How Barnes & Noble Went From Villain to Hero
April 17, 2022 11:48 AM Subscribe
To independent booksellers, the enormous chain was once a threat. Now it’s vital to their survival. And it’s doing well. “It’s funny how the industry has evolved so that they are now a good guy,” said Ellen Adler, the publisher of the independent New Press. “I would say their rehabilitation has been total.”
“I get all the glory, but actually what I’m doing is getting out of people’s way and letting them run decent bookstores,” Mr. Daunt said. “All the work goes on on the shop floor.”
OMFG. Yes!
If only more "leaders" understood their role.
posted by Ickster at 12:32 PM on April 17, 2022 [15 favorites]
OMFG. Yes!
If only more "leaders" understood their role.
posted by Ickster at 12:32 PM on April 17, 2022 [15 favorites]
I suspect once all bookstores started going out of business, the focus turned to "save any that we can," rather than attacking the lone remaining IRL chain.
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:43 PM on April 17, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:43 PM on April 17, 2022 [9 favorites]
Wasn’t it very recently that the company was being stripped for spare change and run into the ground and there was a huge massacre of full time store staff while duties were shifted onto lower paid part timers
posted by anazgnos at 12:53 PM on April 17, 2022 [16 favorites]
posted by anazgnos at 12:53 PM on April 17, 2022 [16 favorites]
Last time I heard about B&N they were talking about the encroachment of toys into space once reserved for books and how their promotion of the Nook was counterproductive.
posted by Selena777 at 12:58 PM on April 17, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 12:58 PM on April 17, 2022 [2 favorites]
Also recently on MetaFilter: A Bookstore Revival Channels Nostalgia for Big Box Chains
posted by mbrubeck at 1:22 PM on April 17, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by mbrubeck at 1:22 PM on April 17, 2022 [3 favorites]
Yes. Last time I was in a Barnes and Noble was around 2020, and it felt like kind of a big Hallmark store. There were toys, greeting cards, and floor stacks of visibly cheaply produced books for aging boomers, think coffee table books about World War II and books snobby middlebrow centrists would give their grandkids, like fairy tale collections in faux-fancy covers and calligraphy kits.
posted by smelendez at 1:24 PM on April 17, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by smelendez at 1:24 PM on April 17, 2022 [8 favorites]
Hiring an actual bookseller to run the company made a big difference.
posted by zenzenobia at 1:43 PM on April 17, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by zenzenobia at 1:43 PM on April 17, 2022 [12 favorites]
The other day I was looking for a copy of Kawabata's Snow Country in Union Square. The Strand supposedly had it, but didn't. Alabaster didn't (not surprising). Barnes and Noble...did.
posted by praemunire at 2:01 PM on April 17, 2022 [15 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 2:01 PM on April 17, 2022 [15 favorites]
This is obviously not a universal market, but I have been surprised to find that the Barnes & Nobles in New York City have by far the best selection of Spanish-language books of any bookstore I've been to in the city.
(Of course, it's a minuscule percentage of the stores' total collections, but it's still larger than the 0% I was expecting and it's a more contemporary collection than in any other brick-and-mortar bookstore I have been to).
posted by andrewesque at 2:17 PM on April 17, 2022 [3 favorites]
(Of course, it's a minuscule percentage of the stores' total collections, but it's still larger than the 0% I was expecting and it's a more contemporary collection than in any other brick-and-mortar bookstore I have been to).
posted by andrewesque at 2:17 PM on April 17, 2022 [3 favorites]
From the article:
posted by Strange Interlude at 2:22 PM on April 17, 2022 [35 favorites]
Barnes & Noble has also stopped taking fees from publishers to place particular books in highly visible spots, like by the entrance or in the window. It seemed like free money, Mr. Daunt said, but it caused a cascade of problems: Books nobody wanted to buy were prominently displayed, and big orders that didn’t sell had to be shipped back.This is one of the things that killed Borders towards the end of my run as a seller there. Half of our front-of-store section was publisher-paid face-outs, along with absolutely unsellable "instant best sellers" that we decided to push as store exclusives, even though nobody was looking for them.
posted by Strange Interlude at 2:22 PM on April 17, 2022 [35 favorites]
My partner used to work for Waterstones (the UK national chain also managed by Daunt). The business model is largely the same: they "protect" independent bookstores by buying them up when they're failing and making them part of the franchise, then allowing them to continue running as they always have. It's laudable, for the most part.
On the ground, they're still subject to the usual publishing industry inside baseball that has booksellers given targets to push books that Waterstones has been incentivised to promote, usually through deals whereby the publisher allows Waterstones to sell the book at such-and-such a discount if they promote certain other books in the next quarter. While my partner worked for them, there was a company wide ban on promoting books from a certain big UK publisher on their store social media and in the stores themselves, because (it was rumored) one of the executives had a personal beef with someone at the publisher.
Wasn’t it very recently that the company was being stripped for spare change and run into the ground and there was a huge massacre of full time store staff while duties were shifted onto lower paid part timers
While my partner worked for them, he was often asked to run two stores simultaneously by spending the morning overseeing one, then catching a train to a different town and running the other one in the afternoon. He wasn't a manager and wasn't paid extra for this work. He often had to work through his lunch hour and couldn't even go to the toilet because there wasn't anyone to cover for him. This was acceptable and normal practice. They were so chronically understaffed that if one person went off sick the whole store had to be closed for the afternoon. They'd rather take on low paid seasonal temps than train up and promote staff who had been working there for years. And this was while Daunt was bragging about record profits and how much the company valued its staff.
posted by fight or flight at 3:29 PM on April 17, 2022 [11 favorites]
On the ground, they're still subject to the usual publishing industry inside baseball that has booksellers given targets to push books that Waterstones has been incentivised to promote, usually through deals whereby the publisher allows Waterstones to sell the book at such-and-such a discount if they promote certain other books in the next quarter. While my partner worked for them, there was a company wide ban on promoting books from a certain big UK publisher on their store social media and in the stores themselves, because (it was rumored) one of the executives had a personal beef with someone at the publisher.
Wasn’t it very recently that the company was being stripped for spare change and run into the ground and there was a huge massacre of full time store staff while duties were shifted onto lower paid part timers
While my partner worked for them, he was often asked to run two stores simultaneously by spending the morning overseeing one, then catching a train to a different town and running the other one in the afternoon. He wasn't a manager and wasn't paid extra for this work. He often had to work through his lunch hour and couldn't even go to the toilet because there wasn't anyone to cover for him. This was acceptable and normal practice. They were so chronically understaffed that if one person went off sick the whole store had to be closed for the afternoon. They'd rather take on low paid seasonal temps than train up and promote staff who had been working there for years. And this was while Daunt was bragging about record profits and how much the company valued its staff.
posted by fight or flight at 3:29 PM on April 17, 2022 [11 favorites]
Wasn’t it very recently that the company was being stripped for spare change and run into the ground and there was a huge massacre of full time store staff while duties were shifted onto lower paid part timers
That's also a good description of the downfall of the late, seldom-lamented Circuit City.
posted by Halloween Jack at 3:44 PM on April 17, 2022 [5 favorites]
That's also a good description of the downfall of the late, seldom-lamented Circuit City.
posted by Halloween Jack at 3:44 PM on April 17, 2022 [5 favorites]
Fascinating. This seems like a potential good news from private equity, which I am frankly having a hard time believing- maybe this is something where B&N had already been stripped for parts to the point where normal vulture capitalists thought there wasn't anything left?
posted by rockindata at 3:57 PM on April 17, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by rockindata at 3:57 PM on April 17, 2022 [4 favorites]
I live within walking distance of at least five great indie bookstores, which I love and shop at regularly, but I still go to the local B&N all the time and am glad it's survived. It frankly does a much better job of catering its displays to diverse communities in the area, the magazine selection is unparalleled, the comics/graphic novel section is huge, and the kids' section is always packed with families who are welcomed to sit and read for hours. Also the tabletop gaming section is really good!
The lack of staff is definitely noticeable, though, especially since the pandemic.
posted by retrograde at 6:38 PM on April 17, 2022 [3 favorites]
The lack of staff is definitely noticeable, though, especially since the pandemic.
posted by retrograde at 6:38 PM on April 17, 2022 [3 favorites]
This seems like a potential good news from private equity, which I am frankly having a hard time believing- maybe this is something where B&N had already been stripped for parts to the point where normal vulture capitalists thought there wasn't anything left?
Private equity ended up saving Australian confectionery manufacturers Darrell Lea, consolidating their range onto the stuff people actually liked, expanding on it (expensive equipment to make a specific type of round chocolate? Introduce a range with different flavours! Chocolate blocks!) and then working out distribution into supermarkets and 7-11s, rather than their own stores (and, inexplicably, pharmacies). Apparently most people kept their jobs, as well. One of those "we will make way more money managing this business properly" situations.
The vulture capitalism story appears to be uniquely American: because it's legal for private equity firms to buy a company with its own money, they don't have to have a plan for how to turn a failing business around. This isn't legal in Australia; you have to put your own skin in the game.
posted by Merus at 7:30 PM on April 17, 2022 [13 favorites]
Private equity ended up saving Australian confectionery manufacturers Darrell Lea, consolidating their range onto the stuff people actually liked, expanding on it (expensive equipment to make a specific type of round chocolate? Introduce a range with different flavours! Chocolate blocks!) and then working out distribution into supermarkets and 7-11s, rather than their own stores (and, inexplicably, pharmacies). Apparently most people kept their jobs, as well. One of those "we will make way more money managing this business properly" situations.
The vulture capitalism story appears to be uniquely American: because it's legal for private equity firms to buy a company with its own money, they don't have to have a plan for how to turn a failing business around. This isn't legal in Australia; you have to put your own skin in the game.
posted by Merus at 7:30 PM on April 17, 2022 [13 favorites]
To refocus at work, I wandered through B&N regularly before covid and have started again. I remember reading about the promising turnaround in the UK chain when B&N was shopping for a buyer and hoping the same would happen in the US. The pandemic has been obviously hard for retail. Nevertheless, my experience matches what the article describes.
When you walk in, you do see 7-8 tables with focused themes that make it easier to glance at the laid out books with some understanding. These really do seem designed to sell. Several displays are trying to move discounted or BOGO books. There are little handwritten staff notes all over the store recommending specific books on the shelves. When you ask staff about a book you can’t find, they’ll occasionally things like, “oh, yes, we moved that to an endcap because it’s been popular.” In stalwart genre/category sections, they have noticeably moved to fewer copies of more titles, which speaks to the healthier and less wasteful relationship with publishers, in addition to making browsing more interesting. The magazine section is really of a nice quantity and you can find locally published magazines in them.
The staff shortage is rough, though. You can almost never walk in on release day and find a book because either it hasn’t been put out yet, or someone put it in a weird place and the staff is too busy to have a good way to communicate about that. Because there are so many special displays, it takes the staff awhile to search for missing books, which presumably pulls them away from keeping up with other releases. And I of course know that understaffing is causing problems I can’t see as a customer.
IT is also underinvested. bn.com is not fun to use, and it’s hard to use it to research your local shopping trip—you’ll usually have to ask where to find something anyway or be surprised by a lack of inventory. Their offer to order an out-of-stock or missing book for you is still a poor offer compared to looking it up elsewhere. The $25/year membership is still not a great deal (although it feels like a nice stab at Amazon to buy one and not buy Prime.)
Reward and stabilize the store staff, and sales will continue to rise. I’m sure of it.
This rambling comment isn’t too different from my rambling walk through the bookstore, now that I reread it.
posted by michaelh at 7:31 PM on April 17, 2022 [6 favorites]
When you walk in, you do see 7-8 tables with focused themes that make it easier to glance at the laid out books with some understanding. These really do seem designed to sell. Several displays are trying to move discounted or BOGO books. There are little handwritten staff notes all over the store recommending specific books on the shelves. When you ask staff about a book you can’t find, they’ll occasionally things like, “oh, yes, we moved that to an endcap because it’s been popular.” In stalwart genre/category sections, they have noticeably moved to fewer copies of more titles, which speaks to the healthier and less wasteful relationship with publishers, in addition to making browsing more interesting. The magazine section is really of a nice quantity and you can find locally published magazines in them.
The staff shortage is rough, though. You can almost never walk in on release day and find a book because either it hasn’t been put out yet, or someone put it in a weird place and the staff is too busy to have a good way to communicate about that. Because there are so many special displays, it takes the staff awhile to search for missing books, which presumably pulls them away from keeping up with other releases. And I of course know that understaffing is causing problems I can’t see as a customer.
IT is also underinvested. bn.com is not fun to use, and it’s hard to use it to research your local shopping trip—you’ll usually have to ask where to find something anyway or be surprised by a lack of inventory. Their offer to order an out-of-stock or missing book for you is still a poor offer compared to looking it up elsewhere. The $25/year membership is still not a great deal (although it feels like a nice stab at Amazon to buy one and not buy Prime.)
Reward and stabilize the store staff, and sales will continue to rise. I’m sure of it.
This rambling comment isn’t too different from my rambling walk through the bookstore, now that I reread it.
posted by michaelh at 7:31 PM on April 17, 2022 [6 favorites]
A naive non-bookseller question:
Is there a place for the adorable neighborhood independent bookstore to have a sticker in the window reading 'Part of the B&N Network'? Signaling
- a guarantee of 'if we don't have it, we can order it for you via B&N'
- purchases made here count towards whatever B&N loyalty points reward program
- when you shop B&N online, they charge for shipping; UNLESS you opt to have it shipped to your Local Independent Bookshop. When you go there to pick up your order, you're likely to pick up an impulse buy or something you forgot.
That may already exist. But I think there's room (or should be) for both an artisanal butcher and a big-name supermarket full of generic products. And for them to cooperate a bit on taking care of their niche vs volume segments. No?
(I also think the Nook strategy should be to capture the "if you don't want to be locked in to Kindle/Amazon, try us! Reads multiple open formats! Comes with Calibre preinstalled!" And/Or perhaps they skip a step and sell Kobo readers instead of their own hardware.)
posted by bartleby at 7:41 PM on April 17, 2022 [2 favorites]
Is there a place for the adorable neighborhood independent bookstore to have a sticker in the window reading 'Part of the B&N Network'? Signaling
- a guarantee of 'if we don't have it, we can order it for you via B&N'
- purchases made here count towards whatever B&N loyalty points reward program
- when you shop B&N online, they charge for shipping; UNLESS you opt to have it shipped to your Local Independent Bookshop. When you go there to pick up your order, you're likely to pick up an impulse buy or something you forgot.
That may already exist. But I think there's room (or should be) for both an artisanal butcher and a big-name supermarket full of generic products. And for them to cooperate a bit on taking care of their niche vs volume segments. No?
(I also think the Nook strategy should be to capture the "if you don't want to be locked in to Kindle/Amazon, try us! Reads multiple open formats! Comes with Calibre preinstalled!" And/Or perhaps they skip a step and sell Kobo readers instead of their own hardware.)
posted by bartleby at 7:41 PM on April 17, 2022 [2 favorites]
Not gonna lie, last week I was overwhelmed with nostalgia and hope and joy the first time I went into a non-B&N bookshop post-2020… until I started looking for the books I actually wanted to, you know, but and read. The establishment, a shop-café-venue hybrid hosting a reading event that night, had one 30-year-old copy of a Jeanette Winterton novel and zero works by J.G. Ballard—but had an entire shelf filled with prestige hardback editions of Dune from seven years ago. Whereas the last time I went into B&N four months ago, I bought exactly what I wanted and more.
posted by infinitewindow at 7:51 PM on April 17, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by infinitewindow at 7:51 PM on April 17, 2022 [2 favorites]
The vulture capitalism story appears to be uniquely American: because it's legal for private equity firms to buy a company with its own money, they don't have to have a plan for how to turn a failing business around. This isn't legal in Australia; you have to put your own skin in the game.
They do typically have to put some of their own money in, but they make up for it quickly by charging exorbitant management fees that return their investment in short order while all but guaranteeing the business will ultimately fail.
posted by wierdo at 10:40 PM on April 17, 2022 [4 favorites]
They do typically have to put some of their own money in, but they make up for it quickly by charging exorbitant management fees that return their investment in short order while all but guaranteeing the business will ultimately fail.
posted by wierdo at 10:40 PM on April 17, 2022 [4 favorites]
The vulture capitalism story appears to be uniquely American: because it's legal for private equity firms to buy a company with its own money, they don't have to have a plan for how to turn a failing business around. This isn't legal in Australia; you have to put your own skin in the game.
The issue isn't "skin in the game", but that they can transfer the debt they incur in buying the company to the company, hanging a boat anchor on the firm. One of the proposed solutions to the issue is to make it that the debt cannot be transferred this way.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:47 PM on April 17, 2022 [13 favorites]
The issue isn't "skin in the game", but that they can transfer the debt they incur in buying the company to the company, hanging a boat anchor on the firm. One of the proposed solutions to the issue is to make it that the debt cannot be transferred this way.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:47 PM on April 17, 2022 [13 favorites]
Barnes & Noble has also stopped taking fees from publishers to place particular books in highly visible spots, like by the entrance or in the window. It seemed like free money, Mr. Daunt said, but it caused a cascade of problems: Books nobody wanted to buy were prominently displayed, and big orders that didn’t sell had to be shipped back.
Bit of a stretch, but that reminds me in a weird way of Microsoft in the way that they too take "free money" for tacky product placement on their Windows, seemingly without factoring in the intangible costs, and end up diminishing the entire experience. At least in B&N's case, they had the excuse of being desperately strapped for cash. Even so, they had to learn the hard way that you can't buy a good reputation, but you can sure as shit sell it away right quick. And it's essentially taken them an entire generation to earn it back.
posted by xigxag at 12:07 AM on April 18, 2022 [7 favorites]
Bit of a stretch, but that reminds me in a weird way of Microsoft in the way that they too take "free money" for tacky product placement on their Windows, seemingly without factoring in the intangible costs, and end up diminishing the entire experience. At least in B&N's case, they had the excuse of being desperately strapped for cash. Even so, they had to learn the hard way that you can't buy a good reputation, but you can sure as shit sell it away right quick. And it's essentially taken them an entire generation to earn it back.
posted by xigxag at 12:07 AM on April 18, 2022 [7 favorites]
I hadn't been to a B&N since before the pandemic and it was little a different world when I went to the nearest one just a couple of months ago. The store was a mess. An empty Nook display that they tried "hiding" with a couple of taller book carts they use for stocking shelves. The music section was a complete joke-- acres of empty CD racks and a smattering of vinyl and nothing else. As others have said where there might have once been, you know, books were shelves packed with "educational" toys and other junk. Their "history" section was mostly just books about war. There was litter on the floor. But... the redeeming virtue was the staff. Despite being stretched thin they were extremely helpful when I was looking for a specific title which their online interface said they had in stock.
I hope they survive but if that location doesn't seem like it's long for the world.
posted by drstrangelove at 5:25 AM on April 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
I hope they survive but if that location doesn't seem like it's long for the world.
posted by drstrangelove at 5:25 AM on April 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
The Strand supposedly had it, but didn't
Isn't this printed on their tote bags?
posted by rhymedirective at 6:30 AM on April 18, 2022 [7 favorites]
Isn't this printed on their tote bags?
posted by rhymedirective at 6:30 AM on April 18, 2022 [7 favorites]
I'd love to go back and work for B&N, this may have been mostly to do with my store having excellent management but it was a pleasure to work there. The problem? Cost of living here in Austin has gone way, way up in the years since I was a bookseller. But their starting salary is STILL just 25-50 cents over local minimum wage. How do you even pretend you respect your employees when you're paying them $9/hour? Rent on a crappy one-bedroom apartment is rapidly approaching $1,000/month here. 30 hours a week (you will not be getting 40 hours/week unless it's December) won't even pay your rent at that hourly rate, never mind every other living expense.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 7:53 AM on April 18, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by lefty lucky cat at 7:53 AM on April 18, 2022 [9 favorites]
The only bookstore left in my neighborhood is Books-A-Million, which makes B&N look like a booklovers nirvana
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:56 AM on April 18, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:56 AM on April 18, 2022 [5 favorites]
As others have said where there might have once been, you know, books were shelves packed with "educational" toys and other junk.
To be fair, I imagine part of this is due to the current global printing crisis, partly due to worldwide shortages of pulp/lumber and paper thanks to, among other things, strikes at paper mills in Nordic countries, COVID supply chain problems, and the war in Ukraine impacting the shipping of wood and pulp out of Russia -- oh, and climate change causing shipping containers full of books to be lost at sea. That's not even going into the issues happening to printers in the US and abroad. It's just getting harder and harder to actually stock books in a lot of places.
posted by fight or flight at 10:05 AM on April 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
To be fair, I imagine part of this is due to the current global printing crisis, partly due to worldwide shortages of pulp/lumber and paper thanks to, among other things, strikes at paper mills in Nordic countries, COVID supply chain problems, and the war in Ukraine impacting the shipping of wood and pulp out of Russia -- oh, and climate change causing shipping containers full of books to be lost at sea. That's not even going into the issues happening to printers in the US and abroad. It's just getting harder and harder to actually stock books in a lot of places.
posted by fight or flight at 10:05 AM on April 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
My last experience in a B&N a few years ago was similar to others here. Books seemed like an afterthought as it seemed like it was really hyping games, toys and anything that wasn’t really a book. You could still find good books but it definitely wasn’t about browsing the stacks and seeing some great staff recommendations. I would really hesitate to call them book stores anymore.
posted by misterpatrick at 12:35 PM on April 18, 2022
posted by misterpatrick at 12:35 PM on April 18, 2022
I went into my local B&N for the first time in a long time during the holiday season. I saw on their website they had a book I wanted immediately for $2 less than amazon. I enjoyed the first 20 minutes of looking for the book and was generally impressed by the selection, if not the categorization. However when I finally went to find an employee the only one I could find was on the phone for another customer calling 3 other stores to check their stock on a specific Lego set. Eventually I got the employee and they we able to identify the specific section is was supposed to be in and then it took both of us a good 5 minutes to actually find the title.
I actually ended up walking out of there with the book, a puzzle, and a board game expansion set. I love Lego, but did feel like it was a bit much.
As someone who spent a lot of his teen years hanging out at a Border's I am happy B&N is still around. I sadly only had some small used book stores near me and having done a couple of big orders from Powells in recent years.
posted by CostcoCultist at 9:48 PM on April 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
I actually ended up walking out of there with the book, a puzzle, and a board game expansion set. I love Lego, but did feel like it was a bit much.
As someone who spent a lot of his teen years hanging out at a Border's I am happy B&N is still around. I sadly only had some small used book stores near me and having done a couple of big orders from Powells in recent years.
posted by CostcoCultist at 9:48 PM on April 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
Wasn’t it very recently that the company was being stripped for spare change and run into the ground and there was a huge massacre of full time store staff while duties were shifted onto lower paid part timers
Just over four years ago.
Haven't been in one since, though my friends are almost all former B&N people (they moved on by choice), some who still shop there because they love books. So I occasionally get updates after they were bought up that UK company, like how the staff can wear jeans now and one of the assistant managers had to go to another store because they're only allowed to have one. I found a job I like, but for my former coworkers still hanging in there, I hope things are better now.
posted by nothing as something as one at 7:52 AM on April 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
Just over four years ago.
Haven't been in one since, though my friends are almost all former B&N people (they moved on by choice), some who still shop there because they love books. So I occasionally get updates after they were bought up that UK company, like how the staff can wear jeans now and one of the assistant managers had to go to another store because they're only allowed to have one. I found a job I like, but for my former coworkers still hanging in there, I hope things are better now.
posted by nothing as something as one at 7:52 AM on April 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
I found a job I like, but for my former coworkers still hanging in there, I hope things are better now.
I've worked at a couple of locations on and off, and still sometimes hang out with current and former employees. It just seems like such a mixed bag, from one month to the next and especially from one location to the next. James Daunt has talked about moving (back?) towards more of a full-time, career workforce, but lately the big change is that they are offering people a couple bucks more per hour to be keyholders and effectively head cashiers, with some title like "lead bookseller" and still with no benefits unless you count a bit of paid vacation time. And before they made that change, they just tried to talk people into filling those roles with zero raise or other inducement.
My feeling is that they're always going to be able to find a willing workforce of retired teachers and librarians, and freelancers who want to get out of the house, and people who would basically pay to work for a bookstore, and there is no real reason why they should try very hard to attract anybody else.
posted by BibiRose at 8:46 AM on April 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
I've worked at a couple of locations on and off, and still sometimes hang out with current and former employees. It just seems like such a mixed bag, from one month to the next and especially from one location to the next. James Daunt has talked about moving (back?) towards more of a full-time, career workforce, but lately the big change is that they are offering people a couple bucks more per hour to be keyholders and effectively head cashiers, with some title like "lead bookseller" and still with no benefits unless you count a bit of paid vacation time. And before they made that change, they just tried to talk people into filling those roles with zero raise or other inducement.
My feeling is that they're always going to be able to find a willing workforce of retired teachers and librarians, and freelancers who want to get out of the house, and people who would basically pay to work for a bookstore, and there is no real reason why they should try very hard to attract anybody else.
posted by BibiRose at 8:46 AM on April 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
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posted by box at 12:27 PM on April 17, 2022 [2 favorites]