The PhotoHunt theme for this week is TOGETHER.
Working in a bookstore gives you an interesting perspective on people and their political views. Especially during a Presidential election season.
For the last few months, we’ve had a big table filled with nothing but political books. Carefully chosen to evenly represent both major political parties.
Our staff members have daily assignment sheets that tell them what they need to be focusing on every hour of their shift. During election season, one of the assignments is to keep the “You Decide” political table straight. Why do we have to assign a babysitter to that table, you ask?
Because a bunch of people who can’t play nicely together keep messing with it. They come in and turn the books upside down for whoever doesn’t agree with their point of view. Or they take a favorable book for their guy and cover up all the unfavorable ones.
One day, one of our booksellers discovered an entire stack of favorable books about one of the candidates had disappeared. After an all-out search, they were located — stashed behind the Uncle Johns Bathroom Readers in the humor section.
But, now the election is over. And all of those political books are of no interest to anyone. The table that used to say “You Decide” now is filled with holiday books.
And what do we do with all those political books, you ask? We box them up TOGETHER and send them back to the publishers. They will turn around and send them out to anyone they can palm them off on. Eventually, used book dealers will buy what is left and sell them on the internet for $1.99 plus shipping. Such a deal!