Take this Job...

     What kind of person would quit their steady job, which provided a regular income and health benefits along with paid vacation and quarterly bonuses in an economy like this?  Me.

     After three years and a a few months of working at a Texas-based chain used bookstore, I reached my limit.  It wasn't the lousy pay, the atrocious management practices, or the fact that I spent 80% of my time hunched over paperwork in a concrete cell.  It wasn't even the indignation of watching most of our stores profits get whisked away to Texan coffers, slowly draining the local economy.

    It was that I started to hate books.

    I love to read.  Be it sociology or philosophy, psychology or metaphysics, literary fiction or historiography, I still enjoy reading above most other hobbies.  I play video games, sure, watch movies, even read the odd comic now and then, but a good book still holds my attention best.  A good piece of fiction lasts a lifetime.

     The problem was that I spent all day ordering quilting books and novelty books, or figuring out ways to cross-merchandise Leprechauns-in-a-box with books on Irish history.  To some, the idea of working in a used bookstore must seem like heaven on earth- surrounded by the wealth of ages, engaging in brilliant discourse with fascinating people, meeting local authors and organizing book clubs to read "Remembrance of Things Past" while sipping coffee and penning poems.  I'm sure that kind of experience remains, somewhere in the world, but not where I worked.  I drank coffee, pints of it, in an attempt to maintain the hectic pace of processing somewhere between two and four thousand pounds of books every week. I did meet a few fascinating people, both peers and elders, who've made for lasting friendships and correspondences, but the bulk of the people who come into a large used bookstore are the sort who you have to deal with everyday in any retail job.

     Obsessive-compulsive who want only crisp dollar bills and quarters from states starting in A.

     Religious zealots convinced you need the Word so badly they physically trap you in the bookshelves to share it.

     People claiming to be werewolves, vampires, wizards, and lycanthropic undead sorcerers.

     Unique, however, are those that sell to used bookstores.  I've bought from the public entire collections of 30 year-old D&D books and the complete works of Kafka, but for every person who comes in with a solid gold grade like that, there's ten people bringing you a box of broken glass and rat feces, a "super-collectible" Time Life book about the The Modern USSR, or a survival knife.  They never let you keep the knives.

    Sometimes, they try to sell Bus Route books and the Yellow Pages, and are always shocked you don't want them. 

    I've been called pretty much every offensive word you can imagine, and some that were invented on-the-spot just for me as a special treat.  My favorite being "conspirator against the body of Christ" and "Douche-fag."  It was always stunning to have such bile spewed at you when you're offering to pay someone for their 22 year old National Geographic magazines.

     The truly sad thing is that anyone with a bit of start-up money and a lot of time can open a used book store and secure themselves an honest, if not difficult, living.  Sell DVDs, sell CDs, sell magazines, records, video games, posters, rags and bones- buy at 10% and sell at 50-60% of the cover price and you'll turn a nice profit if you know anything about books at all.  Even in a time when people claim the written word is dying or translating to the digital, people still want their romance paperbacks and cheap comics.  They NEED the brick and mortar experience, and part of what they pay for is the ability to stand in a sea of media and browse and wander.  They live for the dream of finding that thing they didn't even know the wanted.  They still hope against hope to meet that special girl in the Manga section.  The sad thing is that this experience is becoming rarer, as more and more local chains wither under the best-seller pushing book sections of Target and Walmart.  Our nations tastes move towards the bulk.

     What strikes me more than anything is that the experience hasn't changed that much at all over the last century.   In an essay by George Orwell he lays out his own complaints and sorrows about working as a used bookseller.  I scoff- he didn't have to run an e-store on the side.

     What will I do now that I've quit?  Rejoin the workforce, flip burgers, sell cars?

     I think I'm going to reach out and try to reclaim my love of the book.

    I'm going to get back to writing.