Re-Tales: One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

As an employee for any corporation, you have to keep any personal feelings and politics behind. But there are times when even a saint's patience can be tested. I've already said that customers aren't always right, but that isn't the half of it. Customers are people, and people can be downright opinionated, cruel and ignorant, such as in the following example:

With the ever increasing awareness of global warming, and its effects on every living being on this planet, a lot of companies, products and people are 'going green.' As such, we had a 'green living' display of books. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that our world is changing dramatically. In fact, if one wanted proof from that kind of credential, one only need look as far as last year's Nobel Peace Prize winners, shared by Al Gore and the IPCC, a panel of over 600 reputable authorities from over 40 countries. And yet, there are still people in the dark corners of this country who refuse to believe it.

One day, a customer decided to make his opinions known about the 'scam' known as global warming. Turns out, that's what his favorite conservative radio host had said. He held up a copy of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth mere inches from my face, in a very aggressive manner, telling me what a 'load of hogwash' it was and how it was the biggest scam since, well I don't remember what, but I was starting to boil over. As politely as I could, I said that I wouldn't discuss that topic as I disagreed with him. Quite rudely, he responded, "that's because you don't know ANYTHING." At that point, I felt like abandoning the customer as, since I don't know anything, I surely can't help him any further. But, somehow, I continued. He kept talking about the subject with his friend, all the way to the book he requested. He simply couldn't accept that someone didn't feel the same way he did and had to vocally represent that dissent. To me, those are the actions of someone who is very insecure with his opinions.

Someone who is completely secure with their own ideas lets everyone have their say. Instead, bookstores are besotted with people we call 'book-turners.' These people, mostly conservatives, come in and willfully hide books by or about left wing politicians. Lately, their usual target is Hillary Clinton. If there's a stack of her books on a table, the top one gets turned over. A faceout on a display? Turned over. A spine showing on the shelf, turned so the pages face the customer. The really paranoid ones do a massive amount of shuffling so that Democratic books are pushed way back and covered with books about their own favorites. Is all this really necessary?

I've seen much worse than this, especially in the aftermath of 9/11, with people saying the most horrible things about coworkers who didn't happen to be 'American' in their eyes. It's simply deplorable. Books are supposed to be tools of learning, not tools of ignorance, and bookstores should be a place where everyone can come together. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening in our near future.