Dear customers who don’t understand the alphabet,
I thought I could avoid writing letters to people who are nice enough to buy things at the store, but it just isn’t happening. Some customers want to use the computers to look up books themselves, they seem disappointed when I say that it is my job to look up books for them. You are not those customers. You need help, and handholding, and a guided tour of the store - particularly the Fiction section.
I had the distinct pleasure of helping two of you people recently. Our Fiction section starts in the front right corner of the store and follows the right wall until all the books (organized by author last name: A-Z) have run out, then History starts. The section is divided by alcoves, if we put all the books against the wall our store would have to quadruple in size. The alcoves are where we lose people like you.
One of you, a middle aged woman, came up to me at the middle information desk a few weeks ago.
“I can’t find the book I’m looking for. The author is Chris Cleave. But I can’t find their books. In fact, I can’t find any of the C last name authors.”
Really? You can’t find any of the C last name authors? I was nice and didn’t ask how hard you looked. I took you over to the first fiction alcove. On our way there we passed the second alcove containing authors He- through Mu-.
“I was here, I couldn’t find the C’s.”
I showed you into the corner where Fiction starts.
“Oh, I didn’t go this far over! Here’s the book. I didn’t even look over here. I was over there.” You pointed toward the second alcove. “But I didn’t come over here.”
I bit my tongue and smiled at you, asked if you needed any thing else, and walked away. I had a question I couldn’t ask, but I’ll ask it now. Why didn’t you go into the first alcove? If I were in a store and I wanted a C last name author and I found the H last name authors, I would go left. That’s just how the alphabet works.
Later that same week another one of you, a gentleman, asked a similar question.
“I can’t find The English Major by Jim Harrison.”
I took you to the first fiction alcove. On the way we had a similar conversation about how you had seen the He- books, but not the Ha-’s. I tried to be nice.
“Yeah, I think the Poetry sign hanging over here throws a lot of people off.”
Your response was not nice.
“Well, yeah. I thought it was all poetry. It’s very confusing.”
Really? Is it? You get to Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. You want The English Major by Jim Harrison. Again it is the simple act of moving LEFT. Even if the Poetry sign confused you, where did you think the other books were? A through Ha is a lot of authors. A lot of famous authors. Did you think we loved poetry so much we got rid of Austen and Dickens and the Bronte sisters? Did you wander off into Mysteries or SciFi or Horror looking for Jim Harrison? What was going through your head?
You people confound me. Do we need to label every shelf? You’re as bad as people who ask how the books are arranged and then give a strange look when I say by author last name within the section. How do you want them arranged? Color? Author first name? Second word in the title, we’ll just get rid of all the single word title books.
If you can’t follow the organization of the alphabet I can’t help but think you can’t follow the plot of the books you are purchasing. If you aren’t going to use the space in your head for a brain you should rent it out to people with excess jewelry. Fashionable women can take you to parties and use your skull as a purse. You can follow them around marveling at how the bathroom is behind a door and you never would have thought to look there.
Sincerely,
Kelly
