A record store employee was nice to me!

[Fight_n_back]

What should we call record stores now anyway? Places that I can't download from? It makes me feel old just remembering records. My 8 year old daughter asked me what movies I owned when I was a kid and it was difficult to explain to her that the only way I could see movies at her age was to go to a theater so making a reference to someone acting like they are an LP playing at 45 RPM is going to go nowhere. Tower calls itself "Tower Music" but it seems stupid to say I am going to the music store, "I need a b flat and some inverted chords". anyway

Usually my encounters with record store personnell are along the lines of "We should be paying you to take this" or the irreprssible rolling of the eyes when asking where something is but this time was different.

The sign said that Nortec Collective was on sale but also had dates on the sign indicating that the sale had ended. I asked a passerby who seemed to work there. She had the most piercings so I think she was manager. She actually instructed the cashier to give it to me for the sale price! I was able to use the extra 3 dollars to upgrade the new headphones I was also buying. Woo Hoo

The album is quite good BTW. It is now the soundtrack for my life.

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. Holy shit, that's unusual, except in the classical sections

of music stores that have people that actually know classical music.

I've never had good service from the flunkies working at record stores in the rock or alternative or whatever areas. Always treat me, and I see them treat others, like war criminals and/or great inconveniences and/or utter dumbfucks for not knowing where shit is, which bands that are similar, what year so and so did his 9" single, etc.

Same as your previous experience.

I also find that same attitude in music stores selling instruments and sheet music.

Nasty fucking people.

[ghostsofgiants]

2. Intersting...I always have great service at record stores...

I'm always greeted with "That's a good album!" or "You should check out ____; you'd like them I think." Things of that nature. Friendly atmosphere all around.

[Rabrrrrrr]

11. Perhaps it was just the "vibe" of Madison, WI

When I was growing up, and the ignorance/attitude level of the staff at Tower in NYC (except for the classical department - helpful, smart, friendly people there)

But even in some music stores in MI (when I lived there), and elsewhere I've encountered them, mostly they're surly over-pierced "You can't possibly be listening to anything good like this one band I really like which is like the greatest band ever until next week when I have another greatest alternative band ever and my vacant stare is because as an alternative I have to remain aloof and superior and the other alternative people in here are all fucking poseur losers who listen to the wrong band, like you, because everyone with a brain knows that a pure alternative band has the DRUMMER as the hat wearer, not the lady who sings and plays acoustic guitar, who should wear a vest, not the bassist like that puking other fake band"

- OR -

they're "Oooh, why would you listen to something that isn't pop? David Bowie? That's really obscure, I don't know if we carry them" fucking ignorant

- OR -

the ever popular "I'm looking for some jazz", "That would be in the jazz section (keep head down, don't look at customer, shake hair a little, slur words, mumble, don't move hands at all) over there"

[tigereye]

12. that's why the movie High Fidelity is so funny!

no, I knew guys like that when I "lived" in record stores. They were cranky and moody as shit. There were never any women who worked in these places, usually the hipster places that carried either used or newer hipster/punk/alt stuff. I knew most of the people who worked in these places, so they were nice to me, but oohh, the things they would say about people who were "uninformed/uncool" in their view were nasty. And some of the people who worked in one store I used to frequent were actually incapable of talking to anyone they didn't know or wasn't in a band they liked. Oh well. The other peeve I had was folks who think that Kenny G and JOhn Tesh constitute a jazz section.

:cry:

I would have loved to have been waited on by FSC and Pmom. That would have been way cool.

[progmom]

3. :(

I put in 6 years of being a record store flunkie. :hi:

[billyskank]

4. I'm sure you were the least surly record shop assistant

in the history of record shops. :)

[fudge stripe cookays]

7. Nope, that was me.

"Perky and upbeat" were always on my evaluations. Seriously.

FSC

[tjwmason]

5. I'm sure you were the star-employee.

:hi:

[billyskank]

6. Wow simultaneous praise by two Englishmen

howdya like that?

[fudge stripe cookays]

8. I still call them record stores,

and I don't care what some little snot-nosed "music store" clerk says to me about what they are. I was doing that crap when they were in diapers.

I worked in a record store when we actually had to carry honking huge notebooks around with a pencil to do inventories!

Anyone who has only experienced surly record store clerks never came to my store in the 80s.

Unless it was when someone had just put on Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock for the 100 millionth time. THEN you'd see me surly.

Or Christmas. No retail employee can be held responsible for their actions during the yuletide season.

Especially when they have been forced, in quick succession to listen to the same 10 fucking Christmas carols sung by George Strait, Amy Grant, Michael Jackson, Michael Bolton, and Kenny G.

progmom and I are the last of a vanishing breed, alas.
FSC

[petronius]

9. LOL - the most piercings

That does seem like an excellent way to identify the manager - I wonder if they have promotion ceremonies at the jewelry shop...

[mitchum]

10. Maybe they thought you were Kim Gordon's daughter