Day Thirteen

Wow, I’m so glad to hear so many of you all are experiencing physical effects of the close too. Well, I mean, I’m not glad that we’re all hurting, but I am relieved to know I’m not alone. Two of my co-workers also voiced a bit of amazement as how much of a physical strain “just standing in one place ringing people up can cause.” It’s not just that though, it’s also the stress.

Case and point, today I dealt with a number of not nasty, but definitely rude customers. From the guy who asked me if I ‘was working yet” while I was doing a large shift of the medical texts (more heavy books *groan*) to a lady who dumped out our recovery basket to use the basket (when there is a tower of about 30 of them only a few feet away) then came to the check out and tried to get us to not just hold the books she wanted, but let her partially pay for them too (and of course complained under her breath about us “not cooperating” with her as she checked out with about 2/3rds of the books she’d picked up). I have to wonder why anyone thinks a store would defer payment while also allowing you to take products home. I know rental places and credit card companies specialize in that, but when’s the last time Kroger or McDonald’s let you pay half now and half next month?

That’s right up there with all the people who used to ask if we lend books.

Also today the liquidator decided we weren’t selling fast enough. But rather than lower to 30% off they’re moving about 2200 of our books to the other closing store in the city which is selling too fast. Because our inventory system isn’t already messed up enough (and I should note it wasn’t perfectly accurate before Borders cut us off from their system and had us drop all “on hand” amounts to zero) they’re taking the top and bottom shelves through out the store to the other location, leaving us with the middle.

Before I was pretty sure we would actually last out through the estimated time frame (closing by the end of April). Now I don’t see what, other than man power, is keeping them from just moving all our stock to the faster selling store and closing us down, oh, at any point. I’ve said before that I didn’t know if I’d walk into work and find out that day that it was the last day. I knew that was a possibility, but I had a little faith in my GM and SM to give us as much warning as they could. But now, I’m really not sure if I’ll being going in Friday just to find out there’s no book selling, just book transporting going on.

The liquidator is purposefully keeping us in the dark, I think. Not that I completely blame him. Everyone wants to know when the discount is going to get better and when the last day is. If it was known at this point we’d end up with one cosmic mess on our hands the last day as everyone would wait until then to come buy. But not knowing creates such a uncertain work environment, and as I said before I’ve already had interviews and been unable to tell them what my availability is because I don’t know any more.

Plus my co-workers are dropping off. We’ve lost two, that I know of so far with another on her two weeks. I don’t blame any of them either, but today my SM came to me and asked if I’d be okay with an hours increase. On one hand, well yeah, who doesn’t want more pay? And I’m flattered at the implication that I’m a steadier worker (provided it’s actually there and I’m not imagining it). But I’m intimidated too, because I already feel like Borders is a parasitic Siamese twin draining the energy out of my life. My co-workers are chugging energy drinks every time I see them, and it’s no wonder.

So we’re still working on getting those books out to the other location because apparently we can’t even fail correctly. We suck at sucking, the IPT manager said. So it seems.

I hope that something good comes out of this shift. We’re a two story store and the GM is pushing to use the shipping to empty out the second floor so we can close it off. It would make the scheduling easier, close the children’s section and put all the multimedia downstairs where it would be less likely to just walk away. Plus the bathrooms are upstairs so we could save time on bathroom checks and cleaning and possibly not run out of toilet paper again like we did last weekend.

But, of course, the liquidator doesn’t seem to like that idea. It’s good that my GM is still there trying to call the shots to make the situation better for us. And I know that compared to others our store has been really lucky on the trash and mean customers front. But there comes a point where it’s hard to console yourself with “well it could be worse”.

ETA: I mean to add this link about RedGroup in Australia/New Zealand which owns the Borders down there. Turns out that when the parent company formed RedGroup it then shifted all the debt from buying the bookstores that make up RedGroup to RedGroup. So now the Borders down under owes money for its own purchase. So, yeah, it could be worse.