I closed in the books department last night. I hate doing that. Something about closing shifts always makes me cranky and if I'm already in a bad mood about something, watch out. Part of it is just the utter tediousness of it, every single book in the store, and there are thousands, has not only a section, but a sub-section, and often times a row. An exact spot. Nice when you are trying to find something fast, but pure 100% torture when you are trying to put them away. It's not so much an issue of just stocking, you eventually learn right where the big name authors (Steven King, Janet Evanovich, John Grisham, etc) go, even where some of their specific books go, but its the fact that you can find stacks of books that have been misplaced by customers in the wrong place that can get really, really unnerving.
Magazines are even worse. I don't know how in the hell there can be a market for such a thing, but we have at least 15 tattoo magazines and people always (and I do mean ALWAYS) put them where they don't belong. Then there are other magazines, magazines on subjects you couldn't possibly imagine. The teen magazines with the same 4 people on every cover (Hillary Duff, Miley Cyrus, Kristen Stewart and the horrible Robert Pattinson). Recently I've also noticed a new face popping up everywhere, Selena Gomez. Who is she? What does she even do? Magazines are the absolute bane of my existence at Hastings.
Closing books is such a huge job. I could start at 8:30 and still not be done until 11:30. It's almost too big of a job for one person to alone, so naturally, they only have one person doing it. I try to be efficient and not have it take quite so long, but every little thing I miss gets found and I get called out on. It's easy to be a department manager and criticize the work of the closers, they never have to actually do it. Neither do the guys who work at corporate office.
There is one universal truth to retail, though. It is hard to make people who earn 8 dollars an hour care about anything.
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