A book and a couch to sleep on.

There's a website I go to, called Rocket Bomber, which is written by a Barnes and Noble manager in Atlanta.

He's amazingly candid. I fear for his job if his corporate overlords ever read what he's saying.

Here's a line in his opening paragraphs of his current blog:

"Bookstore customers kind of suck, they unfairly hold bookstores to an impossible standard — a standard of service they don’t even hold internet book retailers to — and I don’t know how to fix it. (This is a rant; what did you expect?)"

Anyway, he complains about the things I would think a B & N manager would complain about,.

For instance, bums inhabiting his couches and restrooms.

I asked Linda this morning if she thought the couches and table at her store were a plus or a minus (Not that we would get rid of them -- for one thing, we need them for the groups that meet there.)

"Oh, I think they're a plus. It's where the non-readers go."

"What do you mean."

"If they don't have a place to go and look through picture books, they pester the readers they came with and so the readers buy less books."

"Huh. I never thought of that?"

Anyway, many of the B & N manager's complaints are the same complaints I would have if I was powerless to do anything about them. Fortunately for me, I can make changes that solve most problems.

I'm going to talk more about his rants later, because there are so many parallels and so many differences....