Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Overheard at the grocery store
“It’s not because she’s pooping so much that she has the diaper rash. She actually has a yeast infection.” Really loud woman on cell phone.
Huh?
Last day off, we went to Baker's Beach, on the city's west coast, which has fabulous views of the Golden Gate Bridge. It's just beautiful. We took our books and watched container ships passing under the bridge. When we turned around to walk back up the beach, a man had stripped all his clothes off (kept his sunglasses on, though) and was throwing a boomerang out to sea. Gosh, I laughed. It was freezing and overcast and spitting with rain and, frankly, he needn't have bothered.
By the book
Back at work today after two days off. Tim was sick which meant we didn’t go anywhere or do much but we did manage a trip to the Palace of the Legion of Honor, a lovely museum with a notable collection of Rodin sculptures (The Thinker sits in front of the building, sending out a pensive vibe) and a small but perfectly formed array of Impressionist paintings, fine European furniture and ancient bits and bobs such as Etruscan vases. The current special exhibit is a collection of French jewelry – gorgeous, intricate enameled brooches featuring birds and butterflies, diamond necklaces and bracelets worn by socialites and movie stars, and angular 50s pieces with enamel inlay and lots of highly polished gold. I particularly liked the chunky chalcedony necklace and bracelet set commissioned by Wallis Simpson. The stones were a lovely purple blue, the size of gumdrops, and the feature element of the necklace was a large flower which could be removed and worn as a brooch. Clever and beautiful.
It was sheeting with rain when we finished at the Legion, so we came home and watched the Gilmore Girls on TV. Then Tim went to bed and I stayed up reading a book of essays about turning 30. I crossed the Rubicon nearly three years ago, but for whatever reason I am feeling the dread now. Perhaps it’s the new wrinkles around my eyes or the fact that last year I threw in a perfectly acceptable magazine job with some status and good pay to work at a bookstore while I figure myself out. I moved country, left behind my lovely little wooden house to pay exorbitant rent on an apartment, and happened to arrive in San Francisco at the same time print journalism is in its death throes. Oh, yeah, and I dragged my husband along with me, my accomplished, ambitious husband who now sells books too.
This is my third foray into the world of retail. I briefly worked at JC Penney when I was at university, selling shiteous ensembles in the Petites department. Polyester dresses gave the illusion of being “outfits” when in fact the apparent skirts, blouses and vests were one-piece wonders. Even necklaces were sewn onto these things, so the busy, diminutive businesswoman would never have to worry about accessories. I was on commission and I actually performed reasonably well – those creepy “outfits” sold like hotcakes, but then, I was living in Salt Lake City and there wasn’t much of a fashion scene.
I had worked as a journalist in New Zealand for three years when I moved to London, and already unsure that a newspaper career was what I wanted out of life, decided to bum around for a couple of years instead of try to snag some impressive writing job that would serve me well when I got back home. I was probably scared I wouldn’t be able to snag an impressive job of any type, let alone a media one, I don’t actually remember. But I ended up selling perfume at Harrods and Harvey Nichols, lovely stores both, but, for me at least, spectacularly unsatisfying places to work. At Harrods I had to dress up in a stylized sailor suit to sell the new Jean Paul Gautier men’s fragrance, and when that promotion finished, I swapped my stripes and polka dots for a purple crushed velvet dress to sell perfume that cost 1000 pounds a bottle and came in a Baccarat crystal pyramid. It smelled like patchouli and I just couldn’t get excited about it despite the promise that if I managed to sell a bottle (nigh on impossible, I would say, after customers got a whiff of the stuff) I would get a commission of 100 pounds. It was the Christmas shopping season, the store was packed at all times, but my stand with the giant display crystal pyramid was an oasis of calm. I ended up amusing myself by gift wrapping my supplies: stapler, scissors, ruler, assorted pens and pencils.
And now I am working at a bookstore. The upside is I get a good discount on books and that I actually like books and do not feel morally sullied by selling them (although I do have a problem with the get-rich-quick titles, which I don’t believe can work and to which far too many people seem to pin their hopes). There is no commission to worry about and the work is pretty low-stress unless you are unlucky enough to be assigned a shift in the children’s department, where you spend eight hours cleaning up after kids who don’t know any better and their takeout coffee-clutching parents who seem to feel entitled to treat you like a nanny. The downside is being treated like a nanny.
And then there’s the membership card. Basically it’s a discount card that gives customers an automatic 10 percent off everything in store, sometimes more. It costs $25 for a year (so of no use unless you spend more than $250 a year on books) but the real benefit to the bookstore is that membership increases foot traffic. So it's up to us to push the card on customers, and mentioning its many benefits is part of the spiel we have to reel off as we pop books in their crinkly green plastic bags. I am a hopeless card salesperson because I resent the whole system and if someone tells me they don't want a card I'm not going to push. Tim doesn't push either but he's very good at extolling the card's virtues up front, and people looooove his "cute accent". (A woman who didn't see his wedding band asked him out for a coffee around Christmas time. Not to be left out, I had a man slip me his business card a month or so ago and ask me to phone him after I'd checked out his website. How California is that? Blech.) Tim has been the store's top salesman for the past three weeks, pushing aside a rather strange older woman who makes it her life's work to be the ultimate card salesperson. When customers approach the counter she kind of whispers at them, which causes them to lean in closer and gives the impression she is sharing privileged information when she explains the way the card works. It's fascinating to watch people falling under her spell and signing up.
It was sheeting with rain when we finished at the Legion, so we came home and watched the Gilmore Girls on TV. Then Tim went to bed and I stayed up reading a book of essays about turning 30. I crossed the Rubicon nearly three years ago, but for whatever reason I am feeling the dread now. Perhaps it’s the new wrinkles around my eyes or the fact that last year I threw in a perfectly acceptable magazine job with some status and good pay to work at a bookstore while I figure myself out. I moved country, left behind my lovely little wooden house to pay exorbitant rent on an apartment, and happened to arrive in San Francisco at the same time print journalism is in its death throes. Oh, yeah, and I dragged my husband along with me, my accomplished, ambitious husband who now sells books too.
This is my third foray into the world of retail. I briefly worked at JC Penney when I was at university, selling shiteous ensembles in the Petites department. Polyester dresses gave the illusion of being “outfits” when in fact the apparent skirts, blouses and vests were one-piece wonders. Even necklaces were sewn onto these things, so the busy, diminutive businesswoman would never have to worry about accessories. I was on commission and I actually performed reasonably well – those creepy “outfits” sold like hotcakes, but then, I was living in Salt Lake City and there wasn’t much of a fashion scene.
I had worked as a journalist in New Zealand for three years when I moved to London, and already unsure that a newspaper career was what I wanted out of life, decided to bum around for a couple of years instead of try to snag some impressive writing job that would serve me well when I got back home. I was probably scared I wouldn’t be able to snag an impressive job of any type, let alone a media one, I don’t actually remember. But I ended up selling perfume at Harrods and Harvey Nichols, lovely stores both, but, for me at least, spectacularly unsatisfying places to work. At Harrods I had to dress up in a stylized sailor suit to sell the new Jean Paul Gautier men’s fragrance, and when that promotion finished, I swapped my stripes and polka dots for a purple crushed velvet dress to sell perfume that cost 1000 pounds a bottle and came in a Baccarat crystal pyramid. It smelled like patchouli and I just couldn’t get excited about it despite the promise that if I managed to sell a bottle (nigh on impossible, I would say, after customers got a whiff of the stuff) I would get a commission of 100 pounds. It was the Christmas shopping season, the store was packed at all times, but my stand with the giant display crystal pyramid was an oasis of calm. I ended up amusing myself by gift wrapping my supplies: stapler, scissors, ruler, assorted pens and pencils.
And now I am working at a bookstore. The upside is I get a good discount on books and that I actually like books and do not feel morally sullied by selling them (although I do have a problem with the get-rich-quick titles, which I don’t believe can work and to which far too many people seem to pin their hopes). There is no commission to worry about and the work is pretty low-stress unless you are unlucky enough to be assigned a shift in the children’s department, where you spend eight hours cleaning up after kids who don’t know any better and their takeout coffee-clutching parents who seem to feel entitled to treat you like a nanny. The downside is being treated like a nanny.
And then there’s the membership card. Basically it’s a discount card that gives customers an automatic 10 percent off everything in store, sometimes more. It costs $25 for a year (so of no use unless you spend more than $250 a year on books) but the real benefit to the bookstore is that membership increases foot traffic. So it's up to us to push the card on customers, and mentioning its many benefits is part of the spiel we have to reel off as we pop books in their crinkly green plastic bags. I am a hopeless card salesperson because I resent the whole system and if someone tells me they don't want a card I'm not going to push. Tim doesn't push either but he's very good at extolling the card's virtues up front, and people looooove his "cute accent". (A woman who didn't see his wedding band asked him out for a coffee around Christmas time. Not to be left out, I had a man slip me his business card a month or so ago and ask me to phone him after I'd checked out his website. How California is that? Blech.) Tim has been the store's top salesman for the past three weeks, pushing aside a rather strange older woman who makes it her life's work to be the ultimate card salesperson. When customers approach the counter she kind of whispers at them, which causes them to lean in closer and gives the impression she is sharing privileged information when she explains the way the card works. It's fascinating to watch people falling under her spell and signing up.
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