Sound and Fury

I think few people can boast more about their menial, entry-level part time job than I.

I consider myself to be very lucky to be forced to spend excessive amounts of time in a bookstore in exchange for payment. If I have to do some menial, grunt-work type job with a lot of shelving of product and dealing with customers in a retail setting, why not do it in a place I've always loved? My store has a certain atmosphere to it, a certain attitude almost... you see it in the customers that come in and how they behave, the other employees who work there and how much fun they have together, and all sorts of other little things: the music we play, the crazy amount of chairs for customers to just sit and read without paying first, and even the happy little kids squealing and running around or playing with the train set. To get paid to talk about books and look at books and pick out what books your going to buy next and help other people pick out what books to buy next.... there are few better jobs.
Don't get me wrong! I'm not saying that I want to go to University only to end up the manager of a bookstore! This is just a part-time job, a necessity until I can create a career. I wouldn't want to be STUCK there. Though if I was... well, there are worse places to be stuck.

Crazy things happen at work. I work with some of the best people in the world, honestly. We race halfway across the store to answer the phone. I often find myself almost on the floor with tears rolling down my face from laughing so hard. Whenever we do a midnight release of a book we go all out in planing the party and dressing up. We play bingo and do mad libs during work hours and plan the deaths of authors who write far too may books to fit on our shelves. Basically we just have a lot of fun.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I have a fantasmagorical, fanny-pack-tastic job. Oh, and my job could beat up your job. So HA.

Marina Reid