Making an e-mail with a mild complaint about L.A.'s Book Soup public.

I have shopped at (and may likely continue to) West Hollywood's long-running independent book store Book Soup on Sunset Boulevard--across from what used to be the flagship Tower
Records store for Los Angeles.

Sent this as an e-mail a few minutes ago:

Thought I'd put this into free verse:

A TRUE BOOK SOUP STORY

On the night of Tuesday, February 23rd
the author of this poem
went to the ubertrendy Book Soup in West Hollywood.
I've always noticed
that the people working the newstand outside
are friendly.
Inside, the customer
can receive a distinct chill--
the kind of "you aren't our preferred customer" freeze.
Currently at Book Soup,
there are miniature busts
of Charles Bukowski for sale.
I saw a young male Book Soup employee
look at one bust and then imitate Bukowski:
I'M DEAD! I CAN'T DRINK ANYMORE!!!

What could I say in response to the clueless employee?
I paid for my book purchase
and walked outside,
setting my plebian self free
from the tyranny of educated condescension.

Sincerely,
Terry McCarty

P.S. I know all your employees aren't like the one above. But I do feel that sometimes they snap to attention and courtesy for, say, employees of the film and television industries, a bit more than they do for common folk.
[concluded with a sentence mentioning Orwell's now-familiar "some more equal than others" sentence from ANIMAL FARM]

UPDATE 3/7/10: I communicated with the store by e-mail and received assurances as to its commitment to ensuring professional behavior from employees.

Corporate bookstores' business model: on the ropes.

Given the rumors one hears about the state of Borders' financial health, one wonders if it might be time for corporate bookstore chains (which, at their most robust, helped to obliterate independent stores that couldn't/wouldn't offer deep discounts) to alter their "buy the hot new predetermined bestseller" business model.

Perhaps Borders and Barnes & Noble could consider some empathy training for customer-phobic staff members, as well as reinstating more community-friendly programs (including, yes, poetry readings in some stores) without worrying about what effect they may have on the bottom line.

My guess is that the above suggestions will be ignored. And the two once-mighty megachains are almost certainly praying hard that Dan Brown's new pulp thriller will cause customers to stampede into the stores this fall and save them from bankruptcy and/or going-out-of-business sales.

And to think most of this could be avoided if these stores could just manage the task of selling all kinds of books instead of only a few "hot" volumes.

Borders Books cut-cut-cutting DVDs and CDs from stores.

If you wander into a Borders Bookstore (as I did yesterday), you'll see red-tagged 30% discounts on a number of CDs and DVDs.
[UPDATE 3/23/09: I just received a standard customer e-mail from Borders which indicates that this sale isn't happening in certain cities such as NYC and San Francisco.]

Apparently, the chain is delivering on its desire to cut CD/DVD space by 70% (as was recently written about in ROLLING STONE).
[UPDATE 3/26/09: A story here confirms this: http://www.switched.com/2009/03/26/borders-to-quit-selling-cds-and-dvds/?icid=mainhtmlws-maindl4link5http%3A%2F%2Fwww.switched.com%2F2009%2F03%2F26%2Fborders-to-quit-selling-cds-and-dvds%2F]

Given Borders' continued commitment to keeping audiovisual content priced as high as possible (except for sales on older catalog product), one shouldn't be surprised that the available stock will be trimmed.

For the casual customer, this means remaining items will likely consist of what the chain predetermines as "best-selling". And the young staff will be losing their voices repeating the mantra: "We don't carry that in our store. We can special order it--or you can just go on our website."

It's easy to make a paranoid jump (given the company's financial state: http://www.borders.com/online/store/PartnerSiteInvestorsView) that entire sections of books may be next.

Poetry, perhaps?