Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Broken Record


My new favourite staff member at my corporate bookshop is a delightful creature who I have nicknamed ‘Vinyl Bitch.’ She is a tall, awkward looking girl with a sour face; the kind of girl who makes any mother’s heart sink a little when her son arrives with her, arm in arm, at the family Christmas dinner. I imagine she would sit sulkily in the corner, texting and picking resentfully at her roast potatoes.

On my first day, I smiled as widely as I could and introduced myself. She managed a grumpy “hi” and then stalked off to stack the travel section. It wasn’t until about 5’o clock that I managed to crack her into her zeal. Stranded at registers, we were rescued by a customer purchasing a CD of Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders from Mars. VB scanned it and stared the customer—a small balding man in a cheap suit—triumphantly in the eye.

“I’ve got this on vinyl,” she stated, almost smiling, and then went back to being a bitch.

For the rest of the day, whenever I was within her auditory sphere, I name-dropped a list of classic albums, each one concluded with VB turning, sneering and affirming “Yeah well, I’ve got that on vinyl.” The only exception seemed to be with the mention of several obscure albums which prompted the reaction “Yeah, I really want to get that on vinyl.” Sometimes when we stand together at the registers, I hum ‘You Spin Me Right Round (Like a Record)’ under my breath. She pretends not to hear me.

VB’s work attire consists of tight jeans, tall boots and an endless parade of dull, grey cardigans adorned with indie rock badges. These badges are the one thing that seems to signal VB’s daily weather report: If she’s in a boring daily sour mood, the badges tend towards the sunny sixties pop of The Beatles or acoustic Bob Dylan. On a rainy Wednesday, when shop morale and sales are at their lowest, Joy Division and Nirvana can be spotted on the grey lapels. On Friday, things seem to pick up again; The Clash often makes an appearance, Led Zeppelin, The Pixies. The Sex Pistols pop up from time to time, Jimi Hendrix is also a regular. VB declines the weekly offer of a beer with the rest of the staff but instead mutters something about seeing her friend’s band, The Joan Crawfords, at a basement bar in Collingwood. No one is invited to join her. She stalks out the store, arms hanging by her side, headphones in her ears, ‘Comfortably Numb’ blaring out for anyone to hear.

VB has a boyfriend called Brendan: an aspiring writer who works at a stationary warehouse. She is constantly on the phone to him in the lunch room, staring furiously at any other staff member whose voice is raised above the appropriate level. Their conversations tend toward the lacklustre end of the spectrum, with phrases like “yeah well, whatever” and “I’ve seen it; it’s lame” peppered throughout. Once, he was sighted at the front entrance, a good looking guy with a chubby face and a leather satchel. He was halfway through a conversation with Jenny, the well toned merchandise manager, when the VB marched to the front of the shop, red faced. She gave Jenny a look that would wither a patch of daffodils and dragged Brendan away, hissing “come ON.” The next day, Patti Smith and Pearl Jam glowered out from the grey Cardigan.

The other day, I asked VB if she would consider getting a badge featuring the late 90s pop sensations ‘The Cardigans’ and consequently have Cardigans on her cardigan. She glared at me contemptuously for a good 30 seconds and then told me that you probably couldn’t even get The Cardigans on vinyl; “that’s how shit they are.”

I think I kind of love her.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Black Books

I needed a job; I found one. A book shop or at least a sort of a bookshop. This time a week ago, I was drinking merlot and feeling jaded about being unemployed. Tonight, I drink Riesling and feel somewhat jaded about the 40 hour week ahead. The irony is delicious, the wine is more so.

The book shop in question shall remain nameless, a sprawling mass of a thing attached to a shopping arcade. It’s a corporate chain affair, with plenty of books but mostly written by Eckhart Tolle and Jodi Picoult. There is a large self help section and lots of 20% off stickers hurriedly slapped on piles of Popular Penguins. So far, a uniform is not compulsory but I have heard disturbing rumours of bright red polo shirts. The widescreen TV halfway through the store plays Avatar on loop. No one in it is hot.

As I said, I needed a job.

The week started off with as something of a challenge, with my hours starting at seven ‘o’clock in the AM. Doey eyed, I scrambled around the store stacking shelves and chewing on bits of rolled up paper so as not to collapse in a pile of golden slumbers. Everywhere I turn, Robert Pattinson’s bored eyes stare back at me from books, posters and jigsaw puzzles. It is impossible to avoid the Twilight Corporation; even the magazine stands have abtastic CHILF of the Moment Taylor Launder’s sex stories all over it. I try not to get turned on but it’s hard not to when his glistening six packs eclipse everything else. Pun, get it?

One of my fellow employees is an overweight woman who has worn the same Twilight T-shirt for the past five days. On Wednesday, she turned up with purple hair and the staff told her she looked ‘modern.’ She met her husband on an Internet dating website and seems happy. We wear lanyards with our ‘passion’ on them. Mine in Seinfeld. Hers is ‘Riot Grrrl.’ Watch this space.

The day starts with a bevy of manic managers initiate “GO-O-O-O-O-O TEAM!” warm up exercises, complete with daily budget requirements and lessons on how to use ‘open ended questions’ when selling to customers. The rest of the staff smile and nod and sip away at their Almond Honey non fat vanilla lattes. I stand at the back of the meeting and half expect Alec Baldwin to come storming in and yell “You call yourself a salesman, you son of a bitch.”

We have walkie talkies and say things followed by the word “Roger.” It’s awkward and rather a change from the independent book trade in which you talked loudly across the store and people knew who Alan Hollinghirst and were. Here, the main words used are “percent off” and “discount club.” The soundtrack consists of a cluster of CDs chose from head office. These include Norah Jones and Craig David sings Motown. Tears dribble down my interior as the latter’s version of 'I heard it through the Grapevine' pervades my ears for the fifth time in eight hours. At 4pm, I try to smuggle the Rolling Stone’s revised edition of Exile on Main Street into the stereo but was stopped by the assistant regional manager, a large man with a beard who told me in a hushed tone that it might be a little “too edgy” for the customers. It was release in 1971, before Watergate. I die a little inside and head back to the counter where I sell a small, excited woman three copies of Paulo Cohello’s The Alchemist and somehow manage to keep a straight face.

The hours and days slide by and a pay check appears and I take it with a grateful, exhausted smile. Across the road, the city’s top independent bookshop smiles kindly at me, its front window filled with Chekov biographies and Hertzog box sets. I stare longingly and then, realising that I am still wearing my corporate bookshop t-shirt of whoredom, pull my coat tightly around me and head home. I’ve got one hand in my pocket and the other one’s holding a cigarette. Life, as they say is good. And so is nicotine.