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I've often lamented that I have no pictures of my favorite store, the Waldenbooks that I started working at during Christmas of my senior year in college, way back in 2001. I stayed on there part-time for five years, and I loved almost every minute of it.
We were all big nerds, so the D&D books were on display right up front, and we could coach anybody through running their first campaign. We intentionally kept books the home office told us to send back if we thought they were good, because we didn't want them to be destroyed.
The employees were given free reign to order anything they thought the store could sell, or that they wanted to recommend. I ordered obscure mangas that I then put into the hands of Radford University and Virginia Tech students who came in looking for something new and different. I read so much manga while I was there, and discovered so many great comic books.
Employees there are the ones who made me discover both Alan and Christopher Moore, who couldn't be more different. We laughed all the time, we debated the merits of different universes, we punched holes in plots, and we may or may not have taken a Harry Potter book out of it's box early, swapped the dust jacket with a huge tome of alternate universe military sci-fi and passed it around two weeks ahead of time, reading it on the floor for all to see.
I'm sure that I don't know anything about that last bit happening.
It was a great store, a store that knew it's audience (college kids) and knew how to keep employees happy. It may not have been perfect, it may have had some bad times, but it was one of the best jobs I ever had.
When I got married and moved, I had to transfer to a new store. But changes in management and in the home office meant that the store was already faltering when I left. It closed only months later, and I think my hometown (and Borders Inc.) are lesser for it. Reply
We were all big nerds, so the D&D books were on display right up front, and we could coach anybody through running their first campaign. We intentionally kept books the home office told us to send back if we thought they were good, because we didn't want them to be destroyed.
The employees were given free reign to order anything they thought the store could sell, or that they wanted to recommend. I ordered obscure mangas that I then put into the hands of Radford University and Virginia Tech students who came in looking for something new and different. I read so much manga while I was there, and discovered so many great comic books.
Employees there are the ones who made me discover both Alan and Christopher Moore, who couldn't be more different. We laughed all the time, we debated the merits of different universes, we punched holes in plots, and we may or may not have taken a Harry Potter book out of it's box early, swapped the dust jacket with a huge tome of alternate universe military sci-fi and passed it around two weeks ahead of time, reading it on the floor for all to see.
I'm sure that I don't know anything about that last bit happening.
It was a great store, a store that knew it's audience (college kids) and knew how to keep employees happy. It may not have been perfect, it may have had some bad times, but it was one of the best jobs I ever had.
When I got married and moved, I had to transfer to a new store. But changes in management and in the home office meant that the store was already faltering when I left. It closed only months later, and I think my hometown (and Borders Inc.) are lesser for it. Reply