There was some sort of inauguration program printed up by the Inauguration Committee, and the Bookstore was supposed to receive some. As is the nature of Obamamania in this country — which is why a whole double-table of what can only be described as Obama-crap (a judgement on the merchandise, not the man) continues to sell in great numbers — everyone wants a program, and for some reason, the company’s website continued to state that we had it in stock.
Uh … we didn’t.
I don’t actually know the story of why we never received them. Presumably they’re still waiting to be delivered: the Secret Service shut down deliveries to businesses after Saturday, so the Bookstore doesn’t even get another product shipment until Thursday. Most customers accepted that story, although a manager or two did tell me they were under the impression the programs were being printed manually and that even if it were a question of someone hand delivering them to us, we were still expecting to have them by Tuesday.
As we didn’t receive them by the time I left Monday at closing, I’m going to go out on a limb and say we probably never got them.
Sadly, there was one group of customers who refused to believe that we didn’t have them, or couldn’t get our hands on them, or couldn’t special order them: I refer to this group of people as that dreaded band of “New Yorkers.” They weren’t even in DC — they were calling from New York City demanding that we ship the progams to them.
Most conversations went something like this:
“Ma’am, I’m sorry, but we don’t actually have them. They never came!”
“What do you mean you don’t have them? You’re supposed to have them!”
“I know we’re supposed to have them, they never came.”
“Well, I don’t care. I want one.”
“I can’t get you one.”
“Well, what would you suggest I do? Do they sell them in New York?”
In fact, they probably don’t — I mean, if they can’t get the programs to a damn store four blocks from the White House, how the fuck are they going to get them up to New York? And also, since the items were purchased store-by-store instead of through the corporate office, it’s highly unlikely that any stores outside of the region had the opportunity to purchase them. “Oh, they might. You should check!” That’s what I said. Also, since our store in Silver Spring was the only one we knew to have gotten their shipment, we referred most calls to that store — right up until Silver Spring called over and asked us to please for the love of motherfucking God stop “We’re out!”
Just a general note: it would be nice, sometimes (okay, always) if customers would just shut the fuck up and listen to what I’m trying to say. I was trying to find a DVD set for a customer on the phone, and while I kept asking her to clarify a spelling, or repeat the title, she would just continue to repeat, “It’s so-and-such by him, starring this person, that person, and this other guy, it’s an 5-disc set shaped like a dog’s hutch and it was just released.” I finally located something that I assumed to be the same set — we didn’t have it, and our ATLAS database showed that, in the whole country, only one other store had it. When I tried to explain this to her, she demanded the phone numbers for two other nearby stores and said she would call them directly. I feel so sorry for whoever she spoke with.
In any case, the inauguration is over, so I’m hoping the New Yorker phone calls about the apparently lost programs are finito. Also, it’d be nice if the Metro isn’t a mess of tourists tomorrow.