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A woman called up our bookstore to ask if we had a certain book in stock. Pretty routine request, or so we thought . . .
We entered the title she gave us into our computer, but came up with nothing. No book with that title existed in our system.
We tried the author's name next. Same result.
We entered different variations of the title and the author's name. Nothing.
We did several keyword searches, using just two or three words from the title and/or the author's last name . . . Zip.
We asked her if she was sure that she had the title and author's name right. She said that she did.
So we asked her what the book was about, and she gave us a description. We then did a very general keyword search to bring up books on that subject, and began looking through this extremely long list of titles to see if there were any newly released books that looked similar to what she was asking for.
By this time, we had been on the phone with this woman for quite a while, and we were still coming up empty.
I asked her if she was sure that the book had been released.
(Now, the truth is . . . Even if the book hadn't been released yet, it should still have been in our system, as long as the publisher had provided a scheduled release date. But I was running out of ideas, so I asked her anyway.)
She assured me that it had, in fact, been released. She had seen the author talking about it on television, and he had stated that it was now available for order from their website and over the phone.
There was a pause, and then . . . AND THEN . . . She says, "They did say on the television show that it wasn't available in any bookstores, though."
. . .
. . .
. . .
(One of my co-workers later remarked that she could actually hear the ellipses as I simply stood there, in the moments following that statement.)
"Ma'am," I said, with restraint that amazed even me, "why exactly are you calling us about this book, then?"
"I wanted to see if you maybe had it," she replied, with absolutely no irony in her voice.
After taking a deep breath, I told her that we did not have the book that she wanted.
"Oh," she said. "Okay, then, thank you for trying."
"No problem."
We entered the title she gave us into our computer, but came up with nothing. No book with that title existed in our system.
We tried the author's name next. Same result.
We entered different variations of the title and the author's name. Nothing.
We did several keyword searches, using just two or three words from the title and/or the author's last name . . . Zip.
We asked her if she was sure that she had the title and author's name right. She said that she did.
So we asked her what the book was about, and she gave us a description. We then did a very general keyword search to bring up books on that subject, and began looking through this extremely long list of titles to see if there were any newly released books that looked similar to what she was asking for.
By this time, we had been on the phone with this woman for quite a while, and we were still coming up empty.
I asked her if she was sure that the book had been released.
(Now, the truth is . . . Even if the book hadn't been released yet, it should still have been in our system, as long as the publisher had provided a scheduled release date. But I was running out of ideas, so I asked her anyway.)
She assured me that it had, in fact, been released. She had seen the author talking about it on television, and he had stated that it was now available for order from their website and over the phone.
There was a pause, and then . . . AND THEN . . . She says, "They did say on the television show that it wasn't available in any bookstores, though."
. . .
. . .
. . .
(One of my co-workers later remarked that she could actually hear the ellipses as I simply stood there, in the moments following that statement.)
"Ma'am," I said, with restraint that amazed even me, "why exactly are you calling us about this book, then?"
"I wanted to see if you maybe had it," she replied, with absolutely no irony in her voice.
After taking a deep breath, I told her that we did not have the book that she wanted.
"Oh," she said. "Okay, then, thank you for trying."
"No problem."
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