Book covers.

Why wouldn't a book store that carries practically everything carry book covers? It boggles the mind.

-Lima Bean

Achoo!

Every time I sneeze, I feel like I'm starting an avalanche. The acoustics in the store lobby amplify my sneezes so much, I almost want to apologize to customers for disturbing their quiet shopping.

-Lima Bean

We are not free power

A customer just asked me if he could use one of our outlets to charge his phone... He then proceeded to look extremely taken back and angry when I told him no "not even the one in the foyer". It's not the store's job to provide free electricity to customers if they left home without charging their phone completely. I don't know why someone would expect us to provide that service.

~Montana

Tax Season

Someone just asked me how much tax was. While I dumbly stared (your taxes? How would I know how much you make?) the guy pulls out a Walgreen’s receipt. Ah, sales tax. 9% buddy, it even says so on the receipt.

~Montana

Coffee spill.

A customer spilled her 16-ounce coffee on the concierge desk. She was stopping to grab something from the desk, and when she reached for it, she knocked her coffee over. It spilled over the left side of the desk, pooling behind the computer monitor and splashing over the telephone. Luckily, the coffee missed the wiring and the switchboard by inches.

I was in the middle of helping a customer on the switchboard, and in the shock of the situation, I hadn't heard what the woman on the other line had said. When I asked her to repeat it, I could tell she was pissed.

The coffee-spiller apologized over and over again, and rushed to the cafe to grab a stack of napkins. She helped mop up the mess for a few minutes, but when I told her it was OK, that these things happen, and not to worry about it, she took is as permission to leave.

Still with a lake of coffee to take care of, I called the MOD. Stupidly, I called using the coffee-covered telephone: coffee dripped down my sleeve and into my hair. oops. Someone from Supplies offered to help me clean. Everything was wiped down with orange-scented cleaner. Brochures and other handouts that were soaked with coffee were replaced. Some of our cheat sheets taped to the side of the counter were stained, but not too badly. What an ordeal!

The desk still smells like coffee.

-Lima Bean

Comb-over disaster.

I just saw the worst comb-over in the history of comb-overs. Instead of combing the hair from the side of the head over his bald spot, this customer used hair from the back of his head. Pulled from his neck to his forehead, his hair looked like a helmet. And, at his forehead, where you'd expect to see a bang-like falling of hair, he had swooped the ends under in a wave of hair-sprayed wonder. Sadly, his helmet of hair wasn't doing much to hide his bald spot.

-Lima Bean

Paging Fiasco

I just paged someone with the proclamation, "attention University shoppers", which as we all know is wrong. Between the nervous anticipation of hearing my voice over the pa system and trying to remember how to actually page someone I forgot to say the name of the store. I hate paging people.

EDIT: I just had to use the paging system again... This time for a car with their lights on in the parking lot. I don't know why, but it alway sounds so awkward to say "attention Book Store shoppers".

~Montana

Bartells hilarity.

Customer 1: "Wait, I need to go to Bartells."
Cutomer 2: "What the hell?"

Oh, how I wish you could have heard how the guy said "What the hell?" to his friend. He said it in a You've-got-to-be-kidding-me tone of voice. It was classic.

-Lima Bean

Sooooo

So apparently the store opened at eleven today, I came in at twelve. My bad. Someone has the personnel keys, which means they knew that I didn't come in on time but the switchboard was still off when I got here. Oh well. Also, I hate students who don't know if they're looking for textbooks. Is it for a class? It's a textbook. Someone today tried to tell me that because their class was an elective the books wouldn't be in the textbook department...

~Montana

Textbooks, textbooks, textbooks.

I really, really wish customers would clarify that they're checking on a textbook. I've had to ask "Is it a textbook or a general book?" about a bajillion times.

Also: I saw a customer picking her nose on the stairs.

-Lima Bean

I wish...

I wish that people would stop calling in for the name/hours/information about the used textbook store that opened up across the street from us recently. Do they not realize they're our first major competition on the textbook front in some time? So far I've played dumb: "I'm sorry, I don't know much about that store, it's fairly new." Not necessarily true, but I don't feel obligated to give out the information.

~Montana