Printing out pictures for people is a common enough reference question at the library, but this was a new one.

Customer: “I need a picture of Khan.”

Me: “Khan… Genghis? Noonien Singh? Shah Rukh?”

Customer: “Genghis, obviously!”

Me: “There are some reference paintings in—”

Customer: “No, I need a photograph.”

Me: “Ma’am, I can print you an artist’s interpretation of what Genghis Khan looked like, but a photograph is just not available.”

Customer: “Why not?!”

Me: “Because he lived and died before the camera was ever invented.”

Customer: *Tuts* “That is very inconvenient!“

Me: “…sorry?”

At my supermarket, we occasionally sold books. This time, it was the fifth book from the Harry Potter series. People could preorder it until four weeks before the release date, and we would put those books in a bag with the name and information on it. We had huge posters with the deadline and information on them, and a colleague and I even made banners covering those with the text, “Preorder not possible anymore,” after the deadline.

We had separate displays for the books that hadn’t been preordered. They could only get the preordered books at the service counter. We had two locked drawers with all the preorders, and only shift supervisors and managers had a key.

I had the delight of working the opening shift on the day of release as the supervisor. The supermarket opened at 8:00. I was in the store by 7:30 to get the registers ready, give the other cashiers the rundown for the morning, and tell them to prepare for the absolute crapstorm that was to come.

Problems started at 7:30 when the manager tried to open the doors for me and some other cashiers. A lot of people had already gathered, and they tried getting in. [Manager] doesn’t take crap from anyone and managed to shout at the customers who were already there that they couldn’t get their books without the registers being ready and people being there to man them. So, we got everything ready, and [Manager] and I got the displays with the non-preordered books ready to go.

Eight o’clock arrived, the door opened, and the herd of customers swarmed in. Chaos ensued around the displays and around my service counter. People were yelling and screaming that they wanted their books, wanting to pay, and basically pushing others aside. Holy crap.

[Manager] came, and I asked if he could find things like tickets with numbers so that we could deal with this in a somewhat orderly fashion.

Three hours later, the displays were empty and about half of the preorders were gone. Three hours of working non-stop to get people their book fixes.

Then, the problems started. The displays were empty and the only books in our possession were preorders. The time limit on those was three days; the books could be picked up on three dates, and afterward, they would be sold. People who didn’t preorder and couldn’t buy a book as we were out of stock started to throw hissy fits because “No” was apparently the wrong answer.

It all came to a head when I told one particularly entitled woman no, and she tried to complain to my manager… who told her to cut the crap after explaining the situation to her AGAIN. This woman then went to do her shopping. At the register, she kept throwing me dirty looks and mumbling something.

Then, a regular customer came in with her son to pick up her preorder. She gave me her name and address, and I turned around, unlocked the drawer, and grabbed the book before locking the drawer again. Unfortunately for me, [Woman] had heard [Regular] asking for the book and came to take a closer look.

Woman: “WHY ARE YOU GIVING HER A BOOK?! YOU TOLD ME YOU WERE OUT OF BOOKS!”

Me: “This is a preorder. We are out of the ones that weren’t preordered.”

Woman: “LIAR! I DEMAND YOU GIVE ME THAT BOOK NOW! I WAS HERE FIRST!”

Me: “The manager told you the same thing. This book is preordered by this woman. You can’t have this book unless she decides to part with it.”

Surprise: [Regular] didn’t do that.

[Woman] continued to screech and curse while I completed the transaction.

Then, it happened. The moment I tried to hand the book to [Regular]’s kid, [Woman] came up to me in the workspace behind the service counter, and she got waaaaayyy into my personal space and grabbed my shoulder. The kid was fast and had the book before [Woman] could grab it, and he booked it. (Smart kid.)

But that’s not all. Nope. [Woman] saw her prize in the hands of the running kid and started to try and open the locked drawers. When that didn’t work, she proceeded to let me know she was very unhappy. She didn’t touch me, but she was screaming so loud and she had me backed into a corner.

In the meantime, the poor mother had called for help and I had pressed the emergency button. [Regular] couldn’t interfere physically as she had a neckbrace on. Our emergency button made sure that cops were called and extra cameras were turned on to catch everything on video.

[Manager] finally managed to wrestle [Woman] away from me. The cops came and she was taken away. Statements were taken, and [Woman] was banned from the store.

She did come back once, but when she was discovered by a colleague, she booked it. The fun part about it? My colleague let out a scream, yelled at her, and she ran, tried jumping over the “Closed” sign on a chain at a closed register, and fell flat on her face. She got up and ran out of the store right past me, holding her face. I couldn’t help but say, “Have a nice weekend!”

I don’t know what happened with [Woman] after that. Frankly, I don’t care. I was seventeen at the time, and I never had to go to court. She got banned and I never had to deal with her again.

We have a new coworker who recently moved to Canada from France. French is their first language but they’re perfectly confident in English. It is near Christmas and we are stocking those small novelty books that act as good stocking stuffers.

French Coworker: *Going through inventory* “Oh! What is this word?”

She points to the word “quirk” in the title “Quirks Of The English Language.” I explain what it means and she nods solemnly.

French Coworker: “Yes! English has so many… quirks! It’s a very difficult language to get right!”

She opens it up and reads one of the lines out loud.

French Coworker: “Before was was was, was was is.”

She then looks at me accusingly.

French Coworker: “This is evil!”

An older gentleman has been browsing nearby, and he chimes in:

Customer: “Before was was was, was was is. When is is is, was was yet will be will be will be.”

French Coworker: “You’re evil!”

Guess what she got for her Secret Santa gift?

Reading this story reminded me of my own store where we also have our own “Clive”. Clive works in our bookstore, but I don’t think he knows how to read, let alone reads any books. He is nice enough and is willing to do the work, but he just has massive gaps in his knowledge that you would assume most humans would know.

Manager: “Clive, we just received this batch of books that have been signed by [Local Author]. I’ve put them on the display table. Can you put these ‘signed by author’ stickers on the covers?”

Clive: “Sure!”

A little later, I am working the register and a customer comes up to me with a book.

Customer: “Is this accurate?”

Me: “Is what accurate, ma’am?”

Customer: “That this book was signed by the author? If so, this is a very good deal!”

Me: “Well, we don’t charge extra if the author has signed them. Can I see the book?”

The customer shows me the book. I immediately mentally face-palm and explain to the customer what happened.

Then, I call over my manager.

Manager: “What’s up?”

Me: “Did you get Clive to put some ‘signed by author’ stickers on some books?”

Manager: “Yes, for [Local Author]’s books on the display table.” *Realization hits* “Oh, no. What happened?”

Me: “I think he put them on every book on the table.”

Manager: “How do you know?”

Me: “They’ve been stuck onto Pride & Prejudice and The Diary of Anne Frank.”

Related:
Some Problems Tend To Stick Around

My client was sending me logo ideas for a group that was responsible for building buzz about a wide variety of books to raise sales. The client sent me a photo of cabs driving in Times Square, a photo of some teenagers with backpacks, and a cartoon of three people talking around a water cooler.

Me: “I got the images. Can we discuss how these images relate to your ideas so I can get started on the project?”

Client: “Sure, I just need you to create logos from them. Basically, just convert those three different images into three logo files. What do you call them… EPS files, right?”

Me: “So, you want that image you pulled off the Internet of Times Square to be the logo for your book buzz-building group?”

Client: “Yep!”