Bookshop Babylon PSA: How Not to Piss off Retail Workers at Christmas

A lot of people seem to have real problems not pissing me off at Christmastime. Me and lots of other poor sods who have to work in shops at Christmas.it's hell, we know. It's hell for you, it's hell for us.

Christmas music blasts continuously from tinny mall speakers, reminding you, that Santa Claus Is indeed Coming To Town, so you'd better get those damn presents PERFECT!

Not one air conditioner actually works, they buckle under the weight of the globally warmed air, so everyone walks around sweltering in the recycled, tepid atmosphere.

The shops seem to have run out of what you want every single time you step in one.

We know.

But think about it for a second. We have to stand, with the music and the heat beating down on us for freakin' hours on end. Our lives do not revolve around you and whatever shit you want to buy for your annoying relations. Our jobs don't even revolve around that.

BUT we are very appreciative of nice people at this time of year. If I like you, I will help you out a little more than I perhaps would if you piss me off. So, here are some handy tips to make all of our lives easier.

1. There is a queue. There is always a queue, it's Christmas. Jesus has to queue at Christmas. Don't take it as a personal affront when I point this out to you. No matter how confused you pretend to be, we all know that you are an impatient ass, so get to the back of the queue already.

2. Shops are not like the Tardis. It is not the mythical Argos of Bill Bailey's dreams (in joke). We cannot stock everything on earth. I'm dreadfully sorry that we don't have the obscure history of the Ukrainian Sewage system you're looking for (this actually happened), but we need room for all of the Dan Brown books. I hate it too, you know.

3. It is not my fault when other shops fuck up. I am sorry that there is no one manning the calendar club stand, but we cannot sell you something that isn't ours. I cannot change this. In other words, it ain't my problem, lady.

4. Unless you are Amish, you have been in a shop before. We expect you to have some rudimentary level of knowledge about how things go in a shop. Shops are owned by people, who are sometimes corporations. Corporations run on Capitalism. Capitalism wants your money. It is unlikely, therefore, that Capitalism will let you have stuff cheap. When there is a sale, the discount will not apply to already discounted items. This is not a rip off, as you so often tell me, because it's ALREADY DISCOUNTED. You're already getting it cheaper, so quit freakin' moaning.

I'm sure I'll think of more tips as the 'primary gifting period' continues, but that'll do for now.

Please try not to piss me off.

Overheard at the Bookshop

(Me, sitting on the floor, surrounded by about five cartons of lonely planet guides)

CUSTOMER: "Do you guys sell lonely planet guides?"

ME: .... (incredulous look)

CUSTOMER: "Have I walked right past them?"

Seriously folks, I couldn't make this stuff up.

Overheard at the Bookshop

Some kids (maybe 18ish):

Kid 1: "Who's Malcolm X?"

Kid 2: "Oh my god, do you really not know who Malcolm X is!?"

Kid 1: "No, who is he?"

Kid 2: "Dude, he was like the guy who started the Reformation."

...

Decision Points on the Journey to Lazarus Rising.

It's christmas time and there's a great need to be afraid. Yep, that's right, decorations are up and the annual exponential rise in customers has started. The stock is piling up; boxes and boxes of shit which no one would ever buy if they weren't trying to get their whole christmas shopping list done on one day and in one shop.

Yet another little box of address books and journals which are too tiny to use, so will sit on someone's shelf for half the year before they remember they have it.

The coffee-table book of 'beautiful pigs' which will go straight to the bottom-right section of the bookshelf, where you store your old school yearbooks and all the endless Anne Geddes books of creepy babies dressed as elves etc.

The jokey-retro 'I'm a bitch' calendar, the one that you'll put on your desk and forget to rip any pages off, which you will throw out in August, the date still reading 'January 24th.'

But what really scares me is the fact that this christmas, three biographies have really jumped out at me as clealry having been released for the 'primary gifting period.'

The Journey by Tony Blair

Decision Points by George Bush

Lazarus Rising by John Howard

Three no doubt ghosted books (apparently The Journey is excrutiatingly badly written) which will attempt to create a mixture of a healthy ability to poke fun at themselves, long mournful chapters about their terrible suffering and tracts of self-pitying crap which tries to justify their actions. Also so far both 'Decision Points' and 'The Journey' cost $75.00.

That's pretty pricey, so I was thinking that for anyone wanting to read these fine works of political biography *cough*, this might be an idea:

P.S.

Um, I don't think that's the lyric...

Whenever I listen to 'The ballad of Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts' (one of my favourite Dylan songs) I invariably get it stuck in my head. This generally means that I'm singing it constantly for at least 24 hours. When this happens, I get the lyrics mixed up.

Sometimes with hilarious consequences. 

If you've never heard it, it's immensely long with many verses, which means that the potential for mix-ups is far greater. 

One of the lines is " Rosemary combed her hair and took a carriage into town." Bob, being Bob, slurs the 'r's in carriage so it sounds a little like 'cabbage.' 

Hilarious moment #1. 

Another line is "Lily took her dress off, buried it away." 

So, if you ever hear me sing "Lily took her dress off and took a cabbage into town" that's what I've done.

It has a nice ring to it though...

From buzzfeed, the differences between Paris and New York

...cause apparently these are the only ones.

The smell of freedom

I had my last exam today, so summer has officially begun for me and I intend to make the most of it! I'm doing a summer internship in the politics department and of course will be doing the christmas grind at the bookshop, so it's not all fun and games, but I shall have infinitely more time for blogging and I intend to catch up on an awful lot of reading.

Oh yeah, and THE CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS ARE UP. At the westfield malls. ALREADY.

Just kill me now.

I AM OFFENDED BECAUSE...: The Fury and the Furiously Busy

This may just be my favourite blog. Excellent rage-filled rants about all the mysoginistic, homophobic and fatphobic crap that exists in the world.

I AM OFFENDED BECAUSE...: The Fury and the Furiously Busy: "Despite writing a blog about being offended, and therefore living in a state of near-permanant rage, it is not that often that I get really ..."

OH MY WORD

They've made a movie of For colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange. LIKE ACTUALLY. This choreopoem was the first thing I ever read for uni and I seriously think it changed my life. The movie is called simply 'For Colored Girls' and features, well a whole lot of fabulous African American ladies. 

While I feel a little anxious about what they're going to do to the poem, I'm glad that maybe more people will read it as a result.

Buy it from here now and read it. 

DO IT.

Katy Perry Will Change Your Life

From Jezebel:

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