100326VaughnCarrie Vaughn, author of the Kitty Norville werewolf novels, has posted to her blog an amusing tale of the Christmas Eves she used to work in a bookstore, right after college. She explains that she actually loved working Christmas Eve, in spite of the conventional wisdom about holiday-season retail, because last-minute bookstore shoppers were generally very easy to please, and in miraculously helping them find exactly what she needed, she got to “[feel] like Wonder Woman.”

Because bookstores are, for the most part, staffed by intelligent, well-read people who want nothing more than to foist vast amounts of reading material onto the public. I’d ask a few questions: What do they like to do? Fiction or non-fiction? Do they cook, garden? Do they like biographies? And after a few answers I’d usually be able to pick out a nice selection. Sometimes all I’d need to do was lead him to the right section, and his eyes would light up, and he’d have an armful of gifts in a matter of minutes. And he’d look at me with a gaze full of shining gratitude and reverently murmur, “Thank you. You’ve saved me.” Then, as he paid for his stack of books, I’d say, “We also have free gift wrapping.” His expression would turn positively beatific. It would be like the heavens opened and rays of gold shone down on him with choirs of angels singing –

Or that might have been the Christmas carols playing over the speakers.

And she got to do that time after time after time, especially as it got on toward closing time.

I’m guessing that things have gone downhill, at least at Barnes & Nobles, since then.

2 COMMENTS

  1. I also worked in an indie bookstore in Boston after college and worked Christmas Eve until 11 pm. What I remember was how our inventory would be largely depleted and then some rich uncle up on Beacon Hill would come in a half hour before closing and spend a few hundred on any remaining art books as last-minute gifts. The content did not matter as long as they looked like good books, which they were!

  2. I worked for bookstores in the late 80s and early 90s and had to do Christmas Eve more than once. I don’t remember anything joyful or happy about the experience – drudgery and bad music are my memories. Nothing like finding just the right gift for the special someone.

    CUSTOMER: Where’s the the new Tom Clancy novel?

    ME: It’s the large stack of books you’re standing next to. They’re within your reach right now.

    CUSTOMER: Is that the new one?

    ME: Yes. It’s the stack three feet high.

    Repeat similar conversations for eight hours while listening to the same holiday songs over and over again.

    if the managers had allowed drinking on the job and wearing earplugs – that might have made it better.

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