Letters to People I Hate

Dear free gift wrap girl,

You called the store today and asked if we had complimentary gift wrap during the holidays. I informed you that we offer free gift wrap all year round and there would be a table devoted to wrapping closer to Christmas. You asked if you could bring something into the store to be wrapped. I asked you to clarify.

“Can I bring stuff in for you guys to wrap? Like can I bring in presents?”

Uh, no. I told you we only wrap items we’ve sold. You were not pleased.

“Well that’s dumb.” 

I apologized for the inconvenience and told you we sold gift wrap in the store.

“Well can I come to the store and buy something there and then have you wrap something else?”

No. You would still be asking us to wrap an item from another store. That is a stupid question. At this time in the conversation I had a customer in the store waiting to ask me a question. I wanted to stop talking to you.

“So, I can’t like, buy something there and have you wrap something else? I’m still buying something in your store. Can’t you just wrap a different gift?”

I repeated that we can “unfortunately” only wrap items we sell in the store. Then I glanced at the customer in front of me to let her know I would be with her shortly. She laughed at what I had told you. I gave a slight eye roll while you yammered on and on.

“Well could you wrap both of the things? Like what I bought there and another gift if they’re for the same person?”

I repeated the very easy to understand fact that we ONLY wrap items we’ve sold from OUR store. The customer laughed and gave me an eye roll of her own. She thought you were an idiot too.

You were pissed.

“Well then I guess I won’t be buying anything from your store then,” you said and hung up.

Oh no, you won’t be buying the cheapest item in the store and then unloading a car full of presents for us to wrap for free? Fuck! I really screwed the store out of business today, didn’t I? Don’t be so goddamn lazy. That conversation should not have taken so long. Truly, that conversation should never have happened in the first place. I am not a fan of the “It never hurts to ask” policy. It hurts me down to my very soul when I have to explain a simple concept to a cheap ass customer while a paying customer waits for assistance.

Wrap your presents in newspaper and call yourself a hipster, just be sure to leave me alone.

Sincerely,

Kelly

Dear book flippers, 

Really this is how you choose to impact the world? People are starving, no food, no water certainly no books to read. You live in a place where you are lucky enough to have books to read, even if you borrow them from the library. You can use them to learn about different things, to vicariously live through other people in their adventures, to connect with well written characters. All of this reading is bound to give you some opinions on what you like and don’t like about books. You will certainly gain opinions about what you like and don’t like about other people and what other people read.

I, for one, do not like Nicholas Sparks books and correspondingly, I am not a great fan of or friends with people who adore his writing. But for me it stops there. For you, you book flippers, who feel oh so powerful and almighty in your opinion, you feel it is ABSOLUTELY necessary to show the world what you think about a certain book and possibly make it harder for someone who adores that book to find it. You feel the need to flip the book to its back cover - hiding the front so that it’s difficult to see which book it is. This is your powerful (and passive aggressive) hate? It is SO goddamn obnoxious.

The people who turn the books back around (you didn’t think they turned themselves did you?) are the book store workers. Like me, jackass. It’s not the authors or the readers. I have enough tasks to occupy my time and I don’t need to spend twenty minutes rotating all of the Stephenie Meyer books back to their original position. Your passive aggressive actions cannot make you feel empowered, what is the point? There isn’t one.

I can see you being the type of person who has a lot of time on your hands. You would be bored and think to drive to the mall, remove every book in a section (say 200 books), then place them back on the shelf with the pages out instead of the spine out. I’m sure you’re unemployed. If I found out you had an interview I would take the day off and tell your interviewer about your fucked up past time. You hate a book/author. I get it. I hate people too, right now it’s you.

Is it some sort of cause? You want books you deem poorly written or inappropriate off the shelves? Turning the sex books around doesn’t make people not want to buy sex books. It makes booksellers swear like sailors and look around for someone to set on fire.

You want a cause? How about the destruction of the rainforest for fucks sake!? Honestly when was the last time you and your damn opinions thought about the rainforest? Look at how many question marks you are making me use. It’s fucking ridiculous. Think of all those tress and unknown species dying slow, painful deaths, you could care about that. In fact I don’t care what you decide to have opinions about, just do more than make my job harder.

I love it when people have strong opinions, like me on this subject, but really you’re going to use up all your angry energy to turn some books around? Hate Nicky Sparks and Stephi Meyer all you want. Write them a fucking letter, they don’t know you turn their books around. Organize a protest about shitty books, volunteer at a school and get kids to read quality books, have a hunger strike and don’t eat until your local book store removes all the titles you don’t like. Then you can die your own slow, painful death. Remember the rainforest?

In the meantime take your passive aggressive grumpy little hands off of the books and find something else to look do. 

Sincerely,

Tiffany (and Kelly)

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

Dear reticent customer,

I am not a mind reader. When you come up to the counter, hand over a piece of paper with two book titles on it, and say a name, I assume you want me to look up the books and have given me the author’s last name. I assume this based on dozens of other customers who seem to have a daily word limit.

They come in with a title and author written on a scrap of paper, hand it to me, and look at me expectantly. As if I have every book in the store behind the counter. I’m lucky if everything is spelled correctly and the title belongs to that author. These people usually say nothing more than an author name. Wouldn’t want to waste too much of their daily word quota on the woman helping them find a book. While I struggle with their terrible handwriting, they tap their fingers on the counter. No need for them to speak up or answer my questions with more than grunts.

Back to you. I asked if the name you had given me was the author’s last name.

“No.” You said and glared at me, clearly I was an idiot.

“Okay, did you want me to look up these books for you?”

“No.” You said again and glared again. You stared at me. Why do you think I’m a mind reader? Clearly you are not a mind reader or you would see that I have no idea what you want. Why should I have the ability you don’t even have? Of course, I can speak in full sentences which you can’t seem to do. So maybe mind reading isn’t too far from that in your opinion.

You looked down at the paper again and up at me. I asked if you had ordered these books? That got me an angry yes. Victory! I had to ask your last name again which you reluctantly gave to me. Then I got you your books and you grunted and hustled off. If you had used a full sentence, or even a well worded sentence fragment, I would have gladly gotten you the books much more quickly.

Sincerely,

Kelly

Dear boy’s name,

I’m sorry you’re a girl and your parents decided to saddle you with a boy’s name. Sucks to be you. You are in your early twenties and should have come to terms with your uniqueness by now. Plus, more than one of my co-workers thinks your name is cute and better as a girl’s name. So, I really don’t feel bad for you.

I’m not sorry I asked you for your ID, your credit card was unsigned and it’s store policy. Usually people thank me, not signing is their way of saying please check my ID. It would be more helpful if they just wrote that in the signature line, but this isn’t about them. It’s about you.

I am sorry I asked you if the card was yours. You were so reluctant and slow about getting out your license, the question just came out. Usually when a woman with a credit card bearing a man’s name is hesitant to take out her ID, the card belongs to her husband. When that is the case we aren’t supposed to use the card for the sale unless the card holder is present. So I asked if it was yours in case you would have to get out a different card while you were already digging around in your purse. I really was trying to help.

But you took it as an affront.

“Yes,” you snapped, whisking out your ID. “I get asked that all the time.” Then you heaved a sigh and complained about your parents giving you a name commonly reserved for a boy.

“Sometimes I think if I’m indignant enough people won’t ask me for an ID,” you said and looked at me with your eyebrows raised. Good luck with that, I thought as I handed you back your license. Clearly it isn’t working. I had already said I was sorry during the transaction. Being indignant wasn’t going to make me feel bad for your plight. Change your name if you’re tired of the questioning looks. At the very least change the name on your credit cards. I had a customer who had gotten “Prof” put in front of his name on his card. You could easily get one with your first initial instead of your entire first (boy’s) name.

If you keep up the indignation, you’ll have a long life ahead of you. And James doesn’t want you to let other people get to you. He thinks it’s bad for your health.

Sincerely,

Kelly

Dear Lewis Black,

It hurts me to do this. I think you are hilarious. You are one of my favorite comedians and I have always watched your stand up shows, even reruns. You’re so angry, with the finger jabbing and the ranting. You’ve done bits on the ridiculousness of organized religion and government. You seem to hate everything and everyone. Nothing is sacred, everything is to be mocked. You were a hero to me. It was beautiful.

Now all of that is gone.

Today at work I was shelving the metaphysics books. It’s not my favorite section. There are 4 types of books on the general metaphysics shelves. They are all absurd.

• books on unleashing the power inside you to improve your relationships/work/life
• books on secret societies in America
• books on fictional beings (angels, vampires, werewolves, Sasquatch, fairies, aliens, etc.) and
• books on psychics and the afterlife

Your name was associated with the last one. I thought maybe the Lewis Black who wrote the intro wasn’t you. Maybe it was another Lewis Black, some crazy guy with an eighth grade education and a lisp. It’s got to be a common name, I flipped to the first page of the book. It was you. You wrote the introduction to a book written by a “psychic” in which he tells the story of how he found out he was “psychic” and some stories about his “psychic revelations”. How the hell am I supposed to take you seriously as a comedian now? You find religion disingenuous and have mocked the deeply held beliefs of millions of people:

“The Catholics have it right. I love what they do. That whole ‘the pope’s infallible’ this is tremendous. Let’s face facts: If you took someone with no religious leanings whatsoever and locked that person in a psych ward with nobody around and no stimuli, the Catholic religion is exactly what he’d come up with.

‘Listen to this. There’s this old guy in a dress, see? He wears all these great costumes and whatever he says, about anything from birth control to what to watch on television, that’s it, ‘cause pope knows best. He can’t lift his head up, but, fuck, he’s a genius.’ “

or:

“Who knew that the devil had a factory where he made millions of fossils, which his minions distributed throughout the earth, in order to confuse my tiny brain?”

And now I’m supposed to believe some guy can see the future because you say so? People who have died stick around earth to whisper in his ear and tell him what’s going to happen? Even if ghosts did exist, why would they have access to what’s going to happen in the future? How are the two related at all? It makes no sense.

This three page introduction undermines your entire on stage persona. You wrote about how a friend of yours knew this “psychic” first and the guy told her you would be famous some day. But (and here’s the kicker) she had never told the “psychic” about you! Well holy shit, sign me up.

If the intro was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, you failed. So, I have to think you are serious. Now every time I see you on stage pointing out the ludicrousness of our president or global warming or scientology, all I’ll be able to think is, “Yeah, but you believe is psychics.” And I hate that.

Sincerely,

Kelly

Dear overbearing customer,

A few days ago I was working a morning shift at the front register. You had about 30 kids books from the used section you wanted to purchase. I knew it would take a while to ring everything up, but you smiled and seemed nice. I didn’t think there would be any problems. Wrong.

You see, our system requires more steps to ring up a used book than to ring up a regularly priced book. Regular book? One sweep over the scanner and a beep. Done. Used book? Two sweeps over the scanner, two slightly different beeps, type in the code, type in the price. Repeat 30 times. You didn’t seem to like this process. Neither do I. But, I’m used to it and I can’t do anything to change it, so I’ve accepted the it. You weren’t very accepting.

I double swiped the first book and as I was typing in the necessary info I saw you give me an odd look. I’ve seen that look in many an irritating customers’ eyes. It says, “Why did you scan that twice? Are you charging me double?” I know the look says this because sometimes they say it out loud as well. Then I have to try to explain the process, usually with a forced laugh at the end.

“Oh, we have to scan them twice, it only goes in the register once though.” Smile. Hate. Subtle eye roll if they look away.

I know how to do my job, yes I make a mistake every once in a while, but give me some credit. Granted, you didn’t ask why I was scanning twice, you just disapproved with your eyes. My co-worker didn’t have anyone to ring up so she got two large handle bags to start bagging as I scanned. Two people helping you wasn’t enough. You started fidgeting with the books. You straightened the two piles remaining in front of you. You sighed. You told me you were a teacher and wanted the discount. Great.

I had you fill out the form and hoped it would keep you occupied. It did, but not for long. In the mean time my co-worker rang up another customer, finished the transaction, bagged their books and gave them their receipt. I was still helping you. You didn’t like this. My goodness, you were here first, you should leave first. Your eyes said it all.

You started handing me books. As I reached to pick one off the counter, you would try to put it in my hand. We did not make a good team, I would never want you to pass me a baton in a race. There are no summer Olympics in our future. I tried to speed up the process but I can only go as quickly as the register does. It is what scientists would call the “rate limiting step”; it is old, more than a little filthy, and needs to finish one step before beginning another. Which means I have to pause sometimes and let it catch up to my furious typing.

You were ready to pay. You had your card out in your non-book-shoving hand and were itching to hand it to me as well. As soon as I gave you the total you rammed it into my hand. Thank you. I swiped and typed and waiting on the card machine to pump out its receipt. My co-worker was back to bagging your books, trying valiantly to get you off my hands as quickly as possible. As I handed you back you card, gracefully might I add, you finally spoke up.

“Don’t I get a receipt?”

Of course you do. Did you see a receipt print from the machine? Did you see me snatch it away and hide it under the counter? Did I crumple it into a ball and throw it over my shoulder? Did I set it on fire and laugh maniacally? No. It was still in the old, dusty register. And you still had to sign the copy from the card machine I had placed in front of you next to the pen. I told you the receipt was coming and you ignored me. You looked my co-worker in the eye and said, “It was a lot of looks, I’ll need two bags.”

She raised her eyebrows and smirked a bit, “I gave you-“

“Oh,” you interrupted, leaning over the counter and peering at the bags. “You did.”

I handed you the coveted receipt and she brought your two bags around the counter. You didn’t say thank you. With one bag in each hand you shuffled toward the door. I expect more gratitude next time; with the low used book prices and the teachers’ discount you paid about $1.50 a book. That is a damn good price and worth a much longer wait. Maybe next time I see you I will destroy your receipt. Then I’ll glare at you and shuffle off, muttering about customer service.

Sincerely,

Kelly

Dear lying teachers,

You are not sly or sneaky. We have a 20% discount for teachers on books they use in the classroom. We do this because we like teachers and we know they don’t make much money. However, we don’t like teachers like you. I know you want to read books for personal enjoyment, but you’ll have to pay full price. Don’t try to weasel your way out of it. I know when you are lying.

You and your two friends came up to the register together. Your first friend only had a book from the book group table (already discounted 20% - more on crazy book group people later) so she was okay. While I rang her up you and your other friend were whispering away. I caught the words “tell” “teacher” and “discount”. Your friend looked nervous and more than a little uncomfortable. Her eyes shot to the floor when I asked who was next. You approached the register and handed over your book group book and another book.

“I’m a teacher,” you exclaimed proudly.

“Okay,” I said. “Are you using this book in the classroom?” I touched the cover of your second book, Things Good Mothers Know.

“All the books in the store apply for the discount now,” you haughtily informed me. Yes, I know that. I work here. I smiled an icy smile.

“That’s true the discount applies to any book in the store that you will be using in the classroom.” You stared at me, not speaking. “Is this book for the classroom?” I repeated.

“Well, I guess it is then,” you said with a grin. Liar.

As I rang you up, with discount since we aren’t supposed to accuse the customers of lying, you turned back to your friend. There was another hurried whisper fest between the two of you. You’re a teacher. If you are any good at your job you’ve seen back-of-the-classroom conspiratorial whispering. It’s obvious, the quick looks at the person your talking about, the conniving tone. Plus, you’re bad at it. I was only standing four feet from you. I know you told her to say her book was for the classroom when we asked. Like, OMG, we’re gonna totally ask about it. Eye roll.

As I went through the usual ringing up motions, you drew out the lie by talking about how you do mother the kids in your classroom. Ha ha, you laughed. We mother them more than we should. More forced laughter. Your awkward stilted conversation was not helping. I gave you the damn discount. Stop trying to prove you are these poor kids surrogate mother by talking about how one of them has no snow pants and no one is buying them any. Buy the kid some snow pants and I’ll give you a discount on whatever you want. Now go away.

You paid and went over to your first friend by the doors, leaving your nervous friend to fend for herself. My co-worker rang up her purchases. When asked if the same Good Mothers book was for the classroom, she balked. “Well, I don’t know. Maybe. I mean, I won’t be using it yet.” She stammered. No discount for her. Good.

Later I looked up your “classroom purchase”. It was a self-improvement book. It encourages readers “to attend to their own happiness in the quest to become better mothers.” Sure, you’re not really a mother, but if getting a classroom discount on your personal reading makes you happy, it sounds like you’ve got the book’s instructions down already. Too bad you can’t follow ours.

Sincerely,

Kelly