Black Books...

I’ve watched Dylan Moran’s comedy vehicle “Black Books”. By way of proof I offer this piece of evidence:

It is, in my opinion, the most depressing, soul-destroying piece of documentary television I think I’ve ever seen. I think most booksellers would agree with me.

Many times I’ve had customers ask me at work, apropos of nothing, “Have you seen ‘Black Books’?” with a sort of gleeful expectancy. I generally say “Yes”, and try to leave it at that. If I say “No”, then they insist that I seek it out and thrill to the circumstance of seeing my world enacted in farcical terms before me. The problem is, it’s no farce – it’s all too real.

Take Bernard for example. He is a curmudgeonly, misanthropic, growling autocrat, a bundle of bad attitude and worse social skills. He is, in fact, like most booksellers I’ve worked for. For example:

There was the fellow who employed me way back when I had long – very long – hair, and decided that I was a homosexual, despite all evidence to the contrary. His first words to me were “Well I hate your guts, but we’ll see how we go.”

Then there was the bookseller I worked for who took an instant dislike – without any reason – to anyone who spelt their name “Graeme”. He always called them “Greams” and pointedly made their lives Hell. He also once decided to bid on his own stock online to beat up the prices and was seriously put-out when E-bay came to call and reprimanded him sharply.

There was a bookseller I knew who, when I tried to buy a certain book from her for 12 bucks, told me at the point where I was handing over my cash, that it had been “removed from sale”. Then, as I made to leave, feeling quite disgruntled, she stopped me at the exit and told me that I “could have it if I liked”. She’d made a quick check online in the interim to make sure that I wasn’t doing her out of some big sale.

Have I worked for a bookseller with Bernard Black’s substance abuse issues? Well, one of my managers was habitually stoned from dawn ‘til dusk, then drunk from dusk ‘til dawn, so I guess that counts.

These are fairly minor examples, and the ones which won’t get me into too much hot water for talking out of school. Basically, most bookdealers want to lurk in the back of their stores while punters toss money in through the door: they don’t want people to take their stock; they don’t want to engage with them on any level; but they do want the money. For the most part, they hide their prickly natures behind their staff.

If you meet a sales assistant in a bookshop, five’ll-get-you-ten that they’re a student. They will be inanely greeting customers or they will be trying to be unseen at the back of the shop, dusting the same books over and over. They will be oily and ingratiating, or next to invisible; what they won’t be is any use at all.

These types of employees will be watching the clock; they will be waiting to get home and write their paper or play something on their X-box. The only thing that they are unquestionably able to do, is to ramp up the aggression levels of their boss. However, their bosses are usually too non-confrontational to actually give them the boot.

Of course, not all of us are like this. Some of us have met enough of our own to know how to tone it down or to play against type. Now that you know, you’ll be able to spot the really useful booksellers from the duds.

Just don’t ask us what we think of “Black Books”.