Borders may be in the middle of a very public downfall, but rather than go gentle into that good bankruptcy, these employees have chosen to rage, rage against the dying of the bookstore — which is a literary reference you'd probably understand if you shopped at Borders. You can tell this list of customer faux pas has been eating at these book jockeys for years. Unfortunately, the length of their diatribe suggests they've seriously overestimated people's desire to read things, which is why their business failed in the first place.
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Marc | 01/15/2012 flag |
Wished I found this about three months ago. A big thumbs up to Paulo and others likeminded. My take is that of a part time employee from years past at my worst employer ever. Not the corporate suits, as I seldom had any knowledge of or contact with them. What they did has been well presented here. Not the customers, as they were about the same as anywhere else I had been. Not the fellow employees. But, the local management. Never, anywhere, had I come across such a self-centered, uncaring, brown-nosed lot. The manager who was too busy earning brownie points to ever actually be at their store. The asst. mgr. toadie who kept saying there was nothing wrong with the security device on the door to the employees area even though person after person had to knock on the door to be let in. The little wanna be gang banger with the Big inferiority complex and the big "you can't ignore me button" she wore all the time. Never really knew what her positiion was, other than setting on her behind doing nothing and getting on the store phone and intercom and yelling at someone to do something. And last, but certainly not least, Nancy. The screaming, kicking at an unresponsive register while the store is full of customers asst. mgr. Nancy. The I don't believe you while the bright sunlight through an unprotected window was literally blinding customers Nancy. The I'll lie about you and sic a customer on you, I'll approve a hot check because I like this person and constantly whinning woe is me to anyone including customers, Nancy. These are just the events I can attest to, heard more from other workers and, yes, customers. Needless to say this led to instability and turnover. At Christmas time only 3 or 4 of the 20+ employees hired over the past couple of months were still there!
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DiamondRuby | 10/04/2011 flag |
I worked in three different Borders stores over a period of about 8 years while I was in high school and college. Retail is rough. It's soul sucking and painful and hard work and on more than one occasion has made me cry. It's also fun and flexible and often where student trying to make a buck congregate and make great friends. It's not rocket science. It's not brain surgery. But, in my time at Borders I've worked with people studying to be chemists and nurses. I worked with two pre-med students, and one real live rocket scientist! I've also worked with die hard retailers who've been doing this for decades.
Borders failed for many reasons. Every single, fucking (yes, I used a naughty word!) person I worked with LOVED books. When the right customer came along we could chat with hours. I cared about my displays. I ran the children's section and loved helping kids find a book they would treasure.
I also spent my time at Borders watching people steal and having no power to do anything about it. I painted over a huge red swastika drawn onto a wall in red sharpie. I cleaned up shit and puke and dirty tampons. I was threatened and abused and once (only once) hit by a customer. My stores were in well to do college towns.
Customers are customers. Anyone who knows anyone else knows people suck. That's life. Often people in service positions like retail workers and waiters get to see the worst side of people. Hopefully, we go on to never, ever, fucking ever scream at 19 years old girls making $8.25 an hours. We flush the toilet in public restrooms. If our kids rip or pee on product we own up and pay for it.
Through this all...the people and the books made it worth while. I have my own opinions about why this store failed. Whoever said, "Let's just give our website to Amazon." should not be allowed to breed! I also know that at the store level we cared. We really fucking cared. -
Jag | 10/01/2011 flag |
Yay, more whiny retail (ex)workers.
Good riddance. With employees like this, no wonder the place doesn't exist any longer.
You're employed at a book store. Why do you let this stuff get to you? Did you really need to make a list?
Wow, what a horrible person that guy was for saying "quick question," he should be burnt at the stake.
Retail workers should be grateful for any job they have, regardless of how awful they're treated! They shouldn't be allowed to complain or have a problem with any inane question or stupid customer or bad situation.
No wonder Borders is out of business - staff that hates and looks down on customers is not a good business model.
While we're nitpicking, I'd like to compliment the author on his Son of Sam, chicken-scratch handwriting. -
Paulo | 09/30/2011 flag |
P.Crume.. for sure, I feel the same way. I was part of the management team for almost 5 years at the big box store. I had worked high end retail and managed other places before, so I really work for the bookstore as a personal choice,(I took a huge paycut by doing so) not due to a lack of skills, and that is the perception most people have of booksellers. I definitely met some great people, great hearts throughout my time at the bookstore. And the list is definitely spot on :) ps: I no longer work retail and definitely did not have a problem finding a new job.
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P. Crume | 09/30/2011 flag |
@ Paolo: Glad to speak up. I have seven years part-time in an indie bookstore, and I worked nine years as a bookseller & manager in a big-box store. I thought the list was spot-on.
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Paulo | 09/30/2011 flag |
At P.Crume : thank you for stating something that Is very true and the essence of most of the booksellers.
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P. Crume | 09/30/2011 flag |
@ Trixie, Larry, Annanonymous, and any others who think that the booksellers who wrote this are poorly educated, unintelligent, or otherwise unequipped to find "better" jobs: a good many booksellers are students, working multiple jobs, or supplementing their household income. They've taken jobs as booksellers because they need both income and schedule flexibility. A good many of them are drawn by the chance to be around books. This list (again, I'm talking about customer behavior, and not the political/literary comments) reflects common & repeated experience with the public, many of whom believe that having a bookseller at their service means that they are somehow superior to the bookseller, very often while relying upon the booksellers' product knowledge & interest and goodwill to find what they're looking for.
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Paulo | 09/30/2011 flag |
Thank you Rod, I'm glad somebody took the time to read some of the comments(i know I did) and not just add ignorant replies.
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Rod | 09/30/2011 flag |
"Things We Never Told You" - read it corporate lovers! Yeah, somehow just thinking these things brings down a corporation. Listen to Paulo folks (the long post about 22 below this one) - he's got it right and this is typical from suits.
"...I owe my soul to the company store..." -
P. Crume | 09/30/2011 flag |
As a former longtime employee of the Borders competition, I can attest to just about every comment on this list (I reserve comment on the snarky ones). Not all customers behave this way, but there are many who do. And I can add a couple more: customers who take books & magazines into the restrooms, and customers who throw tantrums when the books they want aren't in stock (this happens a lot during election season and on Christmas Eve). I've seen customers verbally abuse booksellers (including cursing), and then turn around and become very pleasant to the manager who interceded. This list isn't about one bad day in the store. It's about consistent customer behavior (although, as I said above, not all or even the majority of customers behave this way). Several of the items on the list happens every day in a big-box bookstore. I understand and sympathize with the booksellers' frustrations, since they happened in the stores I worked in, too.
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WillfromSF | 09/30/2011 flag |
You can imagine what they thought of their bosses if this is what they thought of their customers. A whiny bunch.
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Amanda | 09/30/2011 flag |
I could have done without that reference to Glenn Beck. No one really cares which way you lean as long as you respect the fact that people have differences of opinion with you.
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Allison12790 | 09/30/2011 flag |
Add your comment here...
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Renee | 09/30/2011 flag |
All these reminders of no more Borders are depressing. And I never did any of those things because I'm not a douche.
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Kathy | 09/30/2011 flag |
I miss that store.
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god | 09/30/2011 flag |
Delightful! We'll see you on the Fry-o-later!
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Paulo | 09/30/2011 flag |
At Jack: so what happened to that bookstore you worked for? Still in full service ?
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Mary | 09/30/2011 flag |
Hahahaha. I love how some people in this thread think retail people who are nice to them are thinking nice happy bubbly rainbow lollypop thoughts about their customers! There is NO retail worker in existence who LIKES all of their customers, just FYI. It's a sucky job and even when we treat you like we love you, if you suck we will always turn around and tell our co-workers about the asshole we had to help today. It's a sucky job. We hate our lives. Period! Just put on a happy face, be nice, be helpful, grit your teeth...that's what working in retail is all about! :D
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Jack | 09/30/2011 flag |
As a former assistant manager at a family-owned full service bookstore, I feel confident in saying that THIS attitude is why Borders is dead. Anti-service, anti-customer, anti-browsing. Since the merger with Waldens, I NEVER felt welcome, and I never felt service or selection were a priority.
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n | 09/30/2011 flag |
REPLY: You are NOT the only people who had/have to take soul-sucking jobs to survive. WE ALL DO IT. We, however, realize we have to be minimallly nice and helpful in order to have a job tomorrow and the next day and the next day. PS: you're NOT that clever.
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Rod | 09/30/2011 flag |
I enjoyed Borders and never had a problem with their employees. I *did* have problems with their customers tho - like the time I was standing at the front counter writing a check for my purchase and some Dallas bimbo walks into the store and goes right up to the employee who was completing my purchase at the register and demands, in a loud voice, to know where the birthday cards are. Meanwhile, there are a half-dozen people in line waiting to be called to the counter. I had some choice words for this woman - right to her face - but, you know, she was "special" and deserved high-class, instantaneous treatment. Borders made bad corporate decisions...and being late to e-readers didn't help matters either.
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Ken | 09/30/2011 flag |
The one thing worse than snotty booksellers are the retail customers that frequent them; or retail customers in general. Consumers have such a high expectation of every business, forgetting the fact that they themselves are a bunch of intolerant, rude and abusive people. They think that businesses survive solely to "go the extra mile" just for them and subsequently launch personal attacks at low-wage employees when their experience wasn't "royalty-like". Then they turn around and go to work and bitch about their customers being assholes. The bottom line is this - If you have a problem, look in the mirror. There you will find the cause and the solution." This was written by an imperfect person who thrives in customer service and survives as a consumer.
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Paulo | 09/30/2011 flag |
Obviously this larry guy has never worked retail. Please people grab a newspaper and read the real reasons why borders went out of business. The company invested in a ton of dumbass ideas, like trying to merge with amazon about 5 years back, all that did was to give amazon more business. Borders lost a substancial amount of money and was never to recover from that idiotic investment; that is a fact! And that is just one of the many financial mistakes they made.
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Diana | 09/30/2011 flag |
Also, if you seem to think that any of those claims are unfounded, I'm sorry, but you're the one whose naive about the world of business - especially since customer behavior like that is exactly what DOES hurt the business (taking returns that you did not purchase at our store, expecting booksellers to also be day care instructors, etc...) - If you seem to think that we're looking down our nose at you, you COMPLETELY missed the point of this note, and that is that we're complaining about customers looking down their noses at service employees.
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Diana | 09/30/2011 flag |
Larry, I have to in turn spin the naivety on you, as you seem to equate OUR being abused by customers (when we're already abused by employers) as "looking down our nose at them" - not the same at all, and neither I, nor the authors of this list are doing the latter. The company is already going out of business, we already lost our jobs, and the abuse continues to grow. Until you have walked a mile in our shoes, you really have no place to pass judgement. Also, that whole "we pay your salary" line - nice. Try using that on a cop when you get pulled over. I'm sure that'll go over well.
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Larry Tacker | 09/30/2011 flag |
Diana, customer service certainly plays a huge role in the success, or lack of it, at companies big and small. Customers eventually abandon places where they don't feel well treated. If you don't think that impacts the bottom line, you're naive about the business world. Or you're a disgruntled Border's employee who somehow thinks that because you work in a bookstore, you earn the right to look down your nose at the very people who pay your salary, much like the authors of this list.
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Diana | 09/29/2011 flag |
K, first and foremost let me say that Borders failed because of corporate, as many others have already said.
But to anyone complaining about the customer service at Borders and daring to even suggest that that's what did the business in, I'd like to point out that you are in essence saying that the victim is at fault for the problem. When you take advantage of a system for your own personal gain, with no regards to anything else, and then the system fails - NEWSFLASH! It didn't fail because the people you took advantage of got upset - it failed because of YOU! But what kind of intelligence can you really expect from someone who wants you to find them "the book with the red cover" in a store of thousands of books.
Oh, and if you think the customer service people were rude to you - at Borders or anywhere else - there's 99% chance YOU EARNED IT! -
Ally | 09/29/2011 flag |
If you d didn't work at borders you have no right to comment here. An inside joke is an inside joke. You being offended now just means you did one of the many things on the list and you're feeling stupid now. I loved the booksellers, the cafe people and my beloved inventory team. We all did our best. Corporate ridiculousness was the downfall of Borders not the people in the stores.
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julia | 09/28/2011 flag |
maybe this stupid ass list is why they are no longer in existence... seriously though...it's your job to do all the things you just listed...complaining about it is why you now can't even get a job at starbucks.
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Paulo | 09/27/2011 flag |
Almost forgot to add, if books sellers are killing bookstores then I guess music sellers killed the record stores and music business, dumb fucks!
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Paulo | 09/27/2011 flag |
For those of you who think the company went out of business because of the customer service, you must be a complete ignorant, I worked for this company for several years and I witness the hundreds of poor business decisions made throughout the time I spent working for them. If you think these are bitter employees, you must also know that everyone of these employees were never given their severance pay or any benefit they were entitled after their years of service,while the entire corporative office kept raising their salaries and given eachother bonuses for the good month they had. I know I was cut off. We did not provide poor service, but I dare you not to find some humor on this letter, I mean how would you feel if someone ask you for that red cover book, written by a male author that always writes books that are fiction and are very popular. Ask any of your friends this question to see their answer, shit ask yourself this question, And come up with an answer! Lol. ... and for those people who found this letter offensive, and call yourself a customer, you are probably in the same group of people that always tried to use multiple coupons, purchased a book half price and returned it w/out receipts for the full price, exchange books for the next volume on the pretention that you purchased the wrong volume(we knew you read it) and borders employees had to bend over and take it from you. Borders poor returned policy was one more reason this company that was once 5 years ago good to their employees. Tried returning anything at B&N without receipts, even if you cry for it, you won't even get an exchange. To finish my post please don't judge what you have no idea, this is more of an inside joke between employees. I did not leave the company on a bitter note with my customers, furthermore everytime I come across one of them, they're sad not to have us around anymore. Employees were sold to store liquidators without a choice, we were force to work until the last day in order to receive references for future employment, otherwise we were going to have a non rehire status. Like I said I did not leave bitter with my customers, but the corporation can go Fuck Themselves! Btw just to make it clear, I did tell them to go fuck themselves directly.(no cowards here)
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Lindsey | 09/27/2011 flag |
@Danielle, I'm sorry, I should have worded that more clearly. Borders was too late to the e-book, online game in general. In an article here: http://moneyland.time.com/2011/07/19/5-reasons-borders-went-out-of-business-and-what-will-take-its-place/ they describe a few different factors that led to Border's downfall. It was such an awesome place, for sure, but it was more an awesome place to hang out than an awesome place to buy books, and charging people to hang out doesn't usually work out so well.
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not surprised | 09/27/2011 flag |
This seems a fair representation of the attitude that existed at every Borders that I went to.
My wife was part of a focus group a year or so ago related to books and bookstores and without exception EVERY member of the focus group said the same thing "pretentious employees, refuse to help, bad attitude, etc." I always thought my wife was a little to critical of Borders, but when you get that level of consistency from a cross section of people that don't know each other you have to wonder... -
ookamunka | 09/27/2011 flag |
This is nothing more than a bunch of retail employees doing what no retail employee is allowed to do without the threat of losing their job, complaining about stupid people. I'd also like to point out that the sign says "What we never told you" i.e. they were good little booksellers who helped people find what they wanted, make suggestions, etc. etc. Anyone who 1) takes this sign personally or 2) thinks this is a reason why Borders went out of business is just dumb. The problem is retail America ENCOURAGES people to bitch and complain, no matter how stupid and outrageous the concern, to get their way. Nobody in the corporate offices of these big companies have the balls to tell people when they are wrong/stupid/ignorant and will do anything to appease them. The problem isn't with booksellers or CSR's or whatever you want to call your typical store clerk, the problem is that the company won't back them up when they have to deal with silly, outrageous, and/or stupid customers. I don't think most people realize some of the idiocy that people in the retail business deal with.
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Gerald | 09/27/2011 flag |
I'm loving Pedantic Asshole Bookseller's much-needed-but-seldom-seen-in-an-online-forum moderate perspective. +1 Thanks, PAB!
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pedantic+asshole+bookseller | 09/27/2011 flag |
I worked for Borders for several years. In that time, I worked with a lot of people who were rude and snotty, even to other coworkers. It wasn't always an "us and them" situation. It's too bad no one ever called them out on their salesfloor behavior at the locations where people were having these negative experiences. That's why breakrooms exist, so go and bitch out of the earshot of customers! But really, if bad customer service is that destructive to the survival of a business, there are other retail chains I could mention that seem to be doing just fine in spite of how their employees treat customers. What killed Borders? Amazon.com, eBay, Half Price Books, the deteriorating economy, years of bad business decisions, poor training of employees... just a rich tapestry of reasons. They almost went under once before and they were briefly bought out by K-Mart. Another company almost bought them out again, saw nothing but a losing proposition, and Borders died. I knew when I could no longer get full time hours that the company was about to go under (so I left the company), and that was in 2006. It's been in the works for a long time.
My issue with the hostile replies toward this post and the booksellers who wrote the list mainly had to do with people taking it so personally and taking cheap shots at those who work in retail. Yes, there are snotty booksellers. There are snotty doctors, snotty police officers, snotty politicians, snotty teachers; every line of work employees some people who are assholes. A wise man once said, "Assholes cover the earth!". But as long and caustic as that posted list seemed (and much of it was probably tongue in cheek, so really, relax), these ex-Borders people probably wrote a longer and far more vitriolic list aimed at the company that just dumped them. Companies are folding in great numbers and a lot of people are losing their jobs. There are a lot of angry people in desperate situations from all walks of life. Please try to keep that in mind when this type of thing shows up on the internet. -
Danielle | 09/27/2011 flag |
@Lindsey they were the first place i had ever seen an E-reader at. they sold Kindles just like any other stores, I even bought my $200 Kobo from Borders, but took it back a week later when I realized I wanted the Nook Color Which i've had for 3 months now and use it every single day (LOVE IT). and BTW the only borders i would go to was awesome, the cafe was awesome the Mambo tea pot for like $3 was awesome, and so were there apple tarts and cookies! but the workers were jerks who stood around in the middle of the store often times talking and complaining about stupid customers loud enough for the stupid customers to hear! so I'd say it is a combo of bad customer service, bad accounting, and lack of competitive drive (amazon books, nook color, etc) that lead to the Border's downfall. P.S. i miss you BORDERS COME BACK! I'd even hug the snobby bitter border employees if you come back! :(
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Braettie1 | 09/27/2011 flag |
Haha! Make that Pedantic Asshole Bookseller! Nice time to have a typo. I failed there, but I stand by everything else I said.
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Pendantic Asshole Bookseller | 09/27/2011 flag |
They call it "venting" for a reason. Just because you have things you dislike about your job and want to express them doesn't make you an ass, it makes you another human being dealing with the stress of day to day life. Taking this list personally is a little pointless. Come on, you people of the indignant replies, you never have a bad day, never vent, never feel frustration with your job? Every moment of every day is a celebration of life for you and you never complain? Right. Also, this list was written by a group of people who all just LOST their jobs. That wouldn't justify being bitter? Let them have their final say and drop the sanctimonious attitude. It's not always about YOU. And retail does not always mean a lack of education. Plenty of people with degrees who happened to love books and love many other aspects of working for a bookstore chose to work for this company, which at one time offered stock options, great health insurance, and paid enough above minimum wage to keep things afloat.
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Trixie.in.Dixie | 09/26/2011 flag |
Newsflash: That's retail. That's how it is. You deal with the public, you're going to encounter some things you don't like. You don't have to work in retail, or any other business that revolves around serving the public, unless you have no other skills, experience, or education, in which case, you should really be thankful that you have a job at all.
If you think this note is rude, you should have read the blog that was set up for the Borders employees to vent on. Wow. What a charming group. -
Paige Turner | 09/26/2011 flag |
If you asked for autobiographies by authors unknown to you, or study notes of any kind,or wanted a suitable book to give as a gift for someone you had never met or believed with all your might that the guy in "Bridges of Madison County" really worked for National Geographic, you would have been better off at Borders...
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David | 09/26/2011 flag |
It is obsurd to write the comments in this letter, as the writter of them is alo a customer, doing all the same things in other stores you frequent. You are a hipocrite.
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Seby1 | 09/26/2011 flag |
Bravo! Good for them!
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Lex10 | 09/26/2011 flag |
Here's you, snarky Borders person: http://youtu.be/Kl5vihsERDw
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Tammy | 09/26/2011 flag |
Gee, shocking, people who work in customer service have to deal with rude/stupid customers and get bitter about it. I think that applies to any job where you work with the public. It's the reason notalwaysright.com exists.
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Annanonymous | 09/26/2011 flag |
And maybe employees like that are why people stopped shopping at Borders....
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Philip | 09/26/2011 flag |
I always knew that care, concern, and compassion for the customers were qualities that all employees could (at least) fake. I just never realized they were an official directive.
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Kasey | 09/26/2011 flag |
@Lindsay: That absolutely makes sense. I guess you just have to look at it from both perspectives. I never like seeing somewhere go out of business - employee attitudes do vary from location to location though.
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Michelle | 09/26/2011 flag |
The one here was twice as expensive as a B&N, made it pointless to go in there.
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Lindsey | 09/26/2011 flag |
@Kasey: The reason they went out of business is because they didn't jump on the ereader bandwagon like everyone else did quickly enough, not because they had crappy attitudes. Every time I went to Border's, they were always nice. I say good for them for finally being able to tell idiot customers about themselves.
