retail

#1119: The Olde Toys R Us Store Sure Has Changed…

RECORD STORE TALES #1119: The Olde Toys R Us Store Sure Has Changed…

Where Toys R Us stands today in Kitchener Ontario, there once was a drive-in movie theater.  That was torn down in the early 1980s, and the mighty Toys R Us was raised.  There it has loomed heavy over Fairview Mall across the street, for four decades, beckoning children with aisles and aisles of Star Wars toys, then replaced by GI Joe figures and Transformers.  It was impossible to enter Toys R Us without finding something you wanted.  It has ebbed and waned since then, now stuffed with unwanted and overpriced 6″ figures and Super 7 cards.

“At least we still have a Toys R Us,” we say.  “Mastermind Toys is closing, and Walmart sucks.  Now let’s go check out the vinyl at the Toys R Us store.”

Full stop.  What?  Vinyl at Toys R Us?

In another attempt to stay relevant as Hasbro drives their prices up and quality down, creating shelfwarming superheroes and Sith lords, Toys R Us is now stocking vinyl at their Kitchener location.

Last time I visited there, about a month ago, they were in the process of re-organizing.  Where the Lego and Hasbro products were, was becoming a book section.  Interesting!  Book stores haven’t done well in the area, with the short-lived Booksmarts closing a decade ago, across Wilson Ave from TRU.  Still, we must applaud any attempts to get kids reading books.  I didn’t have a look at the book section myself; nothing caught my eye.  What did catch my view was the familiar shape of white bins containing shrink-wrapped packages, 12″ by 12″.  Each one was different, boasting vibrant artwork.

They were not calendars.  They were records.  Vinyl had come to Toys R Us.

The first one I noticed was Prequelle by Ghost.  $25.  Not bad.  I picked it up in my eager hands.

I considered buying Ghost on vinyl at that price.  Oh, sure, I already own a CD copy with a lenticular cover and bonus tracks, but…vinyl, right?

I put it back.  Ghost are more of a car band for me.  I wouldn’t play the vinyl more than twice.  Decent price though.

Thinking of the bands aching to be collected on vinyl back at home, I looked for Kiss and Iron Maiden.  No Kiss; lots of The Killers though.  The albums were loosely organized.  Toys R Us doesn’t have a dedicated person for this section to keep things organized, and…ouch!!  What’s that?  A record was clumsily wedged between two rows, pulling the cover in two directions and creating an ugly crease.  I put the records back in rows, but this is why you need a dedicated person when you put a record store inside a toy store.

There were some interesting finds there.  Purple Rain on vinyl would be cool to have.  I chuckled when I saw a Linkin Park Meteora 2.0 box set.  Jen used to love Linkin Park.  I bought her the Linkin Park/Jay-Z album for Christmas when we were dating.

Over to Iron Maiden.  They had a decent selection – better than a lot of the local chain stores.  Several albums I needed on vinyl, and even the three-LP En Vivo set.  A-ha!  Number of the Beast.  I just got ripped off at The Beat Goes On with an overpriced copy a few weeks prior.  How does Toys R Us pricing compare?

Cheaper!  Four bucks cheaper!  Toys R Us had The Number of the Beast four bucks cheaper than the $40 copy I bought at The Beat Goes On across the street.  How can Toys R Us be beating The Beat Goes On, a dedicated music store, in prices?  According to friend Kevin, the record sections are actually little HMVs.  They also have one in St. Catharines.

“They really need to work on their merchandising,” said Chris Preston, who had copious notes on how to improve this situation.  “No genres whatsoever,” he added.  Chris also felt it was a big miss to not sell turntables or accessories with the records.

There was no signage, and the records were as much in order as you’d find at the local mall stores.  There were no letter groups – A, B, C, etc.  Many additional records were not displayed at all, and just shoved into a lower shelf.  That’s where I found Purple Rain.  They did have coloured vinyl and limited editions.  It wasn’t a bad little corporate record section, if it was properly cared for.

I questioned the wisdom of placing a record section in a store primarily occupied by running and screaming pairs of hands, right around record shelf height.  I dealt with this at a CD store, remember.  I think they’re gambling on the nerd factor.  Those people who are coming in for the newest Lego releases or collectible figures.  They’re hoping those people will also stop and buy a record.

“Nerds like records too now, right?”  You can imagine an executive asking that question in a boardroom, somewhere in a downtown metropolis where decisions such as these are made.

Considering three, briefly, I ended up not buying any.  I considered but dismissed Prequelle, and also Somewhere In Time and Powerslave by Iron Maiden.  The prices were a little high for Maiden albums that I remember being stocked at $10 or less at the downtown Sam the Record Man in 1989.  Incidentally, Toys R Us had Powerslave cheaper than Amazon at the exact same time, also by about four bucks.

What does it mean when Toys R Us stores are stocking vinyl in a makeshift music section, but no other formats like CD or cassette?

I think this means we have hit peak vinyl.  HMV is dumping their stock in these micro-locations, because they have too much.  I’ve seen it before.  We did similar things when we had too many CDs in our warehouse.  The Boss Man tried moving them in bulk to a micro-location.  That was one of many schemes that I remember.

I do look forward to buying at least one record at Toys R Us in the future.  I’ll keep the price tag on forever, just to prove it happened.

My overpriced Beast vinyl from The Beat Goes On.  I wonder how the old Boss Man feels about another chain inching in on his territory, with cheaper prices?

#1118: I Wonder…

RECORD STORE TALES #1118: I Wonder…

I recently enjoyed a trip to Burlington Ontario, a place I have not been since the early 2000s working at the Record Store.

Driving down Highway 6, I wondered, is that place with the funky dinosaurs on the front lawn still in business?  I remember they had a T-Rex with a missing head.  And yes!  That business, Flamborough Patio Furniture, is still there and still has the T-Rex.  They even fixed the decapitation damage.  I was impressed.

A lot of other businesses didn’t make it.  There was Grasshopper Imports, a weed accessory shop with a tie-dye pattern on its walls.  It almost survived the last 20 years, but is now closed and for sale.

I wonder what else changed since my last trip to Burlington, in the world of the Record Store?

Do they still force their employees to drive down Highway 6 to manage two stores in the winter time, with cars that are barely snow-worthy, like they did to me?  I remember asking them, “When you do plan on hiring a full time manager for that store?  I’m concerned about the drive in the winter.”  Without sympathy, I was told “other people have to do that drive too.”  Yeah, maybe, but I had my own store to manage in Kitchener.  Driving to Oakville every day at Christmas time wasn’t what I was hired to do.

Do they pay mileage, or make employees wait months, like I did?

Do people still come in daily with hundreds of CDs to sell?  Or has vinyl taken over once again?

Do they still have a TV in that Burlington store to show movies?  Does that guy who was roommates with Scott Anderson from Finger 11 still work there?  I’m guessing no, to both.

I’m just glad the dinosaurs still live.  It’s comforting to know that T-Rex has his head back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

#1115: The Winds of Change

RECORD STORE TALES #1115: The Winds of Change

My time in music retail was relatively long, considering how taxing on the soul it can be buying used music from the public on the wrong side of town.  I started in July of 1994, in a small store in a small mall in Kitchener, Ontario, called The Beat Goes On.  We sold some used, some new.  In 1996, I began managing a new store that was a slightly different format:  95% used, with a small Top 40 chart of new CDs.  I stayed there until early 2006.  12 years total, with 10 in management.  Over those 12 years, I witnessed so many changes to the way we did business.  Join me for a journey through time.

Ah, 1994.  I had just start dating a new girlfriend.  Motley Crue had come out with their John Corabi album, which was easily my favourite disc of the year.  I wore cowboy boots to my job interview with the boss man at the Record Store.  I was hired and nervously stepped behind the counter and did my first transactions.

We had a huge cash register, and still took cheques.  Credit cards were processed with one of those imprint machines that made the satisfying CHK-CHK sound when you imprinted the card.  Then began a long process of writing in dollar amounts and getting a signature.  Today, one tap and you’re done!  When we got a debit machine, it used the same phone line as the actual store phone.  When someone called the store, it would interrupt your debit transaction if you had one going.  You usually ended up with two impatient customers that way:  one on the phone and one in front of you!

Our stock was part CD and part cassette, but tapes were on their way out and we only bought and sold used CDs.  The reasoning was it was easier to check a CD for quality visually, looking for scratches.  We carried only those two formats, until one day in November 1994.  Pearl Jam came out with Vitalogy in 1994 on vinyl, two weeks before its cassette and CD releases.  The first vinyl I ever sold.  We only stocked five copies because nobody was buying vinyl back then.  We probably should have stocked 15 or 20, because we were surprised with demand.  People who didn’t even own a turntable wanted it for its collector’s value and larger artwork.

Boyz II Men were big.  TLC were bigger.  Soundgarden and Nirvana were dominating the rock charts.  My kind of music wasn’t popular and wasn’t encouraged to be played  in store.

Tastes changed rather quickly for some of these bands.  Boyz II Men made their way into the bargain.  Thence came Puff Daddy, Mase, and of course the posthumous albums by 2pac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G.  On the rock side, upstarts like Korn, Limp Bizkit, Creed and eventually Nickleback replaced Nirvana, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains on our charts.  And then came Crazy Town, and by then, it felt like there was no coming back.  Rock was a cartoon.  A “fuck”-laden filthy cartoon.

The job behind the counter became easier.  By 1996, our inventory was computerized.  Cassettes were gone; it was 100% CD.  You could look everything up with a simple search.  Before, I had to physically search the shelves to see if we had inventory.  Of course, we soon learned that just because something pops up on the computer as in-stock, that actually means nothing.  Human error was a huge problem and I was as guilty as everyone else, if not more so!  Putting the wrong disc in a CD case upon sale was so easy to do.  Not every customer realized they bought something with the wrong CD inside, and we didn’t always get them returned.  We ended up with many missing or mis-matched CDs, and also missing cases due to mis-filing or theft.

Soon customers wanted to look things up on computer terminals by themselves.  They also wanted to see what our other stores had in stock, as the we franchised out and grew.  These complicated problems were eventually solved with a little thing called the World Wide Web.

Having internet access at the store in the year 1999 was unimaginable to me of 1994, who had never even been on the internet yet.

Of course, the advent of the internet brought with it an unforeseen danger.  Soon our very existence would be threatened.  No, I’m not talking about computer viruses or Y2k.  Those had little impact at all.  Something else did:  Napster.

Napster changed everything.  Soon we were carrying so much more than just music, to make up for the decline in sales.  Bobble heads, action figures, books, video games, headphones, and so so so so many CD wallets.  Sometimes the toys and action figures wouldn’t have anything to do with music, like the Muppets or the Simpsons.  (Those were carried because a certain regional manager personally liked those shows.)  Osbournes merch was popular.  Kiss had many different toy options available.  Metallica had a cool stage playset.  Macfarlane figures either sold out, or sat around forever.  We stopped carrying blank tapes, but had a variety of CD-Rs available instead.

I recall the boss resisted carrying CD-Rs for a while, because he thought it was counterproductive to our business of selling music on CD.  However eventually it became a case of a dam giving way to a flood.  It was “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” and blank CDs were now being sold by brick or spindle.  Remember bricks and spindles full of blank CDs?

We also sold CD cleaning kits and tended to stay away from snake-oil CD fixing “solutions”.   Instead, we had a couple of guys who fixed CDs with a grinder and wax in their garage.  Eventually we began fixing the discs ourselves using the same method, but actually improving upon the solution by using soap instead of wax.  I’m not sure how the original guys took that, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t pretty at all.

Competition was always fierce.  We had an HMV store at the mall across the street from the store I managed.  We had a Cash Converters pawn shop buying and selling CDs and video games in the same plaza as us.  A few years later, a Best Buy opened next door, and their prices were often lower.  DVDs began to take up a huge share of our sales, and we now had to make room.  Additional shelving was installed.  Then we ran out of space again.  New formats like SACD and DVD-A started to infiltrate our inventory.  Things became really, really complicated compared to the store I managed in 1996.

There are a million stories.  I remember one guy buying an SACD, and coming back wanting to know why the “Super Audio” light wasn’t lighting up on his player.  How the fuck should I know?  I’d never even seen an SACD player at that point.  The guy actually wanted me to write a letter to Sony and ask them on his behalf.  Yeah, I’ll get right on that sir, after I serve you some fresh Grey Poupon on a charcuterie board.

Technology, transactions and inventory may have changed shape, but one thing never did:  the customers.

When we first opened, we had a single disc CD player and tape deck to play music in store.  There was a TV for MuchMusic, but it was usually on silent while we played CDs in store.  If a customer wanted to hear a CD, we had to open it for them and play it on the store speakers.  They’d signal me when to change tracks.  In 1996, we have six five-disc changers, each with a dedicated set of headphones, for customers to list.  We had another five-disc changer for store play, and eventually one for an outdoor speaker we had.  The six customer listening stations took a dedicated person to serve on weekends.  We had to retrieve the CDs from behind the counters and load them into the players.  We often had to assist the customer in the operation of the machines.  And they broke down, frequently.  Some days towards the end we only had two working stations at a time.

Our first store was in a mall with a licensed restaurant.  We had a few drunks.  The other stores I worked at were in strip plazas.  We had a few stoners, potheads, crackheads and gang-bangers.

Ahh, the good old days when it was just drunks!

One thing we never delved into in my time was selling CD players.  We didn’t want to dip our toes into that kind of thing.  Today, they sell turntables at my old store.  We also, strangely, never sold batteries which people frequently asked for.  I guess margins were so low it wasn’t worth it.  I never lasted long enough to see the vinyl revival happen.  We only sold a few things on vinyl in time.  The aforementioned Pearl Jam was one.  Soundgarden (Down on the Upside) was another.

The change that impacted me most had nothing to do with formats, or technology.  It didn’t matter that I now had two shelves full of Sega and Nintendo games.  The biggest change was in heirarchy behind the scenes.  I started as a part timer with one boss.  I was promoted to manager, with one boss, and several peers at other stores.  Then, suddenly, I had two bosses.  Then there were three, and the worst thing about the third is that we were all told “they’re not your boss, they’re here to help.”  That was false.  Three bosses, and there was now an in-house accountant and other periphery people that seemed to get yelled at less than I did.  I’m sure it’s clear from this story that the winds of change did not bring me happiness.  Instead they chipped away at the job I started with, and diluted the “music store” I managed into a music/movie/game/knick-knack store.  I was attending manager meetings in big hotel board rooms.  There were marketing people and franchisees, and nobody ever seemed truly happy on the inside.  110% was demanded of us, but we had no reason to be invested in what boiled down to a bad retail job that caused a lot of stress.

Nothing lasts forever but the certainty of change, and there was one change I was happy to witness:  In the late 90s, Black Sabbath reunited.  It was a happy return, though they had their trailer hitched to a nu-metal Ozzfest which wasn’t my cup of tea.  Music began to shift until one day in 1999, something truly remarkable happened.  We didn’t know how long it would last, or what the new music would sound like, but Iron Maiden reunited with Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith.  Judas Priest were a few years behind them, getting Rob Halford back in the band.  Suddenly, classic metal was back in a big way.  Bigger than ever.  It was not waned since.  I was happy that I got to see this process begin at the end of my days at the Store.

My boss used to say that I resisted change.  I don’t agree.  No sir.  I embraced the good stuff.  The computers, the internet, the website, fixing CDs, the abandonment of certain formats (cassettes and VHS) when they were fading away.  The things I struggled with included the diluting of the store with all these other products like video games.  I started there because I loved music.  Fortunately I also loved movies, so when DVDs began to take over a large section of the store, I was cool with that too.  When Grand Theft Auto was upon us, I had no passion.  Then came the addition of more upper management, and increased demands on our personal time and investment in the Record Store life.  Monthly manager meetings dragged on for hours.  We’d leave scratching our heads why this wasn’t just covered in emails.  We had zero autonomy and little say in what we did.  I remembered a time when I loved my job.  There was no love there anymore.

The happy ending is this.  When I quit that job, I rediscovered my passion for music.  Music was fun for me again, not just something playing in the background as I worked.

Music is joy once more.

 

#1109: “Marillion Sucks”

RECORD STORE TALES #1109: “Marillion Sucks”

Friends, what would you do if you ordered a used CD from a small chain, only to find somebody defaced the artwork with black magic marker before sending to you?  What if that defacement was specifically aimed at you?

My love of Marillion was known far and wide at the Record Store.  Nobody else liked Marillion.  I’d play them when I could, but everybody I worked with hated Marillion.

Everybody.

But I never found out who hated Marillion so much that they would ruin a CD just to tell me that “Marillion sucks”.

I wish I had taken a picture, but here’s the story.  After I quit the Record Store and became a regular customer, I still received preferential treatment for a few months.  They would often set stuff aside for me and call me asking if I wanted it.  That was very cool of them.  They didn’t have to do that.  Other times, I received treatment that was simply unacceptable.

One day in 2006, a few months after quitting, I placed an online order for some used CDs.  Free shipping, no fuss no muss.  I found three discs I wanted.  One of them, which I was buying just “for the collection” was Gene Simmons’ spoken word CD, Speaking in Tongues.  I didn’t plan on playing it every day, but I did plan on cherishing it as part of my Kiss collection.  Everyone at that store knew my favourite band in the world was Kiss.   They all hated Kiss about as much as Marillion.  That said, I ordered Speaking in Tongues and awaited the arrival of my mail.

Discs from my old store often arrived in broken cases; that was par for the course.  They also often arrived more scratched than I liked, but I wasn’t going to be as picky about what I bought as I was when I worked there.  What was unacceptable and tantamount to sabotage was what I saw when I got my Simmons disc.

Everything appeared fine.  The case was cracked, the disc was a little scuffy, but it should play fine, right?

I never got that far.

After removing the disc from the case, I saw that someone wrote on the inside back cover “MARILLION SUCKS” in big, black indelible magic marker.

Hah, hah.  Funny.

Who does that to someone they know is a collector?  Who does that to someone they obviously knew personally, since they knew I loved Marillion?

I never found out.  I complained and nobody ever told me.  I returned the disc immediately, unplayed.  I was really pissed off.

The fact that this happened at a Record Store that preached “professionalism” was absolutely shocking.  I remember getting in shit for telling a customer I hated Radiohead when asked!  Did this person get in shit for writing “MARILLION SUCKS” on my CD?

I wonder if anyone will ever own up and tell me who wrecked my Simmons CD.  I doubt it.

#1107.5: Fairway Road Fail

Regardless of some decent rare scores this weekend, I was very disappointed with the old Record Store I used to manage.  I have an advantage here, since I know the rules and everything the staff should and should not have been doing.  We ended up having to go twice.  Here’s where they failed:

  1.  Nobody greeted us at the door (twice) – this was compulsory.
  2.  Nobody asked us if we wanted help (twice) – also compulsory.
  3.  Two guys just chatted behind the counter, never once came onto floor on either visit.
  4.  Sold me two discs without CDs in cases, forcing me to return and pick up the CDs.
  5.  Did not issue me $3 credit / apology letter for forgetting.
  6.  Put price tags directly on cardboard sleeves of rare Marillion 3″ singles.  This tore the cover art upon removal attempt.  Damaged packaging thanks to shoddy pricing work.

Added kick in the nuts:  Chris from Encore contacted me to tell me that my Iron Maiden – Number of the Beast vinyl is almost $10 cheaper at his store.  Why do I still go back to my old haunt?  Standards sure have fallen in 20 years.

A failing grade for my old store.

#1047: A Pretty Good Day

RECORD STORE TALES #1047: A Pretty Good Day

The worst and most tiring kind of days at the Record Store were the ones with customers bringing in endless boxes of discs for us to buy.  These took up a lot of time and counter space to keep organized.  I hated it when multiple customers with multiple boxes arrived at once.  All you could say is say “leave your name and number and we’ll get through these as quickly as possible.  It could be a couple hours.”

Some customers understood, some did not.  That’s retail.

By contrast the best kind of days were often the ones without the pileup of CD boxes.  If everything came in at staggered times, that was ideal.  Even better if all the discs were in good shape.  Icing on the top of the cake if the customer wasn’t a jerk about pricing.  Everybody assumed their discs were worth solid gold.  To be truly the best kind of day, customers would be bringing in good stock that you wanted for yourself!  Whether it be a new release or something rarer from a back catalogue, those were the good days.  You’d slap your name on a post-it note, stick it to the CD and claim it for self-musical enrichment.

I may have mentioned this a couple times before:  the Big Boss Man hated when we bought stock for ourselves.  But that was 50% of the reason people wanted to work in a music store.  The best of days were those when the Big Boss Man and his underlings were not around!

One factor that didn’t affect whether the day was good or bad:  who I was working with.  I liked virtually every single person that worked in my store.  There were one or two who made me pull my hair out, but they never lasted very long.  I was very fortunate to have good working relationships with just about everyone in my staff.  I tried to show my appreciation by buying them CDs or dinner.

Speaking of dinner, one of the best days I had was in the late 90s.  A Jack Astor’s restaurant opened in the plaza across the street.  I was working one afternoon minding my own business when a guy showed up at my door with a “Jack Attack”.  I was shaking my head “no” as if to tell him I didn’t order any food, when he explained it was all complimentary!  A bucket of wings and six bottles (bottles! Not cans!) of root beer.  He dropped off a menu with ordering instructions for delivery.  That was a very good day.  I was working alone, but I left a couple bottles of pop for the night shift.  (A couple.  I was thirsty.)

I liked working alone, but eating a meal on a lone shift was tricky.  Even the best of days were food-free days.  The boss absolutely hated when we ate meals at the counter, but where else was there to go?  We were working alone, we couldn’t leave the store.  We couldn’t go into the back room to eat for 15 minutes.  So most days, at least the ones working alone, were junk food only.  Chips, pop, candy bars, pepperoni.  That was it.

But combined with good tunes and no bosses, a pretty good day!

 

 

 

#1040: The Tag Jar

RECORD STORE TALES #1040: The Tag Jar

As your typical mall music store in the 1990s, we had the usual magnetic tag security system.  The idea was fairly simple.  At the store entrance there was a magnetic detector that you had to pass through.  Our merchandise was tagged with these little magnetic strips, about an inch long.  If you passed one of these strips through the detector by the door, a loud siren would be triggered.  It was one of several loss prevention methods we used.

There were two ways to utilise the security tags.  One was to double up with a re-usable security case.  These cases locked the CD into a longer “long box” length package.  This package was tagged on the inside with the magnetic security system.  At the front counter, a special key would unlock the security case.  You’d then put another CD in there and re-use it.  The other method involved tagging the CD or tape itself, in an inconspicuous place on the spine of the cellophane.  In this case, a special magnetic device behind the counter would “de-tag” the disc.  It was not totally reliable so you wanted to use the device three or four times, running it over the tag.  You wanted to make sure you properly de-tagged the item before the customer left the store.

Since no customer liked setting off the security alarm, it was heavily emphasized:  make sure you de-tag!  And we had a jar where you had to pay a dollar if you were caught checking out a customer without de-tagging.  The boss warned us:  everybody screws this up, it’s just a matter of time until you do.  I was like, nahhh man, not me.  I was hired in July and my first dollar went into the tag jar before Christmas.

The money in the tag jar went towards paying for our annual Christmas dinner.  The boss invited one of his personal friends to join us, which in hindsight seems weird.  It was a nice dinner though, and we worked hard earning it.  My first Christmas there was a busy one and we were both buying and selling discs the whole time, all at one little tiny counter.

The security alarms were loud.  You could hear them down the hallway of the mall, all the way down to the Zellers store.  That’s how I got caught one time.  I was hoping the boss didn’t hear me while he was out doing his bank run, but he did, and I had to pony up my dollar.  I couldn’t remember if I de-tagged the guy or not, which meant I probably didn’t.  But sometimes I swear it was just that the device wasn’t de-tagging properly.  Some box sets also had two or three tags on the shrinkwrap.  There were multiple ways to screw it up.

Thieves always find ways around your best security measures, and ultimately the tags were not worth the cost and were phased out in future stores, in a new and innovative way:  ditching new product almost altogether in favour of a 90% used strategy.  But that’s a whole other story.

#1039: Catalogue

RECORD STORE TALES #1039: Catalogue

There was one chain back in the Record Store days that was considered our chief rival.  They weren’t really; they were actually much bigger than us, but the Boss Man really had his radar locked on that one specific rival.  The other guy made an offer to buy us out, but there wasn’t much he could do if we were not for sale.  It was a cold war rather than a hot war from my perspective.  I did have to eject the rival from my store once.  We had standing orders (and a picture of the guy behind the counter, a Mutt Lange lookalike) to eject if he was seen in store.  That wasn’t fun.  He was with someone else, a buddy or a business associate and I had to kick him out!

I cannot be certain, but I think one of the main reasons the Boss Man didn’t want his rival in our store was one particular secret.

It is true that we had a general policy of “loose lips sink ships” – meaning “don’t say shit”!  You can imagine how much the Boss loves my website, which is why I don’t name any of the guilty parties, but these stories are from another millennium.  None of it actually matters anymore.  One thing he didn’t want known is just what we were using as our pricing guide when buying and stocking used CDs from the public.

The rival’s store had an annual catalogue.  It was about the size of a telephone book.  From the very start, we used that catalogue as a guide.  We knew their lowest retail price for everything they sold, which was virtually everything currently in print on a major label.  Every year, the store managers were sent out to buy the latest issue.  One at a time, so as to not raise flags.  Every year, we had to make white book covers to disguise the true origin of the catalogues that we could be seen flipping through.  When things got computerized, we scanned, line by line, every single CD in that catalogue to begin our own pricing guide.

It grew from there by many times over, as we added discs from other labels, out of print CDs, and everything else we ran across in our travels.  Within a short period of time, our pricing guide was many times the size of their original catalogue.  Obviously, having a custom made pricing guide on the computer was superior and a mere glimpse at the future.  Still, I kinda miss wrapping those big ole catalogues in paper and decorating the new covers.  The new kids will never know.

 

#1033: Boxing Daze

RECORD STORE TALES #1033: Boxing Daze

Boxing Day (December 26) is for relaxing.  After all this activity, we need a break.  That’s my opinion.  For others, including my wife, it’s for shopping for crazy bargains.  In her defence, she doesn’t do that anymore, but I used to question her sanity.  After all, I remember working Boxing Day…many Boxing Days…and it was definitely one of the worst days of the year to have to work at the Record Store.

Christmas Eve wasn’t so bad.  There was usually lots of cheer in the air.  Many customers were pre-spending Christmas money on themselves.  By the end of the day though, the shelves were so damn bare.  I’d look at them and wonder just what the hell we would have left for sale when we had our big “Buy Three Get One Free” sale on the 26th.  Yet people still found things to buy.

After working straight the month of December with only a couple days off, having one day’s break on Christmas Day wasn’t enough.  The 25th was always busy.  Multiple visits with family, lots going on, lots to do, and no time to actually rest.  Then I had to go to bed on time to be up for the Boxing Day sale.  That’s exactly how I spent my last Christmas at the Record Store.  I even gave up one of the days off in December to a co-worker who wanted to go see a concert.  Why?  Because I was a nice manager.  A good manager.  The kind of manager you wanted to have.  Yet that guy stabbed me in the back years later when he took issue with my side of the story in Record Store Tales.  I should have taken the day off and made him work!  Ah well.  Didn’t Green Day say that nice guys finish last?

Working on Boxing Day always felt depressing.  You didn’t want to be behind the counter working 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM.  I would be powered by caffeine and saddened that the cheer in the air that was so obvious a few days earlier was all gone.  Now it was replaced by bargain hunting.  Deals.  Surly door-crashers and people unhappy with the gifts they did receive.  It was a different kind of day compared to Christmas Eve, and it was long.  And worst of all, there was nothing to look forward to after the 26th.  Just going back to work on the 27th for what was essentially a normal back-to-the-grind day, except with loads of returns.  After the high of Christmas, the comedown of Boxing Day was just brutal.

I’ll never miss it, and I’ll never shop on Boxing Day.  I will not contribute to that culture.  I remember when stores had to be closed on the 26th.  In fact the first Boxing Days at the Record Store, we were closed.  The second one, we opened illegally, and working was on a voluntary basis.  It was voluntary for the first few years.  Then it became near impossible to get it off, though I did get it off for most years that I was manager.  The rule of thumb was you could have Christmas Eve or Boxing Day off, but not both.  Yet that last year I worked both.  Because I was a sucker I guess.  Merry Christmas motherfucker.

#1006: Too Many Cooks

RECORD STORE TAILS #1006: Too Many Cooks

Every so often, a thought or a memory has casting my mind back onto the old Record Store Days.

You probably don’t often think about a job that you quit almost 20 years ago now.  Then again, you probably didn’t work in a Record Store.

It was the Dream Job.  I always wanted to work in some way with music, and selling CDs was pretty high on my list.  It truly was everything I had hoped for.  I acquired hundreds of rare treasures, out of print CDs and things I never knew existed.  I got them with a discount, and I got to listen to music every day.  Lifelong friends were made.  That’s something I never thought would happen from a workplace.

The Record Store also put me back in touch with friends I had seen in years.  The Store was located at the local mall, the epicenter of the neighbourhood.  Banking, groceries, and everything you needed could be found at the Mall, and so a lot of the people I went to school with drifted in through my doors.  Some managed to stay in touch since then, thanks to social media.  I would not trade those connections for the world.

I know a young fella who now works at one of the many stores that I did time in.  It was one of my least favourite stores, in fact.  I hated working at that location.  The customers were not, shall we say, the upper crust of society in that neighbourhood.  But the kid loves his job!  Have things changed, or did I get it wrong? That’s what I ask myself sometimes.  Did I misrepresent those years in Record Store Tales?  Was I unfair?

The first two years were really awesome.  I looked forward to going to work every day.  I got there early and stayed late.  There is no question that the fun atmosphere changed when we started to expand.  10 years later I was having panic attacks.  Too many years of a retail job that was treated with as much urgency as a doctor’s or a lawyer’s.  Family came second.  Performance was everything.  Weakness was inapplicable.

Too many cooks spoil the brew.

At the end I had three bosses, and it was kind of shady how some of that went down.

I never looked forward to work anymore.  I still got there early, but that was more to take my own time opening.  Get ahead on some things.  Listen to music.  Fill orders.  I still do that today in my current job.  I arrive early, and slowly and casually start getting stuff done before we’re officially open for business.  Make a coffee.  Read some news.  Answer emails, before the phone starts ringing.  I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, but the boss told me, “If you worked at IBM, coming in early to do extra is considered bad work habits.”  I distinctly remember him saying that.  I simply could not win with them.  It was a record store, not IBM!  Who cares what IBM do?  They don’t buy and sell used CDs from the public.

I’ve said before that there were cliques at the Record Store, and I stand by that claim.  I never felt like I belonged.  I was the only hard rocking sci-fi nerd with severe social anxiety.  I wasn’t hanging out with the right people at the right bars, because that’s not my thing.  Being invited out to the bar doesn’t count.   I.  Did.  Not.  Fit.  In.  I stand by that.  And I maintain that people in power did let their personal lives leak into their work life.

No.  Upon reflection I feel like I was fair in my previous assessments.  I will say that I am guilty of one thing in my writing.  Once I knew that people at the Record Store were reading, I let that influence my writing too much.  Too often, I wrote with that knowledge in the back of my head, whether consciously or unconsciously.  Perhaps that was unavoidable.

Too many cooks spoil the brew,
Wanna be the king of the world,
Yeah, and too many jailers makin’ the news,
Wanna be the king of the world.