Amac Productions

Welcome to Listen To This!

If you’re new here, welcome! Every month, I’ll drop a new wild story from all my years working in retail! Names and other identifiers have been changed so everyone may remain anonymous. All terrible customers will be referred to as Karen or Daren (male.)

No Gay Books, But I’d Like to Work in the Gay Bookshop

Welcome, welcome, please come in! Welcome to General Nonsense!

On the way into the store, please note on the front windows where the hours are that it says, ‘everyone welcome.’ With a bunch of little rainbow flags and a whole bunch of others symbolizing all the groups we welcome.

Those aren’t there by mistake. No.

And while everyone is welcome, we reserve the right to throw you out if you’re asshole. Are we clear?

Because apparently, someone missed the memo.

Now, I’m not sure why anyone would think a bookstore is a good place to look for prejudice people, but it does happen. We get assholes like anywhere else.

But I’m telling you right now – overall – it’s one of the most accepting places you can be. Most of all here at the General Nonsense. The staff here has a running joke that everyone who works there is gay until they otherwise tell us. It’s just assumed.

Because 95% of us fall somewhere on the spectrum.

It’s a chill place to work. A chill place to be yourself. A chill place for customers alike to be themselves. For examples, the number of teens we get in the store looking to read LGBTQ plus books is crazy. Most of them looking to understand themselves better. Needing someone to guide them to the words they want to use to understand themselves.

To find themselves in the pages of a book.

To find themselves in the staff members who work there. Real live human beings who made it out of this awkward age into adulthood and are comfortable in their own skin.

A place where they’re surrounded by people like them.

It’s a chill place. It’s one of the reasons that no matter how crazy it gets, or the new brand of crazy customers come in with. We choose to work here. The employees and friendships forged here are unlike anything else.

Which is why, it’s exceptionally funny when shit like this happens and we’re all dying in laughter together rather than hate.

One of the things that happens a lot in a bookstore is getting asked for recommendations. As booksellers and book lovers, we read books. Lots of them, across all genres, and tend to have a lot of knowledge to pull from.

It’s not like working in a grocery store. Sorry I haven’t tested all the shampoos to tell you which is the best. I don’t know what you should pick. I’m paid to put crap on a shelf.

In a bookstore, we tend to read a lot of the items that come through. Or maybe a coworker has. Or a customer. Or we see trends and what’s selling like crazy. We have a lot of information to draw on.

Makes sense to me.

So, this woman walks up to one of my coworkers and asks Sara for help picking a book.

Well, here’s the thing, when someone asks you for a recommendation, we don’t just name whatever book we like most.

I mean, unless I’m in the children’s section mine, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief really isn’t applicable to everyone.

Usually, we ask some follow-up questions to get a sense of what the person is interested in.

Sometimes, our location will help with that information. For example, if I’m standing in the fiction section and someone asks me for a recommendation, generally, I’d assume fiction is what they want.

However, if I’m at the customer service desk, I don’t have that edge. It’s basically the entire store they’re looking for. That’s a lot of effing books. Let me tell you.

Sara on this particular day is standing at the customer service desk and asks for some clarification on what they’re interested in. She wants a love story.

Sara’s like, cool, romance. Got it.

“But not like a romance book.”

Blink blink.

I mean, typically romance is where we keep the love stories. But alright.

It’s not as odd as you think to get this sort of twist to the request. Some people don’t want a focal love story. Sometimes, they want a love story happening in the background while there’s a different story going on in the focus. This tends to become a Sci-Fi or Fantasy Rec. Sometimes, it’s a fiction rec as well. But that’s a much rarer ask.

Not impossible.

Usually, the romance occurs but the fiction novel is about an entirely different topic. That’s just a piece rather than the forefront.

Sci-Fi and Fantasy usually intertwine the two which has made it’s own category at this point, Romantasy. It’s typically the one people want when they don’t want an outright romance.

Sara is like sure, I got you.

And is a bit relieved because romance is not her strong suit.

Sara suggests takes her to the fantasy section of the store and begins pointing out several books. Offering brief descriptions about the plots and seeing if she bits on any of them.

Except she doesn’t. Instead, she’s standing there looking like she sucked a lemon.

“Aren’t these a bit graphic?”

Sara blinks. “What type of graphic? Like violence? Sex? Swearing?”

Like come on lady, be specific in what you’re looking or not looking for.

“All of it.”

Well, shit. I wouldn’t even know what to say to that one, but Sara is a trooper and carries on. “No. Not all of them.”

“No. These are too old.”

Sara is confused because some of these were published in the last five years. Da f*ck does that mean?

“I’m sorry?”

“These are too old for my daughter.”

Well shit.

Lady, at no point in the previous conversations did you mention this wasn’t for you. You asked for some recommendations that had a love story without it being the entire focus and Sara thought it was for you!

Which yes, I can see how this section might not seem like the right fit. Okay, sure. We can work with this. Even if Sara’s frustrated with the details you’ve left out.

And don’t blame Sara for not asking either. Most people tell us they’re looking for something for their children or they have the f*cking child with them. We don’t have to guess or ask 20 questions to find out who they’re shopping for. And normally, when someone doesn’t say it’s for someone else, we assume it’s them!

“How old is your daughter?” Sara asks.

“13. Going on 14.” She explains. “She’s starting to be interested in romance, and I just want to get her something to read that doesn’t have a lot of sex in it.”

Sure. Okay. Fine.

Don’t judge this woman yet, okay? It’s not time yet.

Because this happens. A lot of people like to pretend that sex doesn’t exist when it comes to their kids. And there are times when we as booksellers will offer up a clarification about whether or not a book has sex in it when we can clearly see it’s a child. The amount of times we’ve done it with Colleen Hoover book is crazy.

It becomes popular and it’s talked about in school and then the kid wants it. Parent doesn’t check or assumes that if all the kids are reading it, then it must be fine. Then they’ll come in with a ten-year-old and we’ll clarify this is in the adult romance section and isn’t really a kid’s book. I mean, you can parent how you want. But don’t blame us, because we’re trying to tell you.

People can parent and explain sex to their children in their own time. Or suffer the consequences of not bothering or being too afraid to.

No. The judgment comes as Sara leads her to the fiction section of the Young Adult section.

Where Sara is quite comfortable, honestly. Able to rattle off several authors and series with ease. Quality and interest from teens as well as adults. Because there’s quite a lot in that section.

We’re all pretty well read in there. A lot of younger authors and forward-thinking authors find themselves writing in that section. Which is supposed to be considered a lower form of writing but has some of the best authors. At least, in my opinion. And several people I’ve worked with over the years.

Sara is about halfway through the description of several books when she’s interrupted by the woman.

“None of these have gay people, do they?”

Sara blinks, startled.

Because although this encounter hasn’t gone perfectly, it wasn’t terrible either. However, things might have just taken a turn for the worse. “I’m sorry?”

“I don’t want any gay people or trans or whatever the hell people are trending with nowadays.” The woman waves her hand. “It’s ridiculous honestly.”

And I’d like to tell you what she said after that. I really would. But Sara sort of went bluescreen after that sentence. Only managing to get pieces of homophobia as the woman ranted about gay people being everyone and not wanting to put ideas in her daughter’s hand. Sara was pretty sure that was the gist of the rant.

However, the exact words were lost on Sara because she was trying to extricate herself from this conversation before she lost her temper.

Once the woman was done ranting. Sara shrugged and said almost all of the Young Adult section possessed some form of the LGBTQ community. She honestly didn’t know of one off the top of her head without one.

Which tracks because that’s the genre in the Young Adult section Sara enjoys reading. All the gay stuff.

The woman gets upset, especially as Sara says this is where she should look for something her daughter’s age. Any younger won’t really have romance and older will be too ‘adult.’ Karen asks if anyone else might have some recs for her in the section of straight romance.

And while one of us might know, Sara thought the better of asking the rest of the gayest staff in history not to recommend a story with gay characters.

“I doubt it.” Sara explained. “I’m a Young Adult expert here right now and I can’t think of anything. But if you’d like to poke around and look for one, this is where you should look.”

This diffuses the woman and she nods, looking through the section herself for something.

Then, the icing on the cake.

“Are there any job openings here?” Karen asks as Sara is about to walk away.

Sara blinks, super freaking confused and asks for clarification. Karen explains that she’s looking for a job in the mornings now that her children are out of the house more. She thinks here might be a good fit for her since she likes to read.

Without even hesitating, “NO.”

Sara recounted that she said it so emphatically that she startled herself and Karen.

“No.” She says again. “We’re not hiring.”

“Bummer.”

Sara nods slowly. “Besides, you wouldn’t want to work here anyway.” Sara also recounted that that came out before she could stop herself.

“Why?” Karen asked, geninuely curiously.

And Sara thought that she had already gone this far, may as well go for broke. “Too many gay people.”

Karen’s jaw nearly fell off, and Sara wandered off to tell us this story in the breakroom where our store manager, Julia is half listening until the very end of the story. Then she turns in her chair and very decisively says, “I wouldn’t have hired her. She’d hate my staff. Can’t have that.”

And returned to work.

So yeah. That happened. Happy Pride Month!

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