long time no blog

Well, it's hot hot hot in retail land right now.

I would like to take a moment to celebrate the awesomeness of some of my workmates during this hard yakka part of the year.

There is one gal in particular. Her name is Kym. She does the bulk of the ordering for the fiction and literary fiction areas of the store. She is so dedicated to her craft. She is, on the whole, unruffle-able. She is always thinking of ways to merchandise and display the books to their best potential. She is so interested in bringing in the thoughts and views of the other staff on their favourite reading material. It makes us all feel a part of the readers (customers) world.

When you have a special interest in a particular genre (for me..the teen and kids stuff) it's easy to feel a little pigeon-holed. But I do read grown up books too. And it is a joy to recommend them to others.

Our store staff are passionately into bringing our favourite authors, and our knowledge of the book marketplace to the attention of the wider reading community. I think it is one of our greatest strengths as a store. No Black Books service at Dymocks 234 Collins St.

Let me bang on a bit about retail.

I have been in lots of shops and received the most appalling service and every day a small number of customers come in with the rudest and most obnoxious requests and behaviour. For the most part I have never witnessed any of our staff responding in the ways I have seen elsewhere. (with the exception of one person on staff who shall remain nameless)

Gift wrapping...(customer) How about you just give me the wrapping paper and ribbon you were going to use instore so I can go home and wrap other stuff? (customer) I buy lots of books..why don't you wrap the things I bought elsewhere? (customer) Is that all you have?

Book Selection...(customer) I have two twelve year olds, one two year old, seven five year olds and an elderly aunt who doesn't like reading. What do you suggest? Do you have any GOOD books? My child is very advanced so should be reading from the Y.A. section at the age of 7. (me) Sure if you want him/her to read about sex self mutilation drugs suicide teen pregnancy etc.

Unsupervised children..or worse...The books we have in the store, the games with multiple pieces, the wrapped packages, the sticker books, the delicate pop ups, the soft toys are all for sale with the exception of specially marked display copies. No store could afford to have a display copy of every book with an untouched copy hidden from sight; so DON'T unwrap the good copies and give them to your kids to play with while you go peruse the DVDs out of sight. Please don't settle yourself down, open up the kids snackpack, lollypop, banana and flick through half a dozen $100 coffee table books then leave them strewn on the floor. Don't encourage your kids to chew on, walk on or throw toys around. When you get home with your purchases, please feel free to trash them in any way you like.

Counter Etiquette... I have yet to meet the sales person who likes attending to a customer who is talking on their mobile phone. Ditto the customer who flings their credit card across the counter.

Shop Lifting, ripping pages out of books, taking photos of pages with your mobile phone, copying down entire recipes, detaching the patterns included in craft books, the maps included in travel books.

Well. I have had a rant haven't I?

There's more where that came from, but it's a beautiful day. I have just potted my tomatoes and put them on the scorching new balcony.

A box of wine has just been delivered.

I am 3/4s of the way through my Christmas cards.

Renovation still not complete.

Still watching tv in the bedroom.

Kitchen is AWESOME. Cooker ROCKS! (in a good way)

Gotta go.

See ya.

OOOPS photos not working.