things the record store clerk hates to hear

haw

"they're not all in the right jackets..."

this fuckin guy
called a bout six times.
i tried to tell him not to come, because he was telling me things like frank sinatra, kenny rogers, laura branigan... but he was all like "well i gots lots and different things.." and i was like "i'll take a look, but i can't promise anything. and they all have to be in good shape if we're gonna buy em.." so he shows up, records in the wrong sleeves, records in no sleeves, some moldy or water damaged, nearly everything beat to hell. ugh. i hate my job. he was so indignant that we did not want to buy any of them. he wanted us to "work with him." and "shit man it took me an hour to get over here from bedfor stuyvesant.." but i'm sorry i do not run a charity here.

as noted on facebook this is one of the first things i heard this morning:

"I hope you stay in business for awhile. I can keep coming in to get the stuff that makes me not as depressed."

this from a local hoarder. but i guess it belongs on the things that people say that make you a little sad thread if there is one.

"You charge tax?!"

Seriously, this shit. So many asshole libertarians around here who make sales tax their crusade. Got an indignant "Well... I figured we could work out some kind of private sale and not worry about sales tax" today. On a $14 purchase.

this fuckin guy
called a bout six times.
i tried to tell him not to come, because he was telling me things like frank sinatra, kenny rogers, laura branigan... but he was all like "well i gots lots and different things.." and i was like "i'll take a look, but i can't promise anything. and they all have to be in good shape if we're gonna buy em.." so he shows up, records in the wrong sleeves, records in no sleeves, some moldy or water damaged, nearly everything beat to hell. ugh. i hate my job. he was so indignant that we did not want to buy any of them. he wanted us to "work with him." and "shit man it took me an hour to get over here from bedfor stuyvesant.." but i'm sorry i do not run a charity here.

― i guess i'd just rather listen to canned heat? (ian), Saturday, January 26, 2013 4:27 PM (3 months ago)

guessing this was the thing that made you quit? straw, camel, etc.

fuckin HATE that tax shit, I deal with it in my job too. I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said "real patriots pay their taxes" and sometimes I just wanna repeat that to people. Or go off on the "Oh, you don't wanna pay tax? cool, just stay off the interstate and don't use the utilities" line. But instead I just say "sorry, we can't do that".

i feel like there are a lot of parallels between things the record store clerk hears and things the community college english teacher hears. people who do not value the thing that they're selling, but expect you to value it.
papers written poorly and hastily, unformatted, unresearched = but why did i fail? i did the work!

sigh.

fortunately, not all customers/students are like that but the ones that are are so exhausting!

I can't get over the US thing of quoting sales tax separately.

Like, there was some way some people might not have to pay it

At least over here, even if the rate is higher, it's included in the display price

when i was in nyc a few weeks ago i was buying some postcards and the guy added the sales tax and i said something like "oh i keep forgetting about the tax" and the guy said "how do you think we pay for all these wars buddy?" :-)

Yeah, the invisibility of sales tax has pissed me off my whole life.

that sales tax thing kind of weirded me out on my first trip to the US last year.

What was really strange was that out of the 30 or used record stores i visited to - quite a number didn't add any on for sales tax...

"Hey, where are your Led Zeppelin records?! I looked in Z and they're not there."

It's not just that people don't understand alphabetization anymore, it's that I'm going to spend thirty minutes walking them around the store to every single artist because they don't understand that band names and individual artists are filed according to different rules. Like a phone book, which I guess nobody uses anymore anyway.

Also, tired of having to explain why some records cost more than other records. "Why is this copy of Power Windows $8 and this copy of Exit Stage Left is only $5?! Why can't they both be $5?"

I'm going to try that at the grocery store.

Things the record store clerk hates to smell:

- stale odor of cigarette smoke that you can practically see drifting off of someone's clothes. like they smoked themselves into a state of mummification in a tiny, windowless room.

- mildew, mold, etc. obviously.

- unwashed bodies of bearded oldsters who want to get as close to as possible while they yell their entire record collection/concert attendance record into your face with coffee/egg/cancer breath.

- body spray. fucking body spray.

I hate to SEE dudes with Leftover Crack patches. Assholes, all of them, and totally fucking rude about everything. They'll just start opening boxes and pawing through equipment that is not only not for sale but is hidden behind other boxes.

"It says "Pay no more than £4.99" on this sticker!"

"I collect soundtracks"

Don't know why but dudes that collect soundtracks are the worrrssstttt

They're all just looking for that fucking Caine Mutiny soundtrack in the end.

That reminds of a time decades ago I was at the New Public Library for the Performing Arts, when LPs were still the main way of listening to music. I was waiting for a turntable to free up and I overheard a bizarre conversation from some fellows who clearly had some issues. One guy was saying to another "You're not going to kill anyone. If anyone is going to be killed it is going to be you, not me." (!) Clearly one or both of these gentlemen was hearing voices and either attributing them to the other or verbalizing them. A security guard soon saw fit to intervene by saying "If you want to beef, beef outside, beef outside." While this was going on, I peeked at what one of the guys was listening to and it was the Coma soundtrack, which piece of information sent a chill up my spine.

But perhaps this is a different angle on the whole matter.

lol
Thanks to this thread I'm never setting foot in a used record store again
Though I guess used book stores are a very similar scene

Look, motherfucker, you can either be cheap or an audiophile

“You make $10 an hour and your air of unearned superiority is all you have to cling to in your sad life”

“Aaand a pack of gum”

"You make $10 an hour but you should make more money, also you intimidate me"