books are heavy

Irritations continue to pile up at work, mainly in the form of boxes. Boxes that have to be unpacked. Boxes full of duplicate orders, or obscure customer orders automatically reordered by the system, which simply assumed that, just because we sold one copy of Invertebrates of the Norfolk Coast or Unlock Your Inner Sex Monkey, then it’s a must-have that’s going to fly off the shelves. The situation has got so out of hand that Gary the Parceline driver is complaining that he has ‘deliveries coming out of his arse’. Clearly this is not a healthy situation.

I even had to go in at seven the other day to shift crates of books out of the shop and into the waiting arms of a lone DHL driver. I was the best they could do in response to a call for some ‘muscle’. What do they think, that bookshops are staffed by steroid-fuelled Schwarzenegger clones growling their recommendations of the new Maeve Binchy? At least if they were it might discourage customers from coming in. They really don’t help matters. Especially this guy the other day who wanted to be rung when his order came in, but had issues with saying his mobile phone number out loud, in case someone else standing at the counter overheard. Even assuming that anyone would be interested enough in this man to whip out a little notebook and jot down his number, what then? They’re going to ring this guy up and say - what? 'Hey, aren't you that irritating guy from the bookshop? I just wanted to congratulate you on being such an arse.'

I’m seriously tempted to walk out, but into what? I could express my rage in song on X-Factor: I don’t seem to be any less talented than most of the contestants at this stage, although it clearly helps if you’ve suffered some terrible tragedy. The woman who’d broken her spine got through. So did the guy who’d lost his brother and father, although in this case his tragedy was offset by the fact that his girlfriend was pregnant: ‘pros and cons’, as he described it, a little cold-bloodedly, to the interviewer. Less fortunate was a ‘20-year old garage attendant’ (this would have made a great stage name) who was told by Simon Cowell that he would never win the competition ‘in a million years, even if you were the only one in it’. ‘My heart’s broken’, he sobbed afterwards. ‘Literally.’ Literally! A 20-year old garage attendant with his heart in actual pieces, banished from the entertainment industry for a million years! He is already a thousand times more interesting than whoever will win.