so of course I am going to do it. I don't have the money to buy those books that I browse when I am in those stores.

[Deja Q]

47. Don't you wish workplaces were just as easy to leave?

Bookstore has shit management and employees, you can leave...

Workplace has shit management and employees, they'll get as devolved as they can get.

Corporamerica must be cleaning up after the mess they're making... in their pants. x(

[Hardrada]

49. South of us is a new B&N

where they retrieve Playboy mags etc routinely from the men's rooms and reshelve them. People should not take merchandise into the restrooms, IMHO.

[The_Casual_Observer]

50. Thus the plot of the Seinfeld episode!

The "bathroom" book.

[fleabert]

52. I do it.

but I don't destroy merch. When I have the money, I spend it. :-)

[Blue_Tires]

54. you know, i never got that either

but i never felt comfortable enough to speak out about it until now, especially since the big bookstore people don't seem to care...

I'll go to B+N/B.Dalton's/Whatever and find some incredibly fucked-up books--coffee stains, food stains, dents, tears, dog-eared pages, etc...it gets to the point where you're leafing through 'new' second-hand books at primo prices....IMO, I know some people like to go there and hang out, drink coffee, or try to pick up dates, but for some people to use the place as an honest-to-god library/study hall/daycare center makes it a real PITA...And i know some prefer the atmosphere there to a local library, but i've never been in a bookstore yet that was quiet enough to get real work done in (unless it was opening/closing time)

[northzax]

59. well sometimes...

I'll go through every copy of Catcher in the Rye and black out all the bad words.

[Aiptasia]

60. some people have no lives

When I worked for B&N about a decade ago, we had plenty of them, and the books they would read would always wind up shop worn and messed up. Usually, it was local teachers and art students that would mess up the big expensive art books. I even saw one college professor come in with a handheld video camera, trying to video tape the art prints.

I've had people come up to me and ask where the copy machines were, to which we had to reply "sorry, we don't have copy machines. We're a bookstore, not a library."

I also used to speak in a normal voice and get "sssshhhh'd" a lot, to which i'd reply, "This isn't a library..."

B&N also has the most liberal return policy on the planet. If you have used books or want to recycle your existing books, exchange them at your local B&N. If it has a SKU code on the book cover, chances are B&N has it in their computers, and they will not challenge book returns even without a recipt. We had one lady exchange her entire romance novel collection for store credit one day (30+ books).

I live in a very fundie conservative area, and it was always amusing to me that the #1 book stolen off our shelves after inventory reports were children's bibles, followed by adult bibles, followed by 'the pocket kama sutra.' I understand why teenagers would steal an illustrated pocket sized sex manual, but why children's bibles?

My favorite thing of all though was high school kids used to call the store all the time. Turns out today's generation is way too lazy to do actual research on their own school papers, so they'd call us like we had nothing better to do than go look up facts and figures for their papers. "How far is Barcelona from Madrid?" I'd put them on hold for five minutes, then reply, "1,802 miles."

[Sugar Smack]

61. I bussed tables at a Barnes & Noble.

I had my English/History degree. When they found I had experience at the coffe urn, they stuck me there for 8 months. I took a pay-cut to go work for an independent bookstore and I was much happier there. Where I worked, the B&N people called the books "product".

I was too busy getting chocolate syrup out of my shirt to get to address the concerns of the people milling around looking for books. Hated the place. Also, did you know that napping on the couches was allowed until employees in NJ found a customer dead on one of the couches? I remember answering the phone once. A customer at the back of the coffee line was calling in an order. This customer threw money down on the counter & I had to chase rolling coins.

You see the bizarrest kind of bad behavior when you work in retail. I'm not going to romanticize dealing with this because there's no glory in hoof-scraping for bucks. It made me a better Democrat, to say the least. And it seriously shortened my fuse.

[Book Lover]

63. You know, I just can't muster up my righteous indignation at this one

So what if one copy is messed up? Ask the nice clerk to get you another copy. We print them by the thousands anyway. And if a copy is messed up, the bookstore is just going to rip the cover off and send that back to the publisher (and get their money back, by the way).

[The_Casual_Observer]

66. Seems like a terrible waste to me. Since you work for a publisher,

I can see why the "business model" works for you, however.

[Book Lover]

67. Perhaps you missed my point

The bookstore gets their money back for those messed-up copies - they just send the cover back to the publisher, who gets to eat the cost. POD is the answer to this and many, many other flaws in the current publishing and bookselling model.