And I'm spent. What a night, with hundreds of excited people packed into the store counting down the minutes until we opened the boxes at 12.01am and started selling a bazillion Harry Potter books.
The people who came specifically for Harry Potter were very cool; they understood exactly what was going on and handled lining up and waiting with aplomb.
However, the people who just wanted to come into the store like a regular Friday night and who couldn't give a shit that Harry Potter was the biggest publishing event in the world were a bunch of wankers. I had so many irate fuckwits scream in my face when we reached maximum occupancy [and therefore couldn't let any more people in] I'm surprised I managed to smile through it all.¹ Honestly, those people were prize arseholes and they can all lick my balls.
But the good news is we managed to get through everyone who wanted a book in about an hour, which has to be some sort of record. The real work was cleaning up the store after we locked the doors, and that took about an hour and a half. As you can imagine the store was pretty trashed, but I think we left it in good condition for the opening staff tomorrow.
Oh, and we still have plenty of books left for people wanting it. I've bought our copy but I don't know how much of it I'm going to get through tonight [this morning?] before I crash out.
If you have your copy already, I hope you like!
G'night.
¹Well, I did fire back at one non-Potter customer:
Arse Master Non-Potter Customer: "You're not very nice."
Me: "Yeah, I'm a real bastard. Have a good night!"
Not much of a retort, however it made a few people laugh and it made me smile. ;-)
Saturday, 21 July 2007
Sunday, 15 July 2007
"If You're Into It" song from Flight of the Conchords
This song is gold. How could a girl possibly say no after being serenaded like that?
From episode four of Flight of the Conchords.
From episode four of Flight of the Conchords.
You Win Again, Lightning
In summer Florida gets what I call the afternoon electric show. In other words, one can count on lightning showing up after lunch and hanging around for a couple of hours and keeping life interesting.
So as you can probably work out, our modem took a bit of a bashing and was out of commission for a few days last week. However, we're back up and running now which is a great relief to my two readers. Go, team!
So as you can probably work out, our modem took a bit of a bashing and was out of commission for a few days last week. However, we're back up and running now which is a great relief to my two readers. Go, team!
Sunday, 8 July 2007
A Damp 4th of July
Well Independence Day was a rather damp affair here in South Florida. However, even the rain wasn't enough to put off the most-determined of pyros as there were all sorts of explosions littering the dull evening sky.
The first half of my day was spent at the bookstore [why we're open on a national holiday I'll never be able to fathom] expecting to have a tedious day dusting and catching up on projects. Indeed, we even anticipated there being more staff in the store than customers. Ha, I love that word: anticipation. It promises much by suggesting prescience, and if you manage to intuit an outcome before it comes out, you look pretty fuckin' cool.
However, most of my anticipations turn out to be wide of the mark, and the 4th was no exception for we had bundles of people in the store [why anyone would want to spend a national holiday inside a Barnes & Noble I'll never be able to fathom].
This next paragraph was going to be full of mild insults like dumbasses, pills, losers, winners [in the ironic sense of the word winner [ie, not really a winner at all]] and attach them by way of a very loose association with the collective noun, customers. But I'm not going to do that, nope. Who am I to judge another who chooses¹ to spend several hours of their national holiday inside a bookstore? I'm just going to let it go past without another word.
So yeah, after work I braved the drive home in torrential rain that left a vast volume of water on the road threatening unsuspecting motorists with that ever-waiting hazard, hydroplaning [slide home instead of drive home!]. Then we went around to my sister-in-laws for an enjoyable BBQ where, as usual, I ate too much and felt sleepy afterwards. It was still too wet to stand around outside waiting to launch stuff into a drab sky, so we called it a night earlier than usual and thus concluded what had been my third 4th of July since arriving here.
¹A person or persons who had plenty of other options open to them but chose the "spend the 4th of July at the bookstore" option. Yep, I'm not going to judge those people as that would be uncool. But if you want to you can.
The first half of my day was spent at the bookstore [why we're open on a national holiday I'll never be able to fathom] expecting to have a tedious day dusting and catching up on projects. Indeed, we even anticipated there being more staff in the store than customers. Ha, I love that word: anticipation. It promises much by suggesting prescience, and if you manage to intuit an outcome before it comes out, you look pretty fuckin' cool.
However, most of my anticipations turn out to be wide of the mark, and the 4th was no exception for we had bundles of people in the store [why anyone would want to spend a national holiday inside a Barnes & Noble I'll never be able to fathom].
This next paragraph was going to be full of mild insults like dumbasses, pills, losers, winners [in the ironic sense of the word winner [ie, not really a winner at all]] and attach them by way of a very loose association with the collective noun, customers. But I'm not going to do that, nope. Who am I to judge another who chooses¹ to spend several hours of their national holiday inside a bookstore? I'm just going to let it go past without another word.
So yeah, after work I braved the drive home in torrential rain that left a vast volume of water on the road threatening unsuspecting motorists with that ever-waiting hazard, hydroplaning [slide home instead of drive home!]. Then we went around to my sister-in-laws for an enjoyable BBQ where, as usual, I ate too much and felt sleepy afterwards. It was still too wet to stand around outside waiting to launch stuff into a drab sky, so we called it a night earlier than usual and thus concluded what had been my third 4th of July since arriving here.
¹A person or persons who had plenty of other options open to them but chose the "spend the 4th of July at the bookstore" option. Yep, I'm not going to judge those people as that would be uncool. But if you want to you can.
Busy Bee @ the Bookstore
Work has been full on for the past few weeks. One of my fellow managers had to fly back to his home country to do compulsory military service last month, which certainly sucks for him. However, it's left us a little light on the ground as far as managers go so the rest of us are having to pick up the slack. It's pretty tiring working with limited coverage some days, but in saying that it's easy to put into perspective as it's not as if I have to crawl around in a coal mine all day [although, it does feel like it sometimes...].
Obviously the big date this month [this year, even] for booksellers and book readers is July 21st when the final Harry Potter book goes on sale. We haven't received our shipment of books yet, but we've been slowly building up our supply of Harry Potter themed items like wands, jelly beans, time turners, badges, games, stickers and all sorts of Harry Potter merchandise.
The book goes on sale at midnight, so many of us will be starting at 6pm and going through the night until the last person has bought their book in the early hours of the 21st. Seeing as it's the last book in the series I'm expecting there to be a shit load of people in the store. Let's just hope we have enough copies to go around otherwise there'll be some pissed off muggles....
Obviously the big date this month [this year, even] for booksellers and book readers is July 21st when the final Harry Potter book goes on sale. We haven't received our shipment of books yet, but we've been slowly building up our supply of Harry Potter themed items like wands, jelly beans, time turners, badges, games, stickers and all sorts of Harry Potter merchandise.
The book goes on sale at midnight, so many of us will be starting at 6pm and going through the night until the last person has bought their book in the early hours of the 21st. Seeing as it's the last book in the series I'm expecting there to be a shit load of people in the store. Let's just hope we have enough copies to go around otherwise there'll be some pissed off muggles....
8/7/7
D'oh! Oh, well -- I'll have to wait until 8/8/8 to make an important and chillingly prophetic blog post. I had a good one for yesterday, but it really doesn't have the same kind of weight making it a day later.
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