The 6 1/2 - 7 Job

The job at the campus bookstore may have been full time with benefits, but the pay was not very good. To supplement my income, and to keep myself busy during a lonely, depressed time I looked for work elsewhere. I managed to get a job here.



The work was part time, mostly nights. It meant quite a few late night walks home. It kept me active and current. For the most part my coworkers were bright and easy to get along with. There was one manager during my first stint there who was deliberately a dick. He'd keep us late after closing past the time the last bus went to campus. He'd knock books on the floor and announce on the store PA that there were books on the floor in the department. He'd schedule you so you work late, have a day off, then come in to open on the day after your day off. A petty tyrant, and he was the reason I left the first time.

I was making better money at job 8 (next post) and really did not need the money, but the store discount was very generous. I resigned.

A few years later, I needed the money after my son was born and applied here again. One of my old managers was still there, called me up and I started again.

The pay was never good, but again, the discount was excellent. For the most part the working conditions were good, especially the second time around when I rarely worked the cash register. I lent a pen to John Glenn, steered an under siege governor to pick up his reserve at the cash register and watched a smug Secretary of the State of Ohio pick up a bunch of copies of the New York Times because his picture was in it.

Left again, on good terms. Was here on and off from 1999-2007. The book business has changed so much in the last five years. I doubt I could go back.