It’s that time again. Time to get a job.
Drew’s already been on the hunt and has had a couple of phone interviews. His resume is making the rounds. But I’m not looking for another office job, in which I and my fellow desk jockeys roil around each other like ingredients in a stew, each personality trait reducing down to its most distinctive and aggressive flavor. I want to work with strangers, customers. I want the days to be different. 
I’ve been joking about that plant-watering job (vitally necessary in Oregon), but what I’m really hoping for is a job in a bookstore before all the bookstores are gone. Of course it won’t pay much, but then Drew’s always been the one to bring home the big bucks anyway, and we aren’t spending much now that it’s just the three of us. So he’s given me the thumbs-up: do what you wanna do, Averil, and I’ll hold down the fort.
How I love that man.
Tomorrow I’m getting a haircut (the curls are out of control and my straightening iron has been repurposed as a pasta maker), and making some copies of my resume (do they need that for a retail job?), and on Wednesday I’ll hit the road and try to talk someone into taking me on. I feel good about my chances. Surely the management will recognize one of their own. I plan to wear my glasses and my I Heart Franzen tee-shirt, and carry my most well-worn Mary Westmacott novel as though I can’t bear to put it down. I will run my hands through my hair during the interview and speak frenziedly of the dark magic of Joyce Carol Oates. I will be earnest in my defense of the hardback and scathing in my comments about the 50 Shades series. If the talk turns to YA, I’ll profess my love for S.E. Hinton–and Lauren Kate, to show I can be modern.
What more can a bookseller want.
How do you recognize one of the tribe?
Powell’s is wonderful. They have about five branches in Portland, and the main one is on the trolley line. You belong there!
I do, right? Surely someone in the hiring seat will notice and say to me, You, Averil, belong here. Can you maneuver a stepladder?
Good luck with the search. That’s a great question, btw. I would say that look of disinterested preoccupation. Kind of like a scientist or engineer, but much hipper.
If I were a man, I’d grow a goatee.
Those bookstore jobs aren’t easy to come by because, believe it or not, so many people want them. I wish you the best of luck–both finding a bookstore that is hiring and then being the lucky one to get picked. I managed to get a bookstore job once, way back when I was just a young kitten. It was good, except of course most of my salary went towards buying books….
Oh, I believe it. That’s why I’m stacking the deck and soliciting advice on how to make myself irresistibly employable.
Would letting drop that you write Dirty Books for the Thoughtful Reader™ help? Or that you have an agent? Would that be just too, too tacky? Or would you rather be incognito as a writer at your desired job?
Would casually letting it drop that you write Dirty Books for the Thoughtful Reader™ sway someone to hire you? Or that you are waiting for your agent to sell your book? Would that be just too, too tacky? Or, if not, would you rather just be incognito as a writer at your dream job? I thinking the longer you don’t blow your cover, the better. Don’t mind me; just musing, here.
WordPress hates me.
WordPress is having its evil way with me, too.
It may be tacky, but writing (and of course, reading) is my only qualification, so I’m probably going to put it in my cover letter. Mainly, though, I’m going to take Indy’s advice and talk about other people’s books, and my unflappability with small children.
“How do you recognize one of the tribe?”
I know them by the trail of blood.
And the gnawed-off fingernails?
To the quick.
Just this morning my man and I had a still-dark-before-the-kids-wake-up talk. Shit, I might be doing this too. Shit, shit. We can’t afford a mother anymore. You are one step ahead of me. (But my man is clutching to the delusion that I’m going to find some sexy high-paying job, while I’m leaning toward a flexible thing that pays shit but doesn’t twist my soul.) (Today, I’m holding my kids close and feeling very, very sad.)
»We can’t afford a mother anymore.«
The saddest words I’ve heard in a long while.
You took the words right out of my mouth.
You make my heart hurt.
Oh, Anna. This kills me.
Kills me, too. I’m so sorry.
There is something so very wrong when we can no longer afford to stay home with our children. I hate this for you, Ana.
You totally belong in a book store. If they ask for one, I’ll write you a recommendation.
Thank you, MSB. I may take you up on that. (Though if you write me a letter and sign it ‘macdougalstreetbaby’, I foresee a bit of a problem with credibility.)
1. You do need a resume. 2. Think of the last five books you’ve read and have something interesting and/or intelligent to say about them. 2a. Make sure they are varied (the books, that is). 3. Put all customer service experience on said resume. 4. Talk well. 5. Talking about your dedication to independent businesses and hand-selling books will get you further than gushing about how you’ve always wanted to work at a bookstore.
PS It’s always easy to find someone who will say “I’ve dreamt of working in bookstores all my life”. What you find less often is someone who will say “Yes, I can answer a question about a good book to buy your mother in law who hates to read, ring up five grouchy customers, and gently tell a child that he can’t eat a book until after his parents buy it all in ten minutes without losing my cool.” That is the message you want to get across.
I have probably made it sound as if I think the bookstore gig is an easy one and that’s not the case. It’s just that my resume has no relevant work history; it serves only to show prospective employers that I’m (mostly) stable and tend to be re-hired by the same companies.
These are great tips. Thanks, Indy.
You know . . . being a library assistant is a pretty good gig . . .
Hmm, I’ll keep my eyes open for that. God knows they’ve been opened already with regard to the excitement you librarians experience. Who knew?
Yes, we are a quiet, yet intense bunch.
How do you recognise one of the tribe?
I was wondering how to politely make my suggestion. And then “girl in a hat” expressed very beautifully the concept that was brewing in my mind when she wrote some words about not twisting the soul.
Good luck with the job search.
Books before bread, that’s how we roll. (See what I did there?)
Girl in the Hat is breaking my heart today. I hate the choices we have to make for our families, especially those that separate us from them.
(rim shot)
My tribe, after several generations of attempted genocide by dilution and propoganda, are mostly unrecognisable, even to ourselves.
The tribe that do seem to recognise me are football players. It is they, and never writers, who seem to recognise me at first glance, sending a respectful nod or a challenging stare my way, this last depending upon how confident they are in their own ability, the truly accomplished among them always happy to treat others as equals rather than wear a superior mask.
Maybe I’m not a writer at all.
However, you are.
We have more than one tribe, just be the member of the right tribe on the day of the interview, but only if you’re really of that tribe, because if you’re not really that person, that job will suck the life from you as much as the last one did.
Now, Shut Up Me.
Wasn’t it just so peaceful while I wasn’t around for awhile?
I missed you like hell while you were convalescing. And yeah, you’re a member of this tribe too–don’t make me cut and paste.
I have to pretend, I always have to pretend, because the real me is an unemployable nitwit whom no one would want around on a daily basis. But I give a kick-ass interview, so hope is alive.
I think a bookseller will want someone who knows how to run a cash register. You might want to check out Powell’s City of Books to fulfill your dream.
Is that Marilyn?
Powell’s appeals to me more as a shopper than a potential place to work–at the main store, anyway. It’s a madhouse.
(And yes, that’s our Marilyn.)
but averil (queue my most whiny voice), it’s so much more fun when you have a 40-hour a week job that only takes 12 hours of your time to do and gives you a surplus amount of content detailing your cabin of crazy colleagues.
“…in which I and my fellow desk jockeys roil around each other like ingredients in a stew, each personality trait reducing down to its most distinctive and aggressive flavor.”
C’MON! That’s the best description of every single office job that has ever existed. You just summed up my work place so succinctly that I’m tempted to post that quote on our company’s twitter feed with a quick: #soundfamiliar?
But, if you’re set on a bookstore, then i wish you the best. tell them they better hire you now so that you’ll be more likely to agree to an author event at their store in the coming years.
That job was one in a million. I can well imagine how it must have looked to have me complain about it nonstop while doing next to nothing to improve the situation. NOT good for my character, Josephine!
Never underestimate the power of a bad job to boost creative output. My husband wrote his first album’s worth of songs sitting in a little booth at the entrance to a gated community, wearing a hot and scratchy polyester so-called security guard suit. He hated every minute of that job, and the songs are correspondingly wonderful.
Must we suffer for our art, T?
Well, I’ll answer that question and admit that misery is jet fuel. It’s also misery. Maybe I can find another fuel source this time?
I think back to my old retail days, which I hated, and how I’d get through the shift by telling myself one day I’d be out of there, I’d have a “real” career, I’d show all of them. Now I have the career and I never imagined how much it would take out of me, of just how much that extra money is *earned*. I daydream sometimes about returning to one of those earlier types of jobs, but then I worry I am romanticizing them. Retail jobs are hard as hell, especially for someone who doesn’t relish dealing with people constantly. But still.
I so hope you get a bookstore job. I’d die reading your descriptions of the bookstore life.
I was 18 the last time I worked a retail job; I’m definitely romanticizing it. Brace yourself for nine hundred ‘petulance’ posts in the future.
Now that I’ve tried and failed at so many attempts at a career, all I want to do is write. And when I can’t be writing, I’d like to NOT be sitting in a chair. I’d like to be out in the world, gathering material. I’d like to be around books. Or cameras, perhaps, which would be almost as good.
Oh, this comment got me to remembering an essay by Anne Tyler, “Still Just Writing,” wherein she talks about jobs she’s had, among other things. It’s available in its totality on Google Books in Joan Bolcker’s anthology, The Writer’s Home Companion, so if you haven’t read it yet, now’s your chance.
http://bit.ly/KR6pDw
I’m off to follow the link, T, thanks for posting it.
Averil–head’s up–Wednesday’s the Fourth of July. From a working stiff immersed in the mercantile world, take my word for it, as many people as can–particularly the management persons who actually make hiring decisions–are going to be out from about noon today (July 3) until next Monday morning (July 9). There may be more fruitful things for you to do in the interim than hitting the road trying to get absent persons to consider hiring you; though, who knows, Thursday and Friday it may be worth getting started.
Oh my god, I totally forgot the holiday! Seriously, I’ve lost all track of time these last few weeks. You’ve probably saved me a good bit of running around, and kickstarted the next book, which I can work on instead. Thanks, Tetman.
Colour me green! I would love to work in a bookstore! I’m now faced with trying to scrounge up a paycheque. Sometimes I curse this decision to live in a place where I will likely never speak the language well enough to hit the streets, CV in hand. I could be joyful in the English speaking world right?? Anyway, best of luck and I’ll be anxiously awaiting news of your new post.
Hold the envy, Kermit, until I land something. I could well end up back in the office stew, stinking of onion.
I really hope you find a good bookshop to work in, because having done that myself (and oh dear what a story there) they are sometimes run by managers who appear to have fallen straight from the offices from which you flee. For whom passion is just the title of a book they shelved behind the staircase. Who demand all your free hours and make you feel guilty for not doing busy work while manning the tills, even if you can sell the right book to the right soul. But anyway. I hope you find the opposite of that.
Sheesh, so do I.
I’m going to say once again how confident I am in your abilities.
As for the tribe, I’m finding more readers than writers and that’s nice. The best part about the office where I work is the book exchange shelf. It’s loaded. And people talk about the books their reading. Heaven!
That IS wonderful. I think that’s what most appeals about the bookstore gig: casual conversation about books. They had a book exchange shelf at my last office, but it was a dusty old thing that people used as a dumping ground after cleaning out the garage. All titles circa 1987.
Sounds wonderful!
Just smile a lot. I know everybody says that, but it’s the #1 thing. And if you say less, listen quietly, and let them project onto you whatever they want, that’s the best. We are giving dating advice now, right? Oh. Jobs. Well, same thing.
Dating advice? I’m still following that, ten years into my marriage.
The same tribe? No dogma, no game plan, funniness, usually an unbound love for something. It’s in your hand Averil, that special job, or even a quirky one you can squeeze into something else. I don’t know why but I always have faith in things coming together. Good luck!