MetaChat - Discovering my inner sadist.

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13 December 2008

Discovering my inner sadist. →[More:] Today some girl in her early 20's tried to sell us some books. Every last one of them was underlined and highlighted, which is automatic disqualification. The buyer put them back on the counter and said "Can't buy 'em." "None of them?" she pleaded and her lip began to stick out in a pout. "Nah. Ya gotta sell 'em somewhere else. They're all marked up. Worthless to us. Can't sell 'em. NEXT!" As she walked off, I swear her lower lip was trembling. I turned to the buyer and said, "If that's all it takes to get her upset, boy did she pick the wrong city to live in!" and we laughed. Yes, we're awful, but I admit I enjoyed the whole exchange.

post by: jonmc at: 21:44 | 27 comments

I wonder if she really needed the money. That feeling has made me cry sometimes.

posted by Miko 13 December | 22:05

She didn't look like she did. She was wearing expensive clothes and looked clean and well-fed. She seemed more like someone who had been obsequiosly catered to by service employees her whole life, and we've been dealing with a parade of those lately, along with the usual stupidity (people asking "How much do you pay per book?" "Depends on the book." "How about for [insert random title]?" "Depends on the condition." "How much-" "Just bring the damned book in already!"), so our patience is low.

posted by jonmc 13 December | 22:10

So under what conditions will you take in an unmarked mass-market paperback? Or am I better off getting 25 cents per book at Book Off?

*mass de-booking is imminent due to move into Brooklyn*

posted by TrishaLynn 13 December | 22:37

At one time I would have been right there with you and laughing, but now I would be so tore up that I'd be huffing nitro for the chest pains. This is why I can no longer work. I live vicariously through you, jon.

posted by Ardiril 13 December | 22:37

So under what conditions will you take in an unmarked mass-market paperback?

Brand new condition, and it'd get you maybe a buck.

posted by jonmc 13 December | 22:43

Damnit, I thought this was going to be about whips and chains. You've disappointed me, jonmc.

posted by desjardins 13 December | 22:48

Well, that's the nice thing about the flower business. No returns and no buybacks.

We did have some folks stop by trying to sell us mistletoe, though.

If I am ever up that way, jonmc, I believe I might try to sell you a copy of Disapproving Rabbits just for the fun of it.

posted by bunnyfire 13 December | 23:09

"maybe a buck"

I swear, Ebay killed the used book biz for readers. In the 70s and 80s, I got 3 or 4 times the money for collectible books than I could get now. Of course, back then a deal could easily take 4 to 6 weeks. I'm glad I sold my Baum Oz first editions and the rest of my main collection in 1992 because none appreciated all that well since. Now I look at books as just another group of mass-produced consumables.

posted by Ardiril 14 December | 00:27

ardiril: actually out on our bargain carts on the sidewalk, we have a bunch of people we call the "PDA brigade" who go through the books on the dollar carts with barcode scanner equipped PDA's that they use to scan ISBN's which they check on eBay or whatever on the off chance that they find some undervalued title. I don't know whether that's a sign of ingenuity, desperation or both. I have noticed that in this freeze-the-balls-off-a-brass-monkey cold snap we're in at the moment, their numbers have dwindled a bit.

posted by jonmc 14 December | 00:43

When I lived in Cambridge, I got used to selling off my used books at the Harvard Bookstore (not affiliated with the university), and they would buy most novels (which, as an English major, was mostly what I was selling off) but pay very little per book; I would bring in 30-40 books and get $10-20 in cash or store credit.

When I moved to San Francisco, I brought a ton of novels to a local used bookstore. They bought only three of them, but they gave me $15 for them. I thought, "This is why this city has no good used bookstores."

posted by occhiblu 14 December | 00:48

I bought a shot glass at Strand the one time I visited. Always seems appropriate they have that particular bit of branded merch.

As for selling used books, I've never gotten better deals, or a greater willingness to buy almost anything then at Powells (which for the record is the best bookstore in the US). Wonder if they still are so willing to buy almost anything, times being what they are?

posted by kodama 14 December | 00:56

When I was a kid, I placed ads in local papers buying paperbacks for a dime and hardbacks for a quarter. My mom would drive me around on Saturdays to pick up the books. Most just had 2 for 1 trade-in value at a mail-order joint that advertised in the back of Popular Mechanics. The collectibles I usually sold to brokers since I didn't have the cash to advertise in the trades.

Once I was old enough to drive, I started hitting yardsales which were fairly lucrative. If I hadn't had to work for my father doing contracting, I probably would have gone into books full time. Back then I could have bought thousands of comic books for a penny each.

posted by Ardiril 14 December | 01:49

I definitely feel for that girl. Once, in about 2001, I was really, really broke -- like I can't articulate how broke, but I was being evicted if that tells you anything -- and I lugged the only thing I had left to sell down to a pawn shop. It was a stereo. They didn't want it. So I told them just to throw it away, because there was nothing more I could do.

Times are tough.

posted by loiseau 14 December | 01:57

"Discovering my inner sadist."

I must admit my inner sadist wants me to gather about two dozen Harlequin novels and then put them in a plastic bag and piss on them before leaving them in the sun to ferment for a week. I would then go to THE BOOKSTORE and present them to jon while I screamed out, Tourette's like, random names of dead NYC sport heroes.

After he yelled at me I would offer to take him for shots and beer.

posted by arse_hat 14 December | 02:23

arse_hat: again, this wasn't some street person, this was a college girl there with a friend, who was wearing designer clothes and expensive-looking jewelery. The homeless guys we actually go pretty far for, including loans from the store for cab fare to get books to bring in. This incident is just a few exhausted retail workers venting after an extremely trying week. Not our best moments sas human beings, no, but as a writer, you don't just express your good side.

posted by jonmc 14 December | 08:49

This is why I don't live in New York. That's not a dig at jonmc (who is absolutely right) or New York (I like to visit).

posted by rainbaby 14 December | 09:10

You get used to it, rainbaby. I was the biggest cry baby there was and I toughened up. If I can, anyone can. In fact, for all New Yorkers cope with, we're a rather civil bunch, for the most part, I think. Plus, it's nice to snarl at idiots with impunity sometimes. I, myself, enjoy "accidentally" elbowing the occasional passerby. (Yes, I'm evil.)

posted by Pips 14 December | 10:25

Oh I hear you jon. It's just my inner sadist would like to introduce himself in the most obnoxious fashion.

posted by arse_hat 14 December | 11:24

@Pips: I do that from time to time, especially to cab drivers. However, sometimes I feel bad about it, and being sickeningly sweet paid off one time!

One day, the driver didn't hear my direction accurately started taking me way far down south when I originally wanted to go a little bit south, but then go east, and this was on the day of a therapy appointment.

I got bitchy at him, he apologized, I backed down a bit further, and then he was nice enough to stop the meter mid-way through the trip so I only had to pay the $6 I usually pay for that distance. And I gave him a nice tip for being that nice to me.

posted by TrishaLynn 14 December | 12:40

Yeah, I usually don't sustain my mean too long either, TL. Last week, at Key Food, the check-out woman gave me a nasty snicker when I tried to hand her something out of reach and it fell a little, and when she saw the angry look on my face, she started going on and on about how she was sick and how "at least she works" (this was the same woman who before the election proudly declared she didn't like Obama because he seemed like a "know it all"), and finally I just looked at her, very deadpan, and said, "I. don't. care." She stopped bagging for a moment and started apologizing and I, of course, backed right down, too, with "that's okay," and "don't worry about it," and "we all have bad days." Poor Jon's just loading the bags into our cart and watching all this. He couldn't believe how awful the woman was being either, though.

Later, on the way home, I dropped the eggs. Meh.

posted by Pips 14 December | 13:11

I also remember our friend the dwarf cashier (one of the nicest guys in the neighborhood) was staring daggers at her from the next register the whole time.

posted by jonmc 14 December | 13:45

jon, do people still bring in years and years of pristine National Geographic and expect to get rich?

posted by arse_hat 14 December | 14:35

oh, yeah. and filthy soiled ones, too. We always tell people who ask that we do not buy magazines, but in big lots we still wind up with tons of them, from esoteric technical journals to hardcore porn.

posted by jonmc 14 December | 15:00

You guys don't buy books that have been marked? They're the best ones. I consider it a special treat if I get a book that's got margin notes or highlighting. It's like you've got two books in one. One book about the subject matter and a second book about the person who had it before you.

posted by seanyboy 14 December | 17:52

I consider it a special treat if I get a book that's got margin notes or highlighting.

Well, people don't buy them, seany, and we're in business to make money. And I've seen books that were so heavily highlighted they'd could be used as lanterns.

posted by jonmc 14 December | 18:10

What if my underlined book was bought from you? Of course they're all first edition hardbound, and only lightly annotated.

posted by StickyCarpet 14 December | 22:57

"PDA brigade" who go through the books on the dollar carts with barcode scanner equipped PDA's. . .

I see them at library booksales as well, of course. Bless them all. While they are robotically picking up every book with a barcode to scan, they leave gems, beautiful books with cloth boards, unique fonts on the spine, gilt edges, hand stamped covers even, for me to pick up.

jonmc: Have you had any otherwise normal appearing customers lose it recently? I am thinking of people maybe laid-off, desperate for money, flipping out when they are told their books are worth only a few dollars.

posted by mlis 15 December | 02:07

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