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Where are the store's people? Why are they not telling people to behave respectfully or leave?
I suspect B&N employees don't feel much sense of ownership of their store environment (a failing of the company). The story about the "pee lady" repeatedly coming back to the same store, for example--she was recognized, so why was she allowed to enter? Would you let someone like that into your own home?
hahahaha... yes you try telling these people to behave themselves or they will have to leave and see if you don't get punched in the face. Management can't do a damn thing about it and even less the employees. That's the monster that BN corporate headquarters have created. Rude customers don't listen to the employees. The BN where I worked had to have a policeman on the weekends, that's how out of control it could get.
and yes I think it is pathetic to hang out in a store for hours. These are people who just need attention and think that by sitting in BN , Starbucks, and any other kind of place will make them feel important.
There's a lot of talk here about various rude or antisocial behaviors that have been spotted in B&N stores, with the implication that the presence of comfortable chairs was enabling these behaviors... it's not the chairs' fault.
Where are the store's people? Why are they not telling people to behave respectfully or leave?
I suspect B&N employees don't feel much sense of ownership of their store environment (a failing of the company). The story about the "pee lady" repeatedly coming back to the same store, for example--she was recognized, so why was she allowed to enter? Would you let someone like that into your own home?
Ah, but there's that whole "customer is always right" BS ethos to contend with. A retail establishment would never go out of their way to make customers feel unwelcome. If certain customers are not, indeed, welcome then steps will be taken. If it's one person causing a disturbance that person will be talked to and asked to leave, but if it's an entire subset of their customers (and I use that word, "Customer" loosely) then more subtle steps would be taken, like removing the chairs. I guarantee that this was a very big decision for them at the highest levels of the company. They probably even hired this company: Envirosell - home which was started by the guy who wrote this amazing piece of social anthropology: Why We Buy - Book Summary
or somebody like him, and they surely found that this retail space was actually losing them money in customer turn-over and damages.
There's a lot of talk here about various rude or antisocial behaviors that have been spotted in B&N stores, with the implication that the presence of comfortable chairs was enabling these behaviors... it's not the chairs' fault.
Where are the store's people? Why are they not telling people to behave respectfully or leave?
I suspect B&N employees don't feel much sense of ownership of their store environment (a failing of the company). The story about the "pee lady" repeatedly coming back to the same store, for example--she was recognized, so why was she allowed to enter? Would you let someone like that into your own home?
The Pee Lady was in a Public Library.. very hard to throw people out of there, as we couldn't really prove it
The technology is already there, file size is not an issue as you noted, and we all have laptops and ipods, etc. But I can't see anyone taking a laptop to the toilet to read the paper or latest Newsweek.
Of course we have to look beyond even digital print - the mind boggles. Maybe a "book" that you implant into your head with some sort of interface.
Maybe not a laptop, but what about a handheld reader? I stopped carrying books with me when I got an iphone and installed an e-reader on it, and I've taken it into the bathroom with me to read news or whatever (not that I'm proud of that, mind you). Technology has already advanced to the point that it's not necessary to use a big, bulky laptop to access printed materials - now it's just a matter of that tech getting cheaper, better, and more widespread.
there's nothing wrong w/ previewing a book before buying it!
I'm not saying there is - just that the practice increases sales while allowing some people to take advantage by reading entire books.
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problem w/ "previewing" is that some people take it to the extreme and hunker down w/ a book and practically read it cover to cover. that's not previewing, that's reading and doesn't help an author at all if the customer decides to not buy the book after finishing it in the store (or, gasp, gets half way through it, puts it back on the shelf, and comes back in tomorrow to finish it! it happens!).
That point has been made over and over in this thread - I'm not suggesting that reading entire books is appropriate or that it helps the author. Previewing helps the author overall, although it enables some readers to freeload. But while those freeloaders are "wrong," they don't necessarily represent lost sales. If everyone who was reading "too much" of a book at the bookstore was told to go to the library, would that help the author's sales? Would libraries have to buy more copies of books because of the small percentage of people who read books for free in bookstores? It just seems to me that every time I check out a popular book at the library, I can see it has been checked out and read many times. I have a hard time believing it is somehow better for the author for people to read books at the library than at the bookstore. In either case, that reader most likely wasn't going to buy the book anyway.
The technology is already there, file size is not an issue as you noted, and we all have laptops and ipods, etc. But I can't see anyone taking a laptop to the toilet to read the paper or latest Newsweek.
Of course we have to look beyond even digital print - the mind boggles. Maybe a "book" that you implant into your head with some sort of interface.
I used to work at Barnes and Noble and I'll tell you why: People sit in those for hours, spill drinks and drop food, leave tons of books laying on the floor, sit down and have long conversations on their cellphone, rip pages out of books and magazines, teens and other people gather in them by the group, .
My observation is this. In the "old days", libraries went out and purchased the current books. Now, they are too much into providing free internet access and the books are way out of date.
Now, people go to the Barnes and Noble or the Borders store and read the books like they used to do in libraries. When they are done, they leave the books wherever. If they want a book to buy, they go online for a cheaper price.
I do not see how the large bookstores survive with all the freeloaders.
My observation is this. In the "old days", libraries went out and purchased the current books. Now, they are too much into providing free internet access and the books are way out of date.
actually, the libraries I go to tend to keep up w/ the new releases and get them around the same time book stores get them. problem is that many start a wait list before the release, so it may be hard to get a copy of a popular book
I don't know the inner workings of a library, but I assume it can't be that much different from a book store in that a library orders the necessary copies and receives them several days-2 weeks in advance, processes them, then puts them out for the public on the correct day (someone please correct me if this is false)
If I remember, we probably got the bestsellers around the day they came out, processed them, and got them out ASAP, probably within a week (This was in late 90's)
Also, libraries lease books, believe it or not. There is a company that leases popular books to libraries, to keep costs down. I know of one called McNaughton that does this a lot
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