ways to annoy a book seller!

Here are some phrases guaranteed to annoy a person who works in a bookshop. So the next time you go to buy a book somewhere, don’t even think about saying them! Erase them completely from your vocabulary. (I have been ill, but went into work, cranky, yesterday)

1. I am looking for a book, but I don’t remember the author or the title……(so what am I supposed to do? Do I look psychic?)
2. Where are the toilets? (I get this about 10 times per hours, despite well marked signs all over the place)
3. how do I get to harrods/ 10 downing street/ Buckingham palace? (no, a bookshop is not the same as a tourist bureau, how do people manage to confuse the two?)
4. where are your dvds? (I work in a BOOK shop)
5. how does the 3 for 2 work? (ok, if you ask once it is ok, but some people just don’t get it and think that you need to buy three copies of the same title. Mind you, there are huge signs explaining this, but it seems some people just have brains)
6. nice t-shirt (no, it isn’t, and you damn well know that!)
7. why isn’t XXX on the shelf? It is a bestseller! (I have no clue why people come in and insist a certain book is a best seller. Trust me, I can see our best seller list on my computer, and those of our competitors, and if my computer tells me that the book has sold zero copies at any branch in the country in the past 8 months, really, it IS NOT a bestseller)
8. Why don’t you have the paperback edition of XXX? My wife bought it at your shop in New york/ Amsterdam/ Heathrow airport. (it is simple: when the paper back comes out, the hardback gets taken off the shelf and sent back to the publisher. Yes, sometimes some books come out in paperback in special airport editions earlier, or the come out in different countries. That is because different countries are DIFFERENT. I don’t expect every customer to know about the shipping back rules, but why do they stubbornly insist that something is out in paperback when IT IS NOT!)
9. but your branch at XXX said you have 1 copy! (sometimes our computer says we have a book and we don’t. there is no point in getting irate about this. I promise I am not trying to hide the thing from you. Normally what this means is the thing got nicked. There is not much I can do about that!)
10. can you go to your other shop and get me a copy of XXX? I have a plane to catch in 2 hours! (what do I look like a dog? I cant just go out of the shop to another part of the city to fetch a book!)
11. this is probably too complex for you but….(don’t be patronizing to book sellers! Every single one of us at my branch has a university degree, and most are doing masters. Actually, I think at least half the staff is made up of MA students!
12. when does the offer end? Really you can tell me….(if I am not telling you when it ends, it is because I DON’T KNOW, not because I am trying to help my company’s sales. These things are decided by guys at the central office. So don’t wink or nudge me, it wont help)

Sorry for the ranting, but these have been bothering me for some time now!!! So the next time you go to your favourite book shop, please be polite to your bookseller! If you are looking for a book, know at least the title or the author, but preferably the ISBN, and don’t be offended if the thing is not there! It is not the booksellers fault!)