Book quiz gone wrong
I decided to apply to be a clerk at a bookstore down the street, as it’s well established and eccentric enough that it makes a news story every few years.
The clerk who gave me the application warned me it had a test attached and I’d need to make extra time. I didn’t have anywhere to be so I stuck around. The packet in total took me close to an hour.
After the general application questions were literature questions that honestly made me feel unenlightened. They asked about the regions Eudora Welty wrote about, Button Gwinnett’s occupation, Bible verses. What Alfred Stieglitz did, even though his name was misspelled on the test.
Surely they were all famous names, but the majority were titles and authors I just hadn’t encountered yet.
The clerk got the manager after I was finished. The first thing she did was to glance at my application and say, “Oh, you’re at X school? We don’t usually hire students because we have day shifts.
What days are you available?”
At this point I was pretty irritated. Why wouldn’t a bookstore hire students from next door?
The manager looked me in the eye for the first time and said, “Well, I’m asking you.” At this point I politely asked for my bag from behind the counter and said I was leaving.
I was thrilled to walk out of that place.
/watercolorfxg