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| look into the past… |
You’ve suspected it of course – that bookstore employees hid books they don’t agree with. I don’t think that it is the majority of them or even many of them, but certainly there are those who do take the opportunity to cause problems. I’ve noticed it at my local Barnes & Noble as well as other places. Thanks to LGF for mentioning all this and to Kesher Talk for tipping LGF.
“I am in NC (not saying which city for obvious reasons!). I have no problem telling a customer that Unfit For Command is not in. When in fact, it is hidden in our store. Hidden very well, I might add. Snicker, snicker.
I cannot in good conscience sell this libelous rant to anyone.” – quote in context
The above screen shots were taken by me on 09/15/2004 from a thread at Borders Union that has been taken down(google cached some of it here). In it some people claiming to be employees of Borders stores discussed hiding books they disagree with or destroying them. Now, it is the nature of “[[wp:blogosphere]]” reporting that some things simply may never be known for sure. For instance it is unclear that the two accounts shown in my screen shots actually belong to different people or even actual Borders employees.
To be fair a large number of posts in the thread were critical of the practice, but many of the posts represented a derogatory, insulting and condescending view of those who may be Republicans. Considering what’s happened with CBS I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be a little concerned when a lot of people who think your an idiot get together in one place.
“Frankly, many of my coworkers and I are growing very tired of taking abuse day after day about this stinking book. One of my coworkers (and while I agree with the sentiment, they shouldn’t have said it) who was taking crap from a wingnut on the phone finally lost it and said something to the effect of, “You know, I don’t know why you’d want to read it anyway. its all made up!” and hung up the phone. Everyday, we keep getting crap from them, and what the hell do we get in return? A note from Vin saying that no political coversation is allowed with anyone at anytime. (In case you were wondering, the store is not a very conservative one, but since its in the bible belt, they keep crawling out of the woodwork.)” – quote in context
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“We’re “finding” that most of the few copies we’re getting are damaged and need to be sent back, so sad. Too bad, Bushies! Regnery needs to be more careful. I’m hearing from people at 2 other stores that this seems to be common.
Why should we help destroy what’s left of our country?” – quote in context
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“You guys don?t actually HAVE to sell the thing!
Just ?carelessly? hide the boxes, ?accidentally? drop them off pallets, ?forget? to stock the ones you have, and then suggest a nice Al Franken or Micheal Moore book as a substitute. Borders wants those recommends, remember?
I don?t care if these Neandertals in fancy suits get mad at me, they aren?t regular customers anyway. Other than ?Left Behind? books, they don?t read. Anything you can do to make them feel unwelcome is only fair. They are the people pushing retailers to cut costs, don?t forget. And they would censor your speech, your books, your music in a heartbeat, so give them a taste of it!
Don?t get mad, get even!” – quote in context
This notice is now up at Borders Union. You will note how somehow any action of the employees is considered to be the fault of the company because they don’t apparently pay enough to hire folks with an IQ?
Dear visitors from the blogosphere:
Thank you for your interest in the Borders Union web site. Please be aware that it is not the policy of Borders Books, or of any of the Unions that represent its employees, to “hide” or refuse to sell a book based on political content. Borders management can be expected to take appropriate disciplinary measures if they catch employees interfering with sales.
Some people who post on our bulletin board do not work at Borders. We do not verify employment. According to IP Address records, the person who posted the “let’s hide the book” message was also posting under another name, responding to the messages he posted under his first name. Under his second ID, he claimed to be a conservative who was shocked that Borders employees would hide books. This suggests to us that this was a troll who was trying to manufacture controversy. His account(s) have been deleted. He was a new user. Other, long time users told him his ideas were bad. We are temporarily ending user registration to prevent further incidents of trolling. Accounts created on September 15th have been deactivated.
We have temporarily blocked access to a portion of the site in order to protect our webserver from crashing due to high traffic. Please be patient.
Since Borders, like many corporations, refuses to pay a Living Wage, Borders local customers have the option of speaking to an underpaid manager if they feel an underpaid floor employee is pursuing an agenda different from the sales agenda of the corporation.
Have a nice day.