http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/features/story.jsp?story=578003
There's an entire genre of pieces--certainly they can't be called "essays"--relating first-person accounts of the horrors of the working world. I'm not talking Down and Out in Paris and London but things exactly like this from a person who spent a year in a bookstore and was just astonished that he was expected to, well, work. Key features are a narrator who starts out idealistic, a range of weird employees and customers, one clueless manager, another overbearing manager, ways people avoided doing anything and then, finally, escape! Never the slightest inkling that at least part of the "problem" are those like this guy who is just shocked, shocked he tells you, to find everything's not warm 'n' fuzzy. Did you realize bookstores are intended to make money? Isn't that just madness?
As somebody who's spent almost 20 years working in bookstores ranging from a huge and prestigious independent to two large chains, I can tell you that he's either exaggerating to have a good story or he simply has no idea what he's talking about. His example of a "truly insane" customer clearly wasn't even close though I've had genuinely certified outpatients and street people who regularly passed through our stores, most quite harmless, a couple who required police intervention. I've had a customer throw a book at me, a few so furious they could hardly speak, several threaten lawsuits, assorted thieves, and other joys of working retail. But pretty much anybody who's ever worked in a store of any kind can match this with some stories of their own (and like veterans recounting war exploits we quickly learn that nobody else is the slightest bit interested). However unlike this writer I'm not blaming dumb customers or incompentant managers, though I've had my share of both.
Out of all this, the writer (an Anthony Bonanza though apparently that's a pseudonym) comes up with an anti-corporate truism that's likely to stroke the NPR crowd: "But a horrible commercial reality is what chain stores exist in and bow to. There is no time for inspiration, no time for dreams, just the endless shovelling of crap at a resistant public. This particular juggernaut takes advantage of its workforce and demeans its reputation as a serious bookshop with an increasingly moronic, centrally dictated stock."
Except that this is wrong. Just ask anybody who works at--or better yet owns--an independent book or record store how much they can avoid commercial reality, whether they live off dreams and inspiration. And though I admittedly feel odd defending chain stores at least Borders (where I worked for a year and a half) and Barnes & Noble do serve a purpose (something I wouldn't claim for, say, Best Buy or pretty much any large music retailer except possibly Tower). Without B&N my parents, for example, wouldn't have a regular chance to browse any store that stocks serious literature and history and while yes it does push a lot of moronic crap you can at least walk in and come out with Chekhov or Suetonius (actual examples). And while I was at Borders it would be hard for me to estimate how many customers I was able to convince that Confederacy of Dunces or William Gibson or American Sphinx were worthy purchases. (Not to whitewash the companies: B&N engages in some reprehensive corporate practices such as deliberate targeting of competition within a market and Borders went through a restructuring that only solidifies my contempt for MBAs.) Sure, more frequently I was helping customers find mysteries featuring cats or Kitty Kelley biographies but hey I've read enough Piers Anthony novels and rock star memoirs that I'm not about to cast first stones. And that's really what it boils down to: This writer wanted everybody to be pretty much like him and if his experiences were unpleasant it was not his fault.