“Whether the Andrea Gail rolls,
pitch-poles, or gets driven down, she winds up, one way or another, in a
position from which she cannot recover. Among marine architects this is known
as the zero-moment point – the point of no return.” –Sebastian Junger, “The
Perfect Storm”
Posts like this aren’t my usual fare, but there’s a lot of
readers on Tumblr. So y’all might be interested – or, if not, you really should
be.
On Monday, this went down:
That’s the bloodless, matter-of-fact, ho-hum business event
way of describing it. Let me paint you a different picture.
On Monday morning, every single Barnes & Noble location –
that’s 781 stores – told their full-time employees to pack up and leave. The
eliminated positions were as follows: the head cashiers (those are the people
responsible for handling the money), the receiving managers (the people
responsible for bringing in product and making sure it goes where it should),
the digital leads (the people responsible for solving Nook problems), the newsstand
leads (the people responsible for distributing the magazines), and the bargain
leads (the people responsible for keeping up the massive discount sections). A
few of the larger stores were able to spare their head cashiers and their
receiving managers, but not many.
Just about everyone lost between 3 and 7 employees. The
unofficial numbers put the total around 1,800 people.
People.
We’re not talking post-holiday culling of seasonal workers.
This was the Red Wedding. Every person laid off was a full-time
employee. These were people for whom Barnes & Noble was a career.
Most of them had given 5, 10, 20 years to the company. In most cases it was
their sole source of income.
Sorta just want to reblog this and say that I have been a part-time employee of Barnes and Noble for a year and a half. It’s been a great place to work and has helped me through a very strange period of my life (like that part where I started dying in 2016) and has kept me from being homeless and hungry. Coming in to work on Tuesday to learn that 6 people, people who I worked with everyday, had been let go the day before has been really upsetting. I cannot begin to imagine how hard that was to carry out for every single store manager, to come into work and have to fire 3-7 of your most experienced, full-time employees. In our morning meeting today, my store manager cried. She is still very raw about having to do this. We all understand that this is (supposedly) how major retail will survive for now but it’s really shitty being on the human side of this decision. Anyway, I just want to say, if you happen to be in a Barnes and Noble in the near future, be nice to us all, part-time booksellers and baristas and the local management staff. This was not a decision made by anyone you’re going to see in a store. We’re still sorta struggling to figure out how to even staff the store without our full-time employees. The business is just trying survive and those of us who still work there are doing exactly the same thing.
not that much going on but I’m still alive. My last semester will start in a couple of weeks. I should probably be looking at grad schools but I have no idea how you do that. I don’t really like my job but they give me money. I’m trying to find a doctor out here because I only have three months of drugs left and my energy has been a bit low this last month and I want to start exercising and my body is exercise intolerant.
That’s pretty much it.
Last night, boyfriend got back from his two and a half months of bird research and we ate ice cream, watched Six Feet Under, had really slow sex for three and a half hours, went to brunch, and then had more sex before he drove me to work. Ya boy is having a great fucking time, I missed him so so so much, I think I love him but I’m terrified of sharing that bc FEELINGS, man
I got absolutely plastered tonight and found my MP3 player from 10 years ago in my bedroom and tbh I did not have the worst taste in music. I’m listening to The Cranberries. Also, I really really think I’m in love, I love my boyfriend! He’ll be back in the cities at the end of next week and I’m so fucking excited, like, yes I’m drunk but I think I could spend the rest of my life with him. He makes me feel like I’m 18 and exciting again. I cannot wait for him to get back up here!!!
listen……. ‘my love’ is literally the strongest and greatest pet name in existence. there is literally nothin better than somone callin you that….. especially when things are soft and quiet and they look at you with utter adoration and whisper “what’s the matter, my love??” or “i hope everything is okay with you, my love” like oh my god?? let me marry you already
A customer at work called her girlfriend “my love” and my heart fucking hurt and made me really miss my boyfriend
I started work today and I forgot how much work work is, like damn, I got lazy
also, I have a 70 minute commute (so two hours and 20 minutes per day) bc I don’t have a car and work all the way over at the mall of america because I’m dumb ughhhghghghgh
anyway, work was fine. I forgot how passive aggressive Minnesotans are.
I bought a really cheap dildo on Amazon because my boyfriend is doing bird research in literally as far south Iowa as you can go. Anyway, it has a really great suction cup, like I could hang my winter coat from this, except raising my eyebrows makes it fall off (walls don’t have eyebrows so that is not a problem). It came with a free bottle of lube that is bigger than the dildo. Thanks Memorial Day sales!
It’s not even 10 am yet and my roommates already have a friend over and are yelling while playing a sports videogame. Straight people, why are you like this? I’m quiet when I have boy over and would appreciate it if you did the same.
I was getting head in bed this morning but we realized that we were about to be running late to our friend’s capstone presentation and, like the Good Christian™ that I am, I sacrificed my orgasm and headed over to school. Hopefully I get into heaven now
So all the geology seniors presented their capstones and theses last night and it was hecka stressful and we were all super sleep deprived but it is over now! I maybe didn’t present the most interesting research but I did make one of my professors who grew up in Philly long for the Jersey Shore so I accomplished something.
▲ask▲ Hi, I'm Eamon. I'm twenty-two and I live in St Paul, MN although I'm from South Jersey. I study geology, work with Habitat for Humanity, and worship the Oxford Comma.
