Philadelphia suburbs, circa 2008-2009
Even without the insider’s intel from being an employee, it was obvious that Borders Bookstores was financially doomed. In the late 00’s, the company was still heavily promoting the sales of overpriced CDs. Midnight parties celebrating the DVD release of the latest Twilight film enticed no one to stay up late to pay $29.99 for something they could buy for $15 less at the Target across the street. Inspired by a greeter at Wal-Mart, someone at our corporate offices decided all stores should have an employee stationed at the doors pushing corporate-endorsed books at every individual who entered, no matter the genre or interest generated. And as a former employee at the ground-level, I can attest that the company was indeed as shaky as it looked.
When I was hired, an assistant manager “forgot” to give me the paperwork to sign up for health insurance. When I pressed him on the subject, he nervously tried to talk me out of it. He reasoned that I was young and healthy, so why would I even need health insurance? A few months later, corporate decided there were just too many assistant managers at our store, and he was summarily gone.
When employees questioned the wisdom of our corporate leaders, another one of our assistant managers would lay into us about how we should be grateful to even have jobs (2009). The day I told that same assistant manager I was quitting, he smiled and said, ‘That’s a smart move.’
Like any retail establishment, the customers could be somewhat kooky. But bookstore folk are next level. Some can be classified under ‘mentally ill,’ but most were just looking for a space to be their very weird selves. Like, leave used condoms in the erotica shelves, weird. Or claim that they were going to sue us because we sold a book based on an idea that their ex-husband mentioned to them ten years earlier, weird. Or tell the booksellers that they are as “hot” as their granddaughters, weird. (You folk know who you are).
Of course, the employees were their own special brands of weird as well, but we did it in a fun kind of way. Two of my closest friends today were once my Borders’ co-workers. More than a few people I hope to never meet again were also my co-workers.
But I did get to work with books, and with people who loved books. And those employee discounts occasionally made up for every instance of person asking to find a book whose title they did not know, whose author they also didn’t know, and whose plot was a complete mystery, but whose cover was almost certainly blue. (Seriously, you know exactly who are!)
I left Borders a year before the entire chain collapsed. It would be my last experience as a retail worker, a field I have never returned to no matter how broke I’ve found myself. But, of course, it would hardly be my last time working in the world of books.
I hope you find my big box chain bookstore anecdotes funny, cautionary, and mostly unrelatable. And if you can relate, I hope your therapy bills are not too expensive.
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