Soul Survivor

So much has been happening. The "season" is over and I'm still at the base store. It is going as well as can be expected.

Please don't misunderstand, I'm glad to have the job. The people, employees and customers, are, for the most part quite wonderful. The pay sucks, but that's a simple reality. What's not so simple is how complex the relationships are. Friends, family, co-workers, customers, strangers, it is part of the fabric of our lives. Keeping it from fraying and getting in the way is the hard part. Balance. That's what I'd like.

A good example is how high-maintenance an employee I am. I do the work I'm supposed to do. I have great customer-service skills. I support our company's stupid programs. I'm a caring and supportive co-worker. I come to work on time, don't take long breaks and I stay until my shift ends, sometimes longer if it's busy. I am honest, hardworking, loyal and clean. What I'm not, is easy.

Want another example? I've already confessed that I work in a bookstore. You're not going to get any kind of clue as to what kind it is, so don't ask. One of the things that most people don't know about bookstores is that books, magazines and coffee aren't the only reasons that people come to one. There are a lot, and you'd be surprised at how many a lot really is, who come for other reasons.

They come looking for something to fill a hole that they have gaping inside of them. Often they don't know what they need to fill it. Self-help, religion, grammar, something funny to chase away the blues, something horrible to help put their lives in perspective,even porn (which used to be just the adult magazines, but now includes the section that used to be called "Romance.") I digress, but if you haven't looked at one of those romance books in a while, you will be surprised to find that they are no longer the bodice-rippers of old, but have morphed into some pretty blatant and seriously graphic stuff. There is a woman who shops with us, who complains and nearly rages about the Manga books that her young teenage girls want to read, while buying them books from the Romance section. You know, if she is really, truly concerned about what her girls are reading, she would be at least scanning those books that they have clutched in their sweatly little mitts. Every time she (the mom) does this, I just let her rant, while I watch her daughters' faces. You can tell that they are trying to send their hormonal little thoughts to me, begging me not to give away the big secret. I don't, because the parental raging makes it not my business. I'm guessing that if she ever finds out, given her displays of displeasure, we just won't see them in the store anymore.

Anyway, back to lust. The need and lust that brings so many people to us. I have a very nice manager, but her job is to make sure that we sell lots of books. Oh, sure, she has lots of other jobs, but that is the main one, the one for which she most accountable. The bottom line, the financial stuff. Great, it's her job, and it's probably supposed to be mine, too, but I just can't get behind that. Yeah, I can sell our membership card, tout the latest bestsellers, pass out coupons and flyers, stock, straighten and all the rest.

And, this is where my not being the greatest employee comes in.

What I cannot do (no, correct that...), what I won't do is to take advantage of our customers.

If we don't have the exact book that they want, I'll call our other stores, I'll offer to order it for them, I'll beg, borrow and blunder my way into finding it for them. But, I won't talk them into something that won't meet their needs, just to make a sale.

If they don't know what they want, I will do my best to help them discover what it is that they DO want, but I won't steer them into just anything so that they don't leave without buying something.

If they come in for, say a cookbook, I will help them find the specific book they want, or something similiar, but I won't up-sell them into a more expensive book just because it would be possible to do that.

If they want to buy a paperback novel, and we have the hardcover in the remainders (bargain books) section for a few dollars less, I will show it to them and let them make their own decision.

There are a lot more things that I won't do, things that my company wants, even insists, that I do because it will bring in more revenue at the expense of what is right and proper for our customers.

Aside from all of those 'regular' customers, we seem to attract a lot of people who really don't need a book. They need to connect with another human being for some subtle, significant or even foolish reason. They need to engage in human contact that is not available to them any other way. And, I just love these people. They waste our time, get in the way of helping other people and sometimes, depending upon the disconnect from which they suffer, even cause problems. And, I really just love these people. I believe that these people are the reason that I'm working in a bookstore, in the mall, in the 'belly of the beast' of a mall.

In the six months that I've been working here, there have been dozens and dozens of them, and I'd like to share two of them with you.

One is a man, tall, very tall, nearly seven feet tall. He walks slowly and hunches his shoulders. He rarely looks me in the eye, and speaks so softly that I sometimes have to ask that he repeat something that he has said to me. I was surprised to find that some of the other employees think that he is dangerous, or could be. I find him to be almost fragile. His tentativeness isn't a construct, but a way for him manage his environment. Maybe that means the same thing.

He came into the store last week, asking for a book about bringing people back to life. I asked him if he meant medical resuscitation, but he just shook his head. Knowing that he goes to the library a lot, I asked if he had gone there. He told me that he had, and that the librarian had given him a book, which he checked-out. He pulled the book from his backpack and showed it to me. It was about EMT techniques. He told me that wasn't what he wanted. I asked if he meant resurrection, and, again, he indicated that was wrong. I asked, to make sure, that he didn't want something about the afterlife, perhaps something religious, and he told me that he had enough bibles.

I then found myself at the place where I had to ask the right question, the one that I'd been avoiding. I asked him if he wanted a book that told you how to bring a dead person back to physical life. I've never seen his face as animated as it was at that moment, and he nodded his head and told me "Yes, that's it, that's what I want." I told him that I would look it up for him in the computer. And, I turned, and looked. Not health, not medical, not religious, not mythological, not philosophical, only a way to bring back a person who was gone. Lost. I knew that I wouldn't find anything, but I looked for him anyway. And, I read out titles to him, clicked on links and went through the lists of books on resurrection and resuscitation and ancient ritual. And, when I'd given him as much time as I could, I returned to him and told him that there wasn't anything to be found, and that I was sorry.

He told me that was all right. That he understood. I told him that I would keep looking, and if I found anything, I would order it for him to look at the next time he visited us. He shook my hand and we said our goodbyes.

He is the reason that I came to work that day. I like all the other people, but he is one of the reasons that I continue to work there.

There is another man who comes into the store regularly, but I think that I'll save his story for another time.

Huh, you know, I came here to write today about my personal life and my mother, but I guess that will have to wait for another day, as well.