As a kid, whenever I was asked that annoying question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I had a ready answer: a teacher. And I was. But now—though of course nobody asks—what I want to do when I really grow up is to work in a bookshop. It has to be a “shop,” not necessarily “Ye Olde,” but definitely not a “store.” Surrounded by books, unpacking books hot off the press, reading in downtime, analyzing characters with other staff, making recommendations to customers—what could be more perfect?
I imagine arriving for work, stepping into rooms that hold remarkably diverse stories on their shelves. I picture wandering around during slow times, choosing books at random, leafing through them, catching a word or phrase here and there, getting a sense of the riches of ideas and human emotions that lie within the pages. What I hadn’t imagined, until now, was that someone must have to dust all these books. Hmmm, reality check.
So many to recommend
I can’t wait to interact with the customers. I have so many books I want to recommend. It’s a perfect captive audience. I spot a young woman, maybe a graduate student, looking intense and scholarly. I sidle up to her. “Have you read the new Margaret Fuller?” I ask. She shakes her head but looks interested, so I continue. “It’s very dense and scholarly, but Margaret was a fascinating woman. So bright, such a feminist, and yet torn by a lack of confidence and wanting a family even as she yearned for a life of letters.”
She looks at me. Maybe I was wrong about the “interested.” I am assured of my error when I see her a minute later with the latest Danielle Steele in her hand. (Is there actually a latest Danielle Steele?) I hustle over. “May I ring that up for you?” Silence. This time I realize my error immediately. She has probably never heard that phrase. So what do I say? “May I computer that for you?”
The words strike terror in me. It now dawns on me that if I’m working in a bookshop, I will have to do numbers on a computer. I barely do words on a computer, and I don’t do numbers in any fashion. Serious reality check. Back to chatting with customers and recommending, or rather “on to” since I haven’t yet had a chatting-and-recommending experience.
There’s an older man in the mystery section. “Have you read ‘The Whites’?” I ask. He brightens and replies that he has. Thrilled, I go on. “I had a bit of trouble in the beginning, keeping track of the four characters and which nemesis went with whom. Boy, the Greek Furies had nothing on those people.” “Oh, indeed,” he responds, “or the Blatkas of ancient Babylonia, or, to an even greater degree, the Etruscan Epenimies.” Whoa, major ego crush. I walk away (which I can do because he is imaginary).
‘Have you read…?’
I spot a middle-aged woman in the new-fiction section. “Have you read ‘The Girl on the Train’?” I ask. I continue without waiting for her reply. “It was a fast read, intriguing characters, and a clever surprise at the end; I had been totally clueless as to the identity of the killer.” She looks startled and says, “Oh, I never read murders. There’s enough bad in the real world. Why would I want to read about more?” She has a point.
A young man approaches with a book in his outstretched arm. Oh, good, I think, someone is going to ask me if I will recommend a book. But before I can hope that it’s a book I have read, he asks me if I will gift wrap it. Another reality check. I try to reassure myself that part of my wrapping problem is that we never seem to have scissors and tape at home. But I have to face the truth that even given all the proper materials, I am a challenged wrapper. And with someone watching …
When I suggest to a kindly looking man that he might love the warm, wonderful story of “The Rosie Project,” with its charming Rosie and a socially challenged protagonist who is nonetheless totally endearing, his eyes turn cold.
A grown-up concept
It’s time for me to assess my customer interactions and the joy working in a bookshop has brought me, and I must confess I’m feeling disappointed and deflated. I realize that my disillusionment is mostly because my approach was all wrong. It was all about me. I needed to remember that very “grown-up” concept: The best pitch in sales and in life is, “How may I help you?”
Courtesy photo
