Call it just a tiny bit of redemption . . .

[Anthony K. S.]

Walk into any bookstore and go to the "Business" section . . . You will typically find a shelf marked "Sales" and/or "Customer Service."

As we all know, those are books written by people who have never worked in a retail store, or any other actual customer service job, in their lives . . . but still feel qualified to tell us how to do our jobs.

Most of the time, in my store, when I happen to be shelving a book in the "Customer Service" section, I just give it a disdainful look and then put it where it belongs.

Today, however, there came what was (for me, at least) a truly special moment . . .

I scanned one particular book from that section and found that it had been marked in our system to be removed from the shelf and sent back to our warehouse, because of its extremely poor sales figures. (In our store, we had sold only two copies of this book in the past year.)

And it wasn't just any customer service book, either. Take a look for yourself :

"Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends . . ."





That's right . . . It was the book written by Pete Blackshaw, the founder of the infamous Planet Flea Bag . . . Oh, excuse me, Planet Feedback.

By the way, if you take a look at Mr. Blackshaw's biography on that web page, you'll see his rather verbose list of alleged accomplishments and experience in the world of customer service and feedback . . .

And I'm sure that I'm not the only person here who takes particular note of the fact that amid all that talk of "executive vice-president" of this, "coleader of interactive marketing" at that, graduate of this university and that business school . . . There is absolutely NO mention of Mr. Blackshaw ever having actually worked in any sort of front-line customer service job.

I swear, anybody who actually finds that surprising would buy ocean-front property in Utah.

Anyway . . .

Honestly, I cannot describe the deep satisfaction (if not actual joy) I felt at marking "Return Vendor - Random House" on that book and putting it on our "Returns" wall . . .

(Hey, if we're really lucky, the company might not bother to send it back to the publisher, and just toss it in the garbage altogether.)

Oh, man . . . It is a tiny, tiny bit of redemption. I mean, it is so miniscule . . . But, at least . . . At least we have this one small little slap-in-the-face to the guy who founded one of the lamest, most pitiful, most utterly worthless organizations in the history of the world.

It's just this one small slap-in-the-face, yes, but personally, I will take it. I'll take whatever I can get. And hope that in the future, there comes more.

It probably won't happen, but the hope is always there.


EDIT :

When I originally wrote this post, I incorrectly listed the return vendor for this book as "Harper Collins" instead of "Random House." (Sorry . . . When you scan, shelve, and return enough books in a day, the details can sometimes blur together.) This has now been corrected.

[wagegoth]

He's a banana slug (graduate of UC Santa Cruz). That explains everything.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Is he still involved with PFB? Is he Mr. Helpful by chance?

It would be so totally awesome if somebody would post as a comment "Hey Pete, how's that book of yours doing? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Of course that would get you a whack with the banhammer before you could say "Gimme Pig," but that probably would be for the best anyway.

[Anthony K. S.]

It would be so totally awesome if somebody would post as a comment "Hey Pete, how's that book of yours doing? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

I realize that this was meant in jest, but just in case anybody here is thinking of actually doing that . . . The truth is, I have NO IDEA how Pete Blackshaw's book is doing in general.

The fact that our computer system instructed us to send it back to the warehouse really only means that it has failed to sell well in one particular area - the community where my store is located.

Although . . . I will note that I did a search and found that out of nearly 60 stores (that my company has) within a 50-mile radius, a full third of them have listed the book as "Out of Stock." Which could mean that they're just temporarily sold out . . . But, in my experience, it's more likely to mean they've stopped stocking the book due to low sales figures.

And as for the stores that are showing they have the book in stock . . . That could mean the book is selling well in their stores, yes . . . And it could mean that they have one or two copies on hand because the book is just barely making the cut to avoid being pulled off the shelf.

Still . . . Even if the book isn't doing that well here (and, again, I have no real proof of that), it's only one city. Granted, New York is a pretty large market, but there are plenty of other large cities in the world.

I really don't know how Mr. Blackshaw's book is doing in general . . . And the LAST thing I want to see is somebody here going onto PFB and calling him out on how his book is doing, only to have them respond by producing sales figures that show it really is a high-selling book.

(If that is the case. We can only hope that it isn't.)

All of this goes back to what I said at the end of my original post, that this is only a tiny bit of redemption . . . Putting that book on the "Returns" wall of my store is, ultimately, so miniscule, because it only means that the book has failed within one particular area. It doesn't really say anything at all about whether or not Pete Blackshaw's book has achieved success in general . . .

But, again, as I said, I will take whatever I can get. Even if it was just one small slap-in-the-face to him, even if it ultimately proves to be nothing more than a symbolic act, it still felt good.

And we can hope that in the future, there might come more. There is always hope.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Oh no, I wouldn't go and do that.

I will say this though--if his book really is a high seller, there's no hope for us. It will mean our managers and suits are guzzling the goofy "customer is always right" grape Nehi.

[spark]

It's #50 in its specific category at Amazon, which since they only bother to list the top 100 suggests that its sales could quite likely be categorized as "mediocre at best" since I doubt that the category of "direct marketing" has a really high sales rate.

It's #284,013 overall, so it's anything but a best seller, since 200k+ books are selling better than it is.

http://www.rampant-books.com/mgt_amazon_sales_rank.htm suggests that a 200k number means it's selling far fewer than one book a week, over the largest book retailer there is.