Ordnung muss sein.

I'm less on edge at work. People actually have been very very good about mask wearing in the store. I just have to occasionally ask them to wear it over their nose. They just don't realize it's falling down. I had a guy try to come in with a pair of shorts wrapped around his face. I told him get a real face covering please. Some lady said she was medically exempt. I said I'm sorry she has a disability but no mask no entry sorry. She wasn't happy. So far nobody has reported feeling ill and it's been a month.

The civil rights movement currently going on hasn't affected my life directly other than dinner table debates with some of my more conservative family members but they listen well and are subject to change for the most part. At work we recently hung up a new banner with our store name and logo and the phrase "Hate has no business here" under it.

Can't really complain too much. Unless we're talking about cheapskates who want things for free in my store for no reason. Then I have LOTS to talk about.

Tell us an outrageous example please.

Four days ago a customer who will occasionally come in and buy a record came in and picked a bunch of nice stuff off the wall. I recognized him and asked how he's been since winter as it was the first time since we closed that I saw him. He immediately asked what the best deal was on the records he picked out. I told him what I tell everybody over the last month who asks..."sorry, no discounts during the pandemic."

He didn't like that.

He basically scoffed at me and asked again what the best I could do was. I added it up. $187. I tell him $187. I told him that we were closed for four months and have been open for four weeks. We are still recouping the $30,000 in revenue that we lost during those four months so for the time being, we're going to just be like, you know, a regular store.

Still didn't like that. Asked what is so expensive about running a store like ours.

Now he's pissing me off. I told him that's it's none of his business and that it's $187. Thanks.

He asks me "This is how you treat a good customer?"

I tell him flat out "I've told you three times we've been closed for four months with no revenue. I haven't raised my prices. I saved all the records we bought for reopening. I'm not taking less money as a reward for starving our income for four months. That'll be $187 please."

He says, "well I count $175."

I say "Tax".

He tells me he's not paying tax. I tell him he in fact is paying tax, because this is how it works in the American system of buying things in stores, and that if this conversation doesn't end, I can take the records and put them back on the wall and he can have a nice day.

He tosses two hundreds on the counter. I toss a ten and three singles back on the counter. He didn't get a bag. "All out, sorry."

F*ck that prick.

lol That’s wild. I don’t remember ever once getting into it with a record store guy. I watched my friend go off on the owner because he didn’t have a new release in stock yet. I was just thinking wtf he can’t help it if the label hasn’t shipped it out yet or whatever. Just order it from the label.

What about shoplifters?

I mean it definitely happens. I occasionally find records in the bins that have NO business being priced that way which only tells me that somebody witched the bags on a $12 and $4 record. I put the stickers on the bags as to not damage the LP jackets but it leaves it open for bag switching. We just recently put all the LPs in the front room by us though so they'd have to do it right in front of our eyes now. Not likely.

Sounds almost like a regular day at any store I worked at or ran.

We had two big burly guys come in on a busy Saturday night wanting to sell
really crap records and complained when I told them they weren't worth
anything ("Frampton Comes Alive"...). After these guys kept on raising their
voices and shouting and the whole thing reaching a fever pitch of agitation,
I had enough and shoved their two boxes of records off the counter and onto
the floor and told them to get out. We didn't notice until we were closing that night,
that on their way out the door, they grabbed an employee's leather jacket
which had his car and house keys and probably other stuff in it that was
hanging up near the entrance to the store. They were arrested shortly afterwards.

Anything else you’d like to tell us Exo or have we about covered it?

Hopefully I'm not doing this for the rest of my life but if I am I guess it's not so bad. Maybe I'll be the next Rostasi. :beer: