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The Customer Is Always Wrong: The Retail Chronicles | 
 enlarge | Creator: Jeff Martin
Publisher: Soft Skull Press
Category: Book
List Price: $12.95
Buy New: $7.35
You Save: $5.60 (43%)
New (21) Used (9) from $6.00
Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 215189
Media: Paperback
Pages: 192
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5 x 0.6
ISBN: 193336890X
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.8120207
EAN: 9781933368900
ASIN: 193336890X
Publication Date: October 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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Product Description
From mom-and-pop general stores to big-box, strip-mall chains, it is impossible to consider the American experience without thinking about the buying-and-selling retail culture: the sales and the stockrooms, the shift managers, and the clock punchers. The Customer Is Always Wrong is a tragicomic and all-too revealing collection of essays by writers who have done their time behind the counter and lived to tell their tales. Jim DeRogatis, author of Let It Blurt, for example, describes hanging out with Al himself at Al Rocky’s Music Store, while Colson Whitehead explains how three summers at a Long Island ice cream store gave him a lifelong aversion to all things dessert-like. This book not only shines a light on the absurdities of retail culture but finds the delight in it as well.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
good light reading December 29, 2008
oregonian girl (Portland, OR United States)
I actually bought this book to read on breaks at work. Easy to stop and start reading again, and it's always nice to know I'm not the only one who has to deal with people like this. Mostly funny, some good other reading might come from the authors in this book.
Ohh we've all got a retail tale.... December 12, 2008
Luanne Ollivier
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Well this seems like an appropriate time to post this review. The countdown is on ...only twelve shopping days left until Christmas......
The Customer is Always Wrong is an eclectic collection of essays penned by writers who have done time in the retail jungle. I think most of us have "served the public" in a retail capacity at some point in our lives - your first job, putting yourself through university or an extra part time job to make ends meet. For some people it's a fantastic fit, for others - well, it's not. As Jeff Martin says in his introduction, "If this book can help shed a little more light on the often-disregarded retail experience, then we have done our job and done it well."
I was hooked from the first story - a college age student's summer job in a large department store chain, the descriptions of the rah rah manager and the attitudes and antics of the staff had me laughing out loud. The tales cover the gamut - from an upscale spa, a video store, home improvement, coffee shop, porn warehouse plus more. One of the best was Wendy Spero's tale of door to door knife sales, preying on friends and family. The saddest was the porn store, though not for the reasons you might think. The most fascinating was Elaine Viets. She writes a series called The Dead-End Job Mysteries. She actually takes on retail jobs to research her characters.
Having worked in a large retail chain for many years myself, I could appreciate many of the crazy, imperious and downright odd demands made by customers. I often said to the staff that we could write a book based on the almost daily occurrence. However there was good as well, but there aren't that many of those stories in The Customer is Always Wrong. My only complaint - it wasn't long enough! I devoured it in one sitting. Martin himself works in a bookstore - I'm sure that that's a book waiting to be written.......
 Tales of Retail Woefully Useless. November 7, 2008
Ink & Penner (Illinois)
2 out of 9 found this review helpful
Here's a compliment of quick, go-nowhere looks at the "selling" from the other side of the counter -from 20 or so obviously-bored folks who stumbled into retail sales in one way or another. The result is a tiresome, hodge-podge of observation, put-downs, name-calling, assumption and weak humor. The writers work in a worthy profession but carry an "in between-jobs" attitude -college students, the experienced, a gay guy, edgy women. We get detailed first-hand views and anecdotes on co-workers, shoppers, diners, customers in ways that suggest the authors border on: the uncaring, carefree and careless.
"To cope with needy oldsters isn't so hard if you know you're killing them off at the same time," claims one of the book's "enlightened" contributors who, writing in a streak of lame humor, works in an IHOP knock-off. -Insensitive, yes? -Amusing? No. Thick with woe-is-me,"victim"-like whining throughout, we hear from a variety of retail floor, counter and register personnel who all thought it useful to share their customer "service" anguish with us. The outcome is an uninspiring book, loaded with good writing but with lots of meaningless, downbeat, who-cares opinion.
-Overall, sounds like these writers don't much like their work, the people they work with or the public they "sell" to. So, then move on! Instead, though, they prefer the day-to-day self-flogging they undergo as lackluster sales "help," as told in page after page of confession-session-like scowling. These stories are mostly pointless...no conclusions, no solutions. They ramble. They might, though, interest others in retail who can claim similarly misplaced feelings about their own customers: as enemy, not as livelihood. -Does makes one wonder how much of the ole' under-the-counter, spit-in-the-hamburger trick is alive and well today.
"The Customer is Always Wrong"? This book is what's wrong....
 THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS WRONG ed. by Jeff Martin November 6, 2008
Gandhi the Vile (Tulsa, OK)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
The Customer Is Always Wrong is a collection of essays on retail life. The book is edited by Jeff Martin, manager of a Tulsa Barnes and Noble, and features 21 anecdotes by writers you most likely will never have heard of about their own personal experiences working at a wide selection of retail jobs.
For the most part, the essays range in quality from slightly boring to fairly amusing. A highlight is Victor Gischler's tale of his time spent selling hearing aids, which made me laugh for two solid minutes.
Anybody who's worked in or shopped retail (that is, everybody) can relate to something in this book, and it's an entertaining enough read.
Essays: None horrible, none fantastic September 16, 2008
Charlie (Virginia, USA)
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
About: Collection of short essays penned by various writers on their experiences working retail.
Pros: Quick, easy read. Varied essays, none super-horrible. Wendy Spero's tale about selling knives door to door is a highlight.
Cons: No super great essays. I had not heard of any of the writers
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