The Customer is Never Wrong, and the Guy Who Signs Your Paycheck is Always Right

Working in a retail or restaurant chain, the policies are simple.  Employee conduct is outlined in a handbook of some sort, aided with classes, and more often than not hammered home with badly-performed, outdated videos.  Customer interactions are even broken into handy bullet points.  When dealing with a dissatisfied customer, follow your ABC’s.  Acknowledge the complaint.  Believe we can do better.  Conclude with a solution.

The frontline employees, the cashiers and the customer service reps, their job is act like service bots.  If they don’t follow the rules in all situations, the handbook also has detailed descriptions of the disciplinary action they’ll face.  

If the clerk can't make a customer happy, enter the supervisor.  Usually hourly, making only a buck or two more than the folks in the trenches, a supervisor / lead employee / key holder backs the employee up, reiterating the company’s policy.  The dissatisfied customer must then re-state his or her complaint more vehemently.  This allows the supervisor to override policy, to a point (see Employee Handbook, pg 75).  

If the customer still isn’t happy, it's time to bring in the heavy artillery.  The retail manager's job is to undercut everything his or her employees have done so they look like assholes.  Depending on the nature of the complaint, this may involve rebuking the customer service person, the supervisor, or both, while the customer smugly looks on.  

We're so used to this ridiculousness that we barely notice how ridiculous it is, like Auto-Tune or Paris Hilton.  

At an indie, the employee handbook is the wit and whimsy of the owner.  Nothing is ever written down.  When it comes to customer satisfaction, there's rarely any behavior you can't play off.  Instead of a clearly delineated pay system which rewards X-number of cents after Y-period of time, you need to beg and crawl for every raise.  For employees, the environment hinges on whether the owner got a good night's sleep or had a decent breakfast.  For customers, you're always King (at least if the owner is around).  

 In fact, there are always dozens of customers who enjoy "special" treatment.  Sorry, we don't sell eggs by anything less than the dozen, or hold books longer than two weeks, or give discounts over ten percent, or hold newspapers, or make sandwiches with more than 3oz of meat, or allow refills . . . except for Mr. Zamuda / Mrs. Griggs / The Fallons.   You could be putting in 40+ hours for two years before you meet a "special customer" who's "here all the time" and "deserves special treatment," but God forbid you don't recognized him or he'll be forced to tell your boss how things have gone to shit since they hired you.  

Often, the demands of these "special" customers are so strange you wonder how they came about.  Two and a half packets of Equal for Mrs. Sanchez's coffee, heated precisely to 185 degrees... really? Mrs. Vollmer can keep a stack of this bestseller on hold for her book club behind the counter for six weeks?  Really?  Mr. Conner can keep his personal stash of frangelico behind the deli counter for us to mix into his order of rice pudding?  Really? 

I used to shop at a bagel place with this sign hanging behind the counter: "The only joy more exaggerated than the joy of parenting is the joy of owning your own business."  I think of that quote all the time when I see the way customers suck my boss dry, one sip at a time.  Every waking minute of his day is devoted to someone else.  

Miraculously, he doesn't seem to mind. 

Isn't that we want in a small business?  A tired but charming personage behind the register with kind eyes, one who sees we're a few bucks short on the total, then smiles and says, "Close enough" before bagging our purchase and inviting us to come again?  Someone who successfully carries the heavy weight of ownership, embodying the dream of entrepreneurial success, yet at the same time shows us how difficult it is, so that we never lose our heads and quit our stable jobs?

When you work for a small business, you trade a thousand corporate-hairball policies for the approval of one person.  I don't know which is better, but I do know I've stayed at Books & Books longer than any other.  I know when I had my car accident and laid in bed for six weeks waiting for my bones to knit, my paycheck arrived in the mail every pay period.  I know when my bike got stolen, Mitchell gave me his.  He offered to guarantee a down-payment to our landlord so Becky and I could move in.  He lent Becky the money for her Pigeon tattoo, then decided it was a bonus when she tried to pay him back.  I know he's helped get one employee's daughter into a good school, and instilled a love of basketball in her which changed her life.  

I've also screamed at him like I've screamed at no one in my life.  I've walked for blocks while tears streamed down my face, wondering how I could possibly go back to work.  That was years ago, when I put in way too many hours and had no life.  I've seen others burn out, though.  When you're given certain tasks but are allowed to make up your own rules to accomplish those tasks, the only person you really answer to is yourself.  Some crack under the pressure.  I found my balance.  

As much as Becky and I struggle with bills, it would take a lot more than money to get me to interview someplace else.   It's tough to imagine another job out there where I could be myself, every day, all day.  

My awesomeness is not in any handbook.

F. P. & L. is Scandalous

Florida Power and Light requires a deposit to turn on your electricity. On their website, FPL explains that unlike most businesses which are cash upon liking (I paraphrase of course, but any excuse to use the phrase “cash upon liking”), poor old FPL gives their product away for a month before asking for payment. Since they run on a three-week billing cycle, that’s seven weeks of service before they see a dime. If you’re assessed as a high-risk client, they look at the average bill for two months service at your address, then they require you to fork it over.

In our case, that was $400 to have our lights turned on. Remember when I said who gives a shit about my credit rating? Well, this is a fine example of why it’s a good idea to have decent credit. I was wrong, and my words taste bitter.

So wait, aren’t we paying in advance for something we haven’t used? Multi-billion dollar monopoly FPL whines about the equation in reverse, but if I want to store food and not die of heat stroke, I’ve got no choice but to shut up and pay.

I’m sure FPL has been burned. So what? They always manage to turn a profit, even when people go for weeks without power in the wake of various hurricanes. Their rates remain high while they promise that second power plant which will reduce our bills once and for all.

It’s not ironic that the segment of the population least-equipped to pay is the one hardest hit by these deposits, it’s increasingly typical of American culture. Google “Florida Power and Light” with “deposit” and you’ll bring up FPL’s website and a couple thousand complaints about the practice, which is no surprise. However, the backlash in the comments section of these articles and posts is disturbing. Even allowing for trolls, there’s a prevailing sentiment of “you’re a deadbeat who fucked up your credit; quit whining.” Maybe I’m reading too much into these websites. The internets are filled with crazed morons.

Not us, of course.

I’m debt-free. I got in credit card trouble a long while back but I took care of it, and without declaring bankruptcy. I’ve been a renter for eighteen years in three states and I’ve never defaulted on a lease, skipped out on a utility charge, or left a bill unpaid. And apparently, my credit sucks.

FPL is just being cautious (and getting capital for investments, of course). They pay the deposit back if you ask them nicely after twenty-three months of consecutive, timely payment, so why am I whining about being labeled a deadbeat?

Well, if you pay late, they hold the deposit indefinitely. Glory of glories, they also hit you with more deposit fees for being late. Suppose I need to wait for a paycheck to pay my bill because I didn’t have the funds. Even though my service was not actually interrupted, I’ll have to pay an additional “deposit” in the neighborhood of $60-$80 (not to mention a 1.5% late fee) on top of the monthly service bill. That should make it easier to pay.

I was shocked to find out about this practice. So is everyone I’ve told. The question I hear every time is, “Can they do that?” Of course they can, and they are.

It’s not like you can choose the other power company down the street.

Rent to Own

I’ve been a renter since I left my parents home at the age of nineteen. My Aunt Jeri rented her apartment in Syracuse before moving back to the reservation. She had nothing to show for paying forty years of rent, and she upbraids me for renting from time to time.

When I ask friends who own houses and condos what they pay monthly on their mortgages, it’s always a fraction of my rent. I know I’m making fiscally unsound choices, but try coming up with a 10% deposit on a house, or 30% deposit on a condo (chuckleheads with homes have prevented me from getting one of my own because of their stupid choices; Florida homeowners tried to use condos as income-generating second properties during the housing boom, then defaulted on their loans in droves, so banks require 30% of the selling price to buy a condo; 10% on what a condo costs is feasible, but when I learned banks want 30%, I stopped saving; if I had 30% of what a condo costs, I’d use it for 10% down on a house; now for the end of a sentence interrupted so long ago, you forgot the beginning) on a bookseller’s salary.

There’s freedom in renting. If the air conditioning breaks, you call the landlord and he or she has it fixed. If a hurricane destroys your apartment, you rent another that’s still standing. If the roof leaks… well, never mind.

As a renter, you can bob and weave. I’ve experienced Miami in the peripherals of Kendall, the very heart, and now the Spanish garden that is Coral Gables. I’ve always wanted to know what it feels like to wake up, take a walk, and do yoga on the beach. I haven’t made it to Miami Beach yet, but who knows what could happen down the road?

Renting also comes with a number of perks. You get the voyeuristic, felonious thrill of opening mail for people who aren’t you. You get to play detective with carpet stains. You get to find layers of paint around electrical outlets and speculate on the previous tenant’s design choices.

You also get neighbors living in much closer proximity than with a house, folks with whom you’re not obligated to actually speak. Get into a volume war with every sound system in your complex, because at least your music doesn’t suck. Hack into your neighbor’s wireless internet connection without worrying about the signal strength, and do it guilt-free. Masturbate to the sound of your neighbors fucking and imagine they are gorgeous supermodels because you’ll never have to see them.

Oh, it’s a glamorous life, my friends. But please, home owners, don’t be jealous. After all, you get to fix your own plumbing problems.

Quality Over Quantity?

Sorry to have anemic posts this week, folks. I just returned from a trip to Orlando with Dylan and Becky to celebrate a five-year-old about to turn six. Fun with Becky’s sister, free food at the Club Level of the Hard Rock Hotel, and free passes to Universal Studios. I was dropped off at Books & Books just in time to switch my Bibliovore t-shirt from Unshelved for a sweaty, crumpled guayabera from my luggage - the saving grace of said guayabera being its lack of smoothie wiped from Dylan’s crusted lips – splash some water on my face, and join the fun of Algonquin Night.

To sum last week up…

My closet began leaking again, but I caught it early enough to save my clothes. The landlord had re-tarred the roof by the time I returned.

The pool at the Hard Rock has speakers which let you hear music underwater, pool-side food and beverage service, a volleyball court, two hot tubs, gazebos, a fake beach area, and a 240-foot waterslide. The lowlight of the stay was seeing a Poison video, but I had their cassette tape so I can’t complain too vehemently. I rate the hotel 5 power chords out of 5, plus a glory note for the free wine bottle and birthday cake.

Becky’s sister just bought a house, and we stayed there as well. I used an allen-wrench drill bit to assemble her dining room set and shattered a chair leg. In response, Becky’s sister made me coffee and eggs. Enough said.

Not only were both Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure deserted because everyone was at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, but the Hard Rock room key also acts as a fast past. The Hulk, Dueling Dragons, Spiderman, Revenge of the Mummy, Jaws, Men in Black - it’s all a lot more fun when the ride lasts so much longer than the wait to climb on board. Love the world of Seuss Landing. Love the heroes of Marvel Superhero Island.

Half the people at the park at any given time were crammed into the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Trying to navigate the mass of bodies was like trying to push your way through a house party to reach the keg, only this keg was all over the place. There were lines for the gift shop, for Christ’s sake. Seeing Hogsmeade, with Hogwarts looming above, is priceless. But once you’ve seen the view, don’t go through the entrance, because Universal blew it; The Wizarding World should have been its own separate park. Instead, it’s a festival of waiting.

We caught Mat Hoffman's jaw-dropping Aggro Circus at Universal. Mat Hoffman was only part of the show on video, but we ended up seeing him at breakfast the next morning, two tables away. First Watch, delicious, delicious First Watch, when are you coming to Miami?

Tuesday: Angel Face
One thing about the birthday celebration; the cool little kid we brought to Orlando to have fun with on Tuesday was replaced with a spoiled brat on Wednesday who none of us could stand.
Wednesday: Snurt Face
Becky seemed worried that I’d have doubts about us moving in now that I’ve seen the Dylan’s dark side. Really, it means he’s more comfortable around me, and he’s testing his boundaries. Or so I’m telling myself.

After one good day and one bad day, Thursday was a tug of war. At First Watch, Dylan kept hitting my arm. I asked him why, and he hit me some more. I told him if he wanted to express affection, there were much better ways of doing it. He stopped hitting me, thought about it, then stood up and gave me a big hug around the neck.

The good stuff is so worth the bad.

Amazon Enjoys Tossing Bovine Salad

A lot’s been written about the evils of bullying, hateful, baby-barbecuing Amazon (or not).  But lately they’ve been doing something more insidious, and I don’t see a single word about it.  Instead of a retailer, Amazon is becoming a wholesaler.

I’m not talking about the deal Andrew Wiley signed with them for exclusive rights to audio versions of his author’s books, a much-derided (and even parodied) decision which makes them a publisher, or even CreateSpace, their self-publishing arm.  I mean that sometimes at Books & Books, we have to order from the A-Word to make our customers happy.

To clarify for non-bookies, there’s a difference between a publisher and a wholesaler.  Publishers put a variety of authors into print, distributing them to bookstores, retailers, and wholesalers across the world.
Wholesalers carry a variety of publishers.  Let’s say you’re a bookstore, or a retailer that sells books, and you want to carry Heidi Durrow’s The Girl Who Fell from the Sky because it rocks the socks right off your feet.  Basically, you can order it directly from the publisher for a better discount, or from a wholesaler if you need it fast.

Books & Books orders from hundreds of publishers.  Although several warehouses which were operating when I started bookstore life have closed, there are still half a dozen we order with regularly.

In February, Nicholas Sparks published Last Song in paperback on a Tuesday.  Thursday, we couldn’t get it.  Hachette (the publisher) and Ingram (the biggest wholesaler in America) were both sold out.  In fact, none of the wholesalers had it – not Baker & Taylor, not Southern Book Service, not Partners East, Partners West, or Bookazine.

Lately, this is happening more as publishers play it safe with low print runs.  Demand for a new book exceeds what they’ve printed (or an author dies, or wins a Pulitzer) and we end up waiting weeks for a reprint.  But Nicholas Sparks?  Come on.  Hachette would not be caught by surprise that a best-selling author is in demand.

Meanwhile, Amazon had plenty of Last Song in stock.  I had a choice.  I could send my neighbors’ dollars to this online retailer in the Northwest, or I could disappoint the Books & Books customers who had ordered the book.  I tasted bile in my throat when I sent Miami money 2,700 miles from my community.  To add insult to injury, we got a 42% discount and free 2-day shipping, the same terms we’d get from a wholesaler if they had it in stock.

How in holy hell do you compete with that?

Before you start shouting about free market and competition, please understand we pay publishers much more per book than Amazon, so we simply can’t offer the same discounts. Sorry.

Amazon did the same thing with S.C. Gwynne's Empire of the Summer Moon. The New York Times Book Review salivated over it and Amazon bought every printed copy available, effectively making themselves the exclusive distributor. This has happened with two other titles lately, but I can’t remember those titles because we didn’t actually break down and go A-word.

It’s useless, but I can't help getting all bent out of shape about giving our hard-won sales to the biggest online retailer on the planet.  When they’re so proud to buy at their local independent, how would our customers feel if they knew?

So Much for Writing for Money

On Monday I spent a pleasant hour grocery shopping at the Publix in Coral Gables. I never realized having a car to load up with groceries was a privilege until I didn’t have a car to load. Maybe I went a little nuts – four kinds of apples instead of my usual two; twenty-pound litter instead of fourteen; 18-pack of eggs instead of a dozen; regular bacon and Canadian bacon; milk, Indian River orange juice, Bolthouse 100% Carrot, Bolthouse Green Goodness, and V8 – but I had a trunk to fill. Besides, my fridge was nearly empty. I promised Becky fruit smoothies for breakfast. It would be nice to have a few juices to choose from for blending, not to mention opening the fridge and seeing nothing but food instead of glass shelves and light.

“Nope,” the cashier says when I run my card. Her tone is curt, matter-of-fact, smug.

“Really? I just deposited my check on Friday.” I run my card again.

“Nope.” This time she shakes her head to emphasize her point, and she still comes off smug. I imagine as a cashier in Coral Gables, she eats shit from customers all day. If rich folks are good at one thing, it’s making people behind counters feel worthless. This is Yvvone’s chance to turn the tables. Derisive laughter courses just beneath the skin of her professional demeanor.

“It’s the only account I have…” I trail off, mortified. I don’t carry cash, and I cut up all my credit cards when I got into debt in the mid-nineties.

I’m no longer worth eye contact. Yvvonne suspends the transaction. She asks the bagger to put the cart in the freezer.

Watching the cart (my cart-my cart-my cart) being wheeled away, my heart sinks. Minime’s flea treatment isn’t working, but she won’t be getting spray or shampoo anytime soon. What else was in that cart? A Greenwise London Broil like proof we were meant to eat meat. A California Cabernet Sauvignon. Several ears of sweet Florida corn. The strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, quince (seriously), and banana which would have gone into the smoothies I promised Becky.

There are also little splurges I don’t usually allow myself because my backpack only has room for the necessities (and yes, the wine is a necessity because I opened a bottle last week and the empty space in my wine rack picks at the OCD part of my brain while I’m trying to sleep). Like chips and salsa. A pack of chocolate chocolate chip muffins. A tin of Smokehouse Almonds.

Not having the money to pay for groceries means I don’t deserve indulgences.

Public will close in fifteen minutes. I call Wachovia, like there’s something to be done at 9:45 at night. The cashier, the security guard, the people waiting in checkout lines, the people waiting at lotto and for cigarettes, they’re looking at me while I dial. I’d like to say it’s my imagination, but the groceries went in the wrong direction. I feel like I’ve been gut-punched. I can’t dummy up. Couple my longing stare with the departing cart, and you’ve got the whole story.

A deadbeat, here in the Gables? their eyes say. How did he get in?

I don’t want to imply that there’s accusation in their flat, curious eyes,. They aren’t filled with the cashier’s schadenfraude either. Mostly it’s a but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I satisfaction.

For their benefit, I try to appear indignant. What I really feel is humiliated and useless. A banking error is all it takes to put me back in school (if you can call a deposit slip marked “funds will be available on 5/24” which should say 5/25 because Wachovia doesn’t actually make the funds available until midnight an “error” rather than “a deliberate deception designed to maximize overdrafts”), being judged by my peers and found lacking.

The bank isn’t responsible for one truth in my life; I turn thirty-eight this year and I still live hand to mouth.

The Need Machine

“I’m so bored,” Cleo Junior says, drawing the last word into a five-syllable whine.

It’s Becky’s birthday and we’re waiting for her mother so we can be seated at Benihana. It doesn’t matter that Becky’s father just took Cleo Junior behind the restaurant to look for fish in the Bay, and Becky and I just took him out back to look for fish, and I took him out to see the gardens, walk the railing, call Becky on my cell, and watch the diners through the floor-to-ceiling windows (although staring at people while they eat should not be encouraged, so we stopped); he takes every opportunity to let us know how profoundly bo-or-or-or-ored he is.

Really he’s upset that the world isn’t revolving around him, but around waiting for his abuela (we have reservations but they won’t seat an incomplete party). He also wants to break open the art kit which his bisabuela gave him earlier in the evening. We were expecting to be seated right away and for the “show” of the chef preparing our meal right in front of us to keep Cleo Junior entertained, so we didn’t bring anything to entertain him. The art kit is filled with tiny pieces, paints, glitter tubes - nothing we want opened in a busy restaurant.

Asking Cleo Junior to wait patiently for the chef show to begin is like asking a dog to meow.

I’ve heard children described as need machines. I’ve also heard it’s like having a tiny, cantankerous old man demanding constant attention. Waiting at Benihana, Cleo Junior is more like the latter, but with a severe case of Alzheimer’s thrown in. The second we stop doing, Cleo Jr. forgets everything that happened the prior second. His boredom is immediate, and total.

Driving with him to Orlando was a similar experience, but Becky and I managed to turn “are we there yet?” into a game. We made him realize how silly it was to keep asking, and a sly humor crept into his tone, making us all laugh. For a five-year-old, he’s got great comic timing. Waiting to be seated when Cleo Jr. is tired and hungry, there’s no way to bring him into the joke. You’re tired and hungry yourself. You want to laugh. You want to cry. You want to scream.

More to the point, you want to forget yourself, grab him hard, and shake him silly, yelling that he needs to stop whining before you give him something to whine about.

Finally being seated brings relief – something new! But although we take up six seats, they hold our meal until another party of two can fill the eight-top. When Benihana finds a couple, they have a problem with a coupon they've printed off the internet. Now we want to give the waitress, the manager, even the couple the old grab-n’-shake.

“We just entertained a five-year-old for an hour waiting for a table, screw the stupid coupon and give us alcohol, NOW.”

The look on Mini Cleo’s face when the chef arrives and starts dancing food over the flat-top? Priceless. He’s slaw-jawed, delighted beyond measure, wide-eyed with amazement. He’s laughing his face off. He’s got a toddler’s crush on chef Miguel.
These are the moments we love having him as the center of attention. He reminds us what it was like to discover everything for the first time. We remember the wonder of a volcano made from onions, of flipping shrimp tails and rice bowls.

Other tables smile at us, thinking to themselves, what a sweet boy. Looking at a five-year-old laugh over Benihana, it’s impossible to be cynical.

Cleo Junior barely touches the food, but at least he’s not bored.

You Are All Immigrants Now Get Over It

As an Indian / Native / American Indian / Indigenous American / descendent of the folks who were here first, a few Sweet Readers and some friends have asked me how I feel about Arizona’s immigration law.

Asking me to speak for all Indians is senseless, but I'm happy to offer my opinion as a mixed-race American whose mother is Indian.

The law sucks.

Thanks for reading.

Starbucks is Not the Evil You Think

It's a different kind of evil. Starbucks brews coffee I like, the way I like it. I’m not talking about cappuccino, latte, Frappuccino, mocha, caramel macchiato nonsense. It’s like vodka. Once you start mixing vodka with cranberry juice or orange juice or whatever, it doesn’t matter what you use as long as it’s not rotgut. If you drink martinis, you’ll know when it’s swill. You might not be able to distinguish Belvedere from Grey Goose from Diamond, but that’s another post.

I brew with a French press at home. I drink my coffee black. I know when I’m drinking swill.

At home in Miami, I’ll drink a cappuccino at Café Demetrio, espresso at the end of many an Italian meal (which can get dodgy), and cafécito or café con leche just about anywhere. No matter where I go, even the freshest black coffee doesn’t hold a candle to Starbucks. Yet I would never go to Starbucks when I travel. Where’s the fun in that?

Starbucks, answering complaints that their coffee is “too dark” or “tastes burned” started offering nothing but Pike’s Place throughout the day. They only have traditional offerings (now labeled “bold” because they're dark roast regardless of how hearty the blend is) before ten am. This made certain folks happy, but there’s a difference between fast-food coffee and gourmet coffee made quickly. Although it’s all I brew at home and the office, I’ve got little reason to walk into a Starbucks now.

Thanks, Dunkin’ Donut lovers. You fucked up my coffee ritual.

Or rather, Starbucks did, when they forgot the distinction which made them so successful. I don’t hate Starbucks for closing four coffee places within weeks of opening their first store on Miracle Mile, I hate Starbucks for succumbing to corporate think. Corporations became evil when they were awarded the same rights as individuals without the same personal responsibility, but they become stupid when they lose sight of what made them great. No one ever became great pursuing profit.

You used to care about educating baristas and redefining America’s palette, Starbucks. Now you care about building masses to suckle at your caffeine-filled teats.

Congratu-freakin-lations, Starbucks. You love money.

You Can't Serve Both God and Mammon

When I try to come up with how many years it’s been since I moved to Miami, or how many months I’ve lived in the Treehouse, I realize I’ve measured my days and years by my relationship with Andi. Those sixteen years are frozen in time, and I'm constantly surprised that life has gone on.

Tax-time. Married, filing jointly? Married, filing separately? The question carries an emotional weight it never has in the past.

Like good little troopers who will never see the kinds of salaries some take for granted, Andi and I planned for our retirement early. The money you save in your twenties is worth exponentially more than the money you save in your thirties, etc. etc.

What a scam.

We diversified, we took expert advice, and our retirement funds were only worth 64% of what we paid into them. Planning to retire at age 55, we lost 46% of what we could have saved just stuffing the money into a mattress.

Only we didn’t lose 46% percent. Because we dissolved our retirement funds early, we were penalized by losing almost half of what our account was worth. Andi and I were left just 38% of the money we gave our broker. We split it 50-50.

What else would you do in a divorce with money you’d been saving together for a mutual retirement? Say, let’s not touch that money and hope we can tighten our belts for the next few months getting set up on our own. See you in twenty years and we’ll split the proceeds. I’m sure financial advisors do the math on divorce rates and salivate rather than advise separate retirement accounts.

Ameriprise Financial made everything look so good on paper. Ultimately, we lost 62 cents of every dollar we gave them. This doesn’t include interest we would have made with the money in a plain old savings account.

If I’m less up in arms than perhaps I should be, there are two reasons. First of all, there’s a measure of guilt. We swam in deep waters, waters beyond our scope. We should have left investment portfolios to the six-figure folks who understand them.

Whether this is true or not doesn’t matter; the feeling of foolishness is real.

Secondly, I used percentages because the actual amounts involved are less than impressive. A percentage allows you to view my frustration with investments which didn’t pan out through the lens of your own financial strata. In truth, after first-and-last-month’s rent, a security deposit, and filling the Treehouse with Ikea, I had a thousand-dollar cushion in the bank.

I worked my way into middle-management, basically all you can get with on-the-job experience that doesn’t require a college degree. I stepped out of it to devote more time to writing, and I became much happier. Poorer, but much happier.

I just sometimes wish I had a little bit more greed in my makeup.

Books & Books vs. Sweet with Fall and Fish

Because of "the harsh realities" of the current economy, Books Inc., which has 11 stores in California, has restructured its main office and let go Barry Rossnick, senior trade buyer.

Books Inc. co-owner and CEO Michael Tucker called it "the hardest thing I've ever had to do running the company." He noted that since the beginning of the year wages were frozen and executives have taken weekly furloughs each quarter to avoid store-level layoffs. Books Inc. announced last week it is opening a 4,000-sq.-ft. store in Berkeley. Tucker said, "The last thing I thought I'd do this year is open another store, but the developer really wanted a bookstore and gave us what we needed to make it happen."

Rossnick may be reached at brossnick@sbcglobal.net.
- Shelf Awareness, 8-12-2009

Unfortunately, to make room for a Corporate and Educational Sales Director on the payroll, Books & Books made its first layoff since it opened its doors in 1982. The “room” happened to be vacated by one of my closest friends (we’ll call him “Bloom.”) Unlike Michael Tucker’s decision to publicize the event, our owner chose to keep the decision in-house.

I understand not making Bloom’s pain – and being laid off hurts more than you might imagine – public. Unfortunately, Shelf Awareness published Tucker’s announcement almost the same week. It made Bloom’s layoff feel like a dirty secret.

I also understand why the layoff needed to happen. Like Books Inc., Books & Books is expanding at a time when the entire industry struggles for breath. To make this happen, innovative partnership models with publishers and other businesses, putting on amazing events, and plain old good karma were not enough to move the bottom line. We need this position to thrive, and we needed space in our labor for the position.

But why Bloom? If I gathered the employees of Books & Books, filled a condom with yellow paint, and threw it in their midst, the splatter would strike a dozen people worthier of the chop. And this isn’t just my biased opinion. Ask anyone at Books & Books and they’ll toss you a handful of names they would have booted before Bloom.

For this reason, despite Borders' better health plan and bigger paycheck, Bloom still longs for his old job at Books & Books.

In Henry IV, Shakespeare wrote, “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” Perhaps if one day I own and operate a business which requires me to be equal parts adventurer, intellectual, innovator, reader, rebel, merchant, and figurehead, I will understand the logic of this decision.

There are beautiful things about working for Books & Books which go beyond free books. As long as I get the job done (and as Lionel Shriver points out via characters in So Much For That, shouldn’t that be the only measure of job performance?), I can come and go as I please.

When I missed two months of work after the car accident, paychecks for forty-hour weeks continued to show up in my mailbox.

I’ve met authors I’ve worshipped and admired. I’ve rubbed elbows with famous folks and politicians, people I certainly never would have otherwise met.

Yeah, it’s just retail. But since we’re trying to keep the fabric of Miami distinct and Miamians employed in the face of encroachment by online retailers and chains, it feels like I’m doing something important.

Books & Books wants me to blog for them once our website is updated. With tens of thousands of readers across the country who subscribe to our website and online newsletter, this should go a ways toward answering that most difficult of questions publishers ask potential authors: “What’s your platform?”

As corporations become more concerned about their online presence, the freedom to question what my employer does has become another wonderful thing about my job.

Still, I doubt you’ll see many posts like this one on Books & Books website.

A New Face at Books & Books

When independent booksellers rant about Amazon, non-bookseller’s eyes tend to glaze over. Blah-blah-blah, the money you spend at the A-word doesn’t go back to your community, yada-yada-yada, the A-word uses bullying buying and pricing tactics, loddy-la, doddy-da, when’s the last time the A-word helped raise money for your daughter’s school?

Well then, let’s not dwell on how the A-word devalues books. Instead, let’s focus on the wrongs Amazon has done to me.

If you’re unfamiliar with how schools, churches, synagogues, and businesses approach Books & Books, it takes one of two forms. They’ll give us a list (often riddled with misspelled, incorrectly pluralized, or just plain wrong titles; misspelled, mismatched, or plain old wrong authors; out of print books, and a whole host of other fun quirks which amount to a time-consuming research project) of titles they’d like to order. We return these (corrected) lists with the prices we offer.

Take a look at the last book you bought. See the price on the corner, inside the dustjacket? How about above the barcode? The publisher set that price, not us.

Do cars come with prices painted inside the doors? Clothes with prices sewn into the seams? Electronics with prices etched into the corners? No. I’ve worked women’s retail. The mark up on jewelry, handbags, shoes, and dresses would make you sick. If you buy last season’s Donna Karen at 85% off, here’s the kicker: the store still makes a tidy profit off your purchase. Imagine how much the store made off those dresses at full retail.

Making so much money on other items is also why the A-Word can afford to sell books at a loss. But let me stop myself before I go into the other reasons Amazon has lower margins than bricks-and-mortar businesses and just say that our margins are razor thin. If someone balks at purchasing the titles on the list I’ve returned to them, the best I can do is discount them 20% (assuming we've gotten our full discount from the publisher; if the list is chock full of DVDs or technical books... ah, skip it).

Then, silence. When I follow up, I hear, “We got them cheaper on Amazon.” Thanks for your support.

Books & Books loses money paying me for the time I spent researching, without a sale to show for it. The multitude of other concerns on my plate suffer while I work for the possibility of sale. In five years, this has happened more than I care to admit. I even started a file on it, in case I ever waver in my hatred of Amazon.

Sometimes, hours of research isn’t necessary. Four hundred copies of a single title? Here’s our price. Oh, Amazon’s is better? Thanks for playing.

I’m called the Quartermaster. Used to be, if you ordered a book at Books & Books, I was the one who got it. Whether the order came through the internet, a school, a bookfair, an event, an author appearance, a customer in the store, a reading group, or a gap on the shelves created by a sale – the Quartermaster took care of it. As you can imagine, this kind of sweeping responsibility only allows for so much attention to detail. We have another buyer now for backlist and individual customer orders, but I still don’t have time to chase down sales.

Enter our newly-hired Corporate and Educational Sales Director. Don’t like my 20% discount? Why don’t you talk to LD; maybe she can help.

While it’s still a team effort, LD’s purpose is to schmooze clients and negotiate rates with publishers. In a few short months, she’s stopped several customers I’ve lost in the past from going with the dreaded A-Word. The margins are still thin as threads, but as she educates customers on the value of buying locally, we’ve begun re-capturing sales.

Talk about support all you want; the only real support is where your wallet goes.

Coldest Winter Ever

I lived in Syracuse until I was twenty-five. It’s the lake effect snow that gets you, storms which come off the Great Lakes dropping fat flakes at a rate too quick for windshield wipers and snow plows. Those storms are the reason we have pictures of shoveling through several feet of snow dated in May, but that doesn’t necessarily mean April was anything more than slush that year. I can count the number of times it snowed on Halloween on one hand. It’s impressive to claim snow eight months out of the year, but those were banner years. Only January through March was it guaranteed to stick.

What’s cold in a place like that, when you’re not impoverished? Staying out too long for snow forts and snow men, shivering your wet clothes off in front of the radiator, stripping down to long underwear and running upstairs as fast as you could for fresh socks, sweatpants, and sweaters, leaning over a hot chocolate or a Campbell’s tomato soup that mom had waiting for you. Yes, your toes were numb, ditto nose and fingers, but it was in the service of fun. It made getting warm that much more comforting.

Waiting at school bus stops, dancing from foot to foot, hands stuffed in pockets, head ducked turtle-like in collars, it wasn’t the puffy flakes you worried about, it was the wind. Wind chill could make ten degrees feel like twenty below. But the busses were coming, Cheese Boxes heated with religious fervor. Your toes might not be dry by the time you reached school, but your hat and gloves would be off, your jacket zippered down, hairline dappled with sweat. We were too old to take a change of footwear without looking like dorks. If you were rich, you wore Timberlands. If you were not, you wore knock-offs. Either way, you waited until second period for your toes to dry.

College classes could get nasty. For the transplants, walking around Syracuse University – the Hill – revealed the crucial difference between Manhattan Smart and Survival Wear. For the natives, Onondaga Community College’s lack of foliage and low industrial buildings offered no protection from the raging winds.

Yet coldest I’ve been in my life was during this past cold-front, in sunny Miami.

The way few homes up north have air conditioning to keep cool during the couple months they may actually need it, few down here have heat. To keep warm at night, I had my usual sheets and blankets, plus a couple of fleece throws which Algonquin Books had sent as a promotion with paperback copies of A Reliable Wife, along with three pairs of socks, a toque, three t-shirts - two short and one long – pajama bottoms, and underwear. I hate sleeping in underwear. If I wear underwear to bed, you know it’s cold.

All this would have been fine. Nostalgic, even. Except the buying office at Books & Books doesn’t have heat. The Westin Colonnade across the street blocks our sun. Books & Books rents three of these offices, one for buying, one for marketing and events, and one for accounting. The architects who own the building occupy a fourth space, and the fifth is currently unoccupied. The architects worked from home a lot that week.

Why are we paying rent, exactly? They could have at least offered us space heaters. Instead Mark and I hunched at our desks, fingers white, noses dripping, toes numb, cracking jokes about Scrooge and coal and Bob Cratchit.

If you northerners think we’re weak, step outside and have a seat in the shade next November or December, whenever it gets down to the thirties in your neck of the woods. Sit there for eight hours. Believe it or not, typing doesn’t get the blood flowing like you’d think it would.

I walked instead of biking. The wind on your face in spring or fall? Delightful. This week it burned.

I was in a car a few times with the heat blasting, and the children’s section at Books & Books was toasty warm. Other than that, I froze my ass off the entire week. I used to say I preferred cold to the heat. It’s not so bad up north, I’d say. You can always add more layers, but what are you supposed to do down here? You can only get so naked. That’s logical.

But when you’re getting dressed in front of an open oven in a vain attempt to feel your feet, logic doesn’t keep you warm.

Starbucks

When people say they don’t believe in God I can only marvel. Look beyond the seeming randomness of events and you’ll learn there are no accidents.

In 1998, Starbuck’s corporate offices realized many of their stores failed to stock first aid kits. When Corporate sent our store a letter expressing concern over this, I took it upon myself as Assistant Manager to order one. After reading the letter, our General Manager also ordered one. Starbuck’s claimed the usual warehouse didn’t have the updated first aid kits we needed, so even though both our orders had been confirmed, Corporate gave us a phone number to call for a different kit. I wanted Corporate off our backs, so I called the number. So did my GM. Soon after we called, Corporate decided such a priority couldn’t be trusted to store level personnel. They shipped a fist aid kit to every store in the company, including us.

Over the next two weeks, we received five fairly expensive First Aid kits. Burn cream, band-aids, aspirin and ibuprofen (which by corporate credo we couldn’t dispense even to ourselves), gauze, mini-scissors, and rubber gloves. We tried to return them for credit. The problem is, we had followed the Corporate credo. Upon receiving the First Aid kits, the first thing we did was trash the aspirin and the ibuprofen (I don’t know who sued Corporate for dispensing medication, but there are a lot of aching baristas out there cursing their name). Also, between slicing bagels, steam wand burns, paper cuts, and banged knuckles, the band aids didn’t last a week. With these items missing, the kits were considered damaged; unreturnable.

Each first aid kit also had a bio-hazard kit. In two years and three stores I had never seen a bio-hazard kit used, but I was sure it was a nice thing to have, just in case. Five, on the other hand, is a lifetime supply.

One afternoon, as my GM and I discussed passing the kits out to other stores in the district, our good customer Dane came in and asked her for “ass paper.”

Dane was a regular. He came in several times a week and was a sweet guy. He had half a face, and that only thanks to extensive reconstructive surgery. Scabs covered his body. He also had a speech impediment heavy enough to bend steel. When he asked for ass paper, it was so far removed from our normal coffee talk that Janet, our GM, had no idea what he was saying. She laughed and got him his usual. We did that sometimes when Dane felt chatty because of the trouble understanding him. Also, that afternoon we had wall-to-wall people desperate for caffeine, so Janet didn’t have the time she might otherwise have spared to parcel out what Dane was trying to say.

Dane wandered over to the bar to doctor up his drink. When he turned from the condiment bar and back toward the counter, he had left a little something behind.

Now, in case I haven’t been clear, this man was struggling with a number of physical differences. Not only does he not look like the average guy, his system must not work the same. Lying in front of the condiment bar were what could only be described as a pair of very dark, soggy prunes. He got about five feet before another pair rolled down his leg from inside his shorts. At that point, no one had really noticed. Dane asked again, more insistently but no more articulately, for ass paper. The other customers gave Dane the stare-ahead, pretending he didn’t exist. Then the smell hit.

One minute, a crowd of cranky people waited impatiently for their double-tall lattes and grande 180-degree, one-and-a-half Equal cappuccinos, the next minute . . . well, I don’t want to exaggerate. No one ran for the exits, but when I looked up from the bar only two people waited for their drinks. A guy who just paid stood at the register. Everyone else had taken their caffeine Jones to greener pastures. Or more to the point, a coffee shop that didn’t smell like a truck stop bathroom.

The light went on for Janet. Once she understood Dane’s problem, his words were clear. She happily handed over a roll of T.P., asking only that Dane take it with him and stop leaving more personal deposits on the floor for us to clean up. He wanted to hang around and express gratitude; Janet assured him it wasn’t necessary. As Dane made his way out, the lumps finally stopped rolling down his leg. Still, he left a good-sized liquid trail almost to the door.

Understand, cleaning crews cost money. If you’re not a multi-million dollar store (and to make millions of dollars a year in coffee is a lot a lattes), then you don’t get one. Therefore, at Starbucks throughout the land, the hands that scrub the toilets and pick gum out of urinals are the same hands that make your macchiatos (side note: I once hung signs in our bathrooms expressing this and they got a whole lot cleaner. When touring corporate big wigs saw the sign, they told me to take it down. Doubtless, their offices have cleaning crews).

To recap, we had four piles of fun on the floor and one good-sized trail to the door. We also had five first aid kits. Kits with a package for cleaning up biologically hazardous materials. Five kits of something that we had not needed in the twenty-four-plus months I’d been doing the job. Five kits that we received only through miscommunication and Corporate Hairball business-as-usual. Five kits which had finished arriving that very week.

Five bio-hazard kits, five craptastrophes. Coincidence, or providence?

We sprang into action. By we, I mean mostly me and Janet. As managers, we were expected to do that kind of stuff. There are managers who become managers so they can order others to do stuff like that for them; they’re called assholes. I’m just an asshole sometimes, but I’m not a major asshole, and Janet wasn’t even remotely an asshole, so we just did it. Also, I can only breathe out of one nostril. My sense of smell isn’t so great, so I’m ideal for that kind of stuff. We had the place clean and ready for customers again in no time.

My friend Amanda was working there at the time. When we tell the story, she says, “I thought, ‘Unless they want to be cleaning up shit and vomit, I better stay on this side of the bar.’”

I’m struck at how often Amanda and I relate this story to the general merriment of others. If the point of having so many kits available was to clean up after Dane, maybe the point of having Amanda and I working on the same night was so we would always be able to spread laughter when we come together, and share the time we saw God’s design.

You might not understand it when you’re elbows-deep, but give it time. There is a plan for the mess you’re going through.

Calling From the Laundromat

Last night was my first trip to the coin-operated laundry since the move. Some cute Latin chicks at the coin-operated laundry. Well, two. Also, some very aged Latin couples. Unshaven white dudes with huge guts and foot edema pushing against their sandals, clueless about laundry separation and stinking to the heavens.

I didn’t hear English once. In fact, one Latin woman in her sixties approached, rested a hand on my shoulder, and began speaking to me in Spanish. Eyes swimming behind large glasses, permed hair obviously dyed. She stood while I sat, but we were eye-to-eye.

“No habla Espanol,” I told her.

“Ah,” she said. Instead of prompting her to walk away, this led to a spiel. Normally I understand seventy percent of Spanish spoken to me, although I can’t speak it myself unless it involves ordering a cafecito, but I got nothing from her. She gripped my shoulder, not quite massaging, the way a grandmother does when she wants to impart something very important with her affection. I arranged my features somewhere between sympathy and polite interest. It worked for her.

I wonder what she said. Especially since it went on for some time.

“You remind me of my grandson. He’s doing time for armed robbery, but he’s such a nice boy once you get past the homemade tats. I wonder why he hasn’t settled down. I know he’s in prison, but those serial killers, they get letters from nice girls all the time, but not my Javier, no…”

“Do you have any change for the washing machines? I spent the last of my money on a lottery ticket at the pharmacy and my whites aren’t quite dry. I play my dead husband’s birthdays. I’ve been married four times. You know what they say about Spanish blood! I haven’t gotten lucky yet…hey, there’s probably a metaphor in there somewhere.”

“I don’t see a wedding ring on your finger, are you single? Seeing anyone? Gosh, look at your face! Not for me, for my granddaughter. That’s her over there with the Tina Fey glasses, wearing a sleeveless lavender hoodie and black jeans with the white piping around the seams. Terrible outfit but nice butt, don’t you think? I can give you her number. The best part is, one look at me and you know she’ll hold up like a rock.”

I learned a few things, too.

-When I last used a coin laundrymat, I thought it was ripoff when I saw $1.25 per wash instead of $1. Now, try $1.75 per load.

-You must dry your clothes on the same side of the laundrymat, clustered as closely as possible to your neighbors’ tumbling loads. This gathering of heat is rumored to dry everyone’s clothes faster. Any attempt to use the dryers on the opposite side, in the corner, or even on the same side as everyone else but away from the group, will be regarded as an act of hostility.

-There is no air conditioning.

-Some people have personal hygiene problems.

-After twelve years here, I should learn Spanish already.

-Undershirts with yellowing armpits look a lot more yellow when they’re being washed in public.

-Women are impressed by a man who separates.

-Reading while waiting for your laundry is an act of aggression, the willful separation of yourself from the group. If you don’t sit there with your arms folded, eyes glazed, and occasionally striking up conversations with total strangers, you are giving them permission to stare at you as though flowers are growing from your scalp. This is true even if you don’t speak the language.

-You don’t speak the language.

-If you are younger than forty and your hands aren’t actually touching laundry, you must be texting.

I also learned that laundry on the way home is heavier than laundry on the way there. Odd, as I was minus some detergent. Is it muscle exhaustion, since I’ve already lugged the laundry all the way there? Is it mental fatigue, knowing I’m so close to being home making everything that much more strenuous? Or is clean heavier than dirty?

I get the feeling weight will factor into my future wardrobe choices.

“I’d love to wear that sweater, but do I really want to carry it six blocks to clean it?.”

“I know I’ve worn this t-shirt twice already, biking under Miami’s sun in 90-degree weather, but I’m sure it’s got another wear in it.”

“People don’t actually wash comforters, do they?”

My favorite part of the evening was walking home with the big blue Ikea bag, stuffed with laundry, nodding to my neighbors as they walked their dogs. Apparently in Coral Gables, tall, dark, sweaty men carrying a sack of suspicious size and heft are looked upon with suspicion after ten pm. Go figure.

T-Mobile Should Offer Free Marriage Counseling

(Before I start, I’d like to point out that my original title was “Fuck T-Mobile.” The internet is nothing if not extreme, and I struggle not to buy into it.)

If you want your worst moments held up for public scrutiny, become a celebrity or marry a writer. But I’m resisting the urge to get into the reasons why my wife and I no longer have an amicable separation. As satisfying as it would be to write my anger in fiery words for an imaginary internet audience of millions, it wouldn’t be fair to the person I’ve loved for sixteen years. Suffice to say it’s taken months, but we finally have acrimony. We are the stereotypical couple who can’t stand to be in the same room.

There are a dozen financial things to take care of, most of them relatively easy. One thing I’ve learned from anonymous customer service, saying your marriage is ending is a great way to get sympathy, and basically whatever you need.

Then, there’s T-Mobile. They are cell phone professionals and I’m not, so maybe I’m in no position to judge. I’m sure they have their reasons for forcing anyone with a joint account to share public space, to work together to dissolve the account and create two new ones. I don’t know, if it’s my business, I’d do whatever I could to double my money, getting paid from two people instead of a couple. But that’s me. Instead, T-Mobile tells me, “Hey? You know the person who when you think about her, a flower of emotional hurt blooms in your stomach? The one who bursts into tears when you look at her? The one who hurt you worse than you imagined possible, who you never want to see again? Well, bring her on by and we’ll see what we can do about getting you those separate accounts.”

Thankfully, we have no children. I have newfound respect for those parents who remain friends, or at least civil, because their children will always connect them. Right now, I really don’t feel like building character. I don’t feel like being nice, or civil. My emotional fabric is stretched tight, and I don’t need T-Mobile making it worse.