A Year in a Bookstore

Some things I learnt while working as a bookstore retail assistant

November: Human Resources

11 November 2021 is my first paid day as bookstore retail assistant, even though there is no actual work today. There is instead a Zoom orientation session organised by the lone HR staff in the organisation, with an entire crowd of the bookstore’s annual Christmas intake (known, I later learn, as “elves”).

As HR spends the next 2 hours giving us the lowdown on the maximum length of our fingernails and how break times are calculated, I look at the teenage elves on my screen, who are all wearing identical stunned Bambi expressions.

During the Q&A, I am the only one to speak up. Will we be paid for this orientation session? If we don’t have paid sick leave, why should we have to see a doctor at our own cost to produce the “required” MC?

My questions are fairly basic, I imagine, but in the ringing silence I sound like a troublemaking unionist. The lack of any placating response suggests that retail workers are not expected to advocate for themselves. (Later, I meet several colleagues who think they are not allowed to leave before the end of their employment contracts.)

On 14 November I am notified that my first actual day of work is the next day.

The below are your details for your first day of work at the retail store for this week:
Tuesday, 15.11.22 - 1pm to 10pm

Working Hours
Morning Shift - 9am to 6pm
Afternoon Shift - 1pm to 10pm
Evening Shift - 6pm to 10pm

I sign the contract on the same day, and with that I officially make the switch from redundant knowledge worker to humble retail assistant.

December: Christmas

The tasks of a lowly bookstore employee are simple. Most days, I shelve books. I start by sorting the loose books by genre (Literature, Fantasy, Poetry) and then rearranging them in alphabetical order. Then I push the book cart around and squeeze books on overstuffed shelves. An added perk is to "face out" the books you think are worth reading and "spine" the ones that are rubbish. When I shelve I’m saying: Buy the Emily Dickinson, don't buy the Rupi Kaur.

Other days, I shrink-wrap pornographic material. It’s pleasant to while away 1 or 2 hours in the warmth of the shrink-wrap machine, with the noble purpose of shielding young eyes from peen.

The rest of the time, I revive shoppers overcome by the stress of shopping for the difficult-to-please (an entire Indian family book-hunting for the matriarch: “we have to get Grandma the perfect book or she will be be unhappy”) and assist office serfs with their Secret Santa requests (woman with a slip of paper with ‘Dance With Dragon’ written on it: “can you help me? I don’t read books!”).

Dune box sets, clothbound Jane Austens and copies of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time fly off the shelves. By the time the elves leave to start their real lives, the shelves look like toothless mouths.

January: People Watching

My longtime friend Mel and pet rabbit Kuromi die on the same day in January. I surprise myself by my willingness to show up for work the very next day. "Shelving books for 4 mind-emptying hours, is about all I can handle right now," I write in my journal.

Now that the store is quieter, I do a lot of eavesdropping. It is a meat market, I realise, for teenagers in a certain social class. These kids, who invariably speak in generic social media American accents, chat one another up at the poetry section and then exchange internet-thingy handles to stay in touch.

More than once, I see hopelessly mismatched couples on dates. Smartypants talks their head off about Goethe or Beckett or Dostoyevsky while Normie spaces out thinking about french fries or whatever. Eventually Normie gets intimidated and/or loses interest, but Smartypants doesn't notice, so lost are they in literary raptures.

"I would be perfectly happy alone, or perhaps with just one or two friends, as long as I have good books to read," said one Smartypants to a Normie girl, after an extended monologue about reading - nay, living in! - The Brothers Karamazov. She could not come up with an intelligent reply, alas.

Another Smartypants, post a breathless 30-minute monologue describing each and every novel of Kazuo Ishiguro's, said self-consciously to her mute companion: "Um, anyway, you should read Ishiguro. He's very… accessible."

February: Falling Sick

The chief reason I choose to work the 4-hour Evening Shift is that it doesn't make me feel defined by the job. "I still have my days free," I tell myself. As long as I can still gad about on weekday afternoons, I am still officially an idler.

But there comes a time, after too many 11pm dinners and sleeping at 2am, when you feel the physical trade-offs of working nights.

In my weakened state, I get Covid. I am 3 years late to the Covid game, so this is mildly exciting, plus my positive ART test is enough to place me on unpaid sick leave so I avoid paying the dreaded polyclinic consultation fee.

Later I would learn I am not the only person who fears falling sick for the high cost it engenders. Being paid hourly makes you conscious of these things: a $17 consultation fee is nearly 2 hours of work!!! Our department manager, let’s call him Kevin, is a godsend in this respect. Although famously bitchy, he is not an oppressive boss. When sick, we just inform him a day in advance and he’ll remove us from the roster so we’re technically not absent.

Covid kills my brain cells. When I go back to work with brain fog I nearly fall off the ladder several times.

March: Customers

As a retail worker I am usually invisible. People don't notice you when it doesn't suit them. When they need you, they’ll come up and - without even a cursory glance at what you're busy with - start asking for whatever they want.

Many don't bother with an "excuse me" even if your arms are full of books and you're half-buried in a cardboard box and your ass is in the air. (Which is most of the time, by the way. Cartons and cartons of books arrive every day, and my job is to get the books out, sorted on trolleys, and on the shelves.)

I don't mind being interrupted, but it annoys me when the interlocutor can’t be bothered to even string together a complete sentence, instead simply grunting: “George Yeo book”. Needless to say, after being shown the way, these supposedly literate people dispense with the pleasantries. From years of conditioning I somehow expect every interaction to end with “thanks”. So sometimes I say “you’re welcome” into thin air.

But not everyone is rude, of course. Bookstore workers are probably the high-status of all service jobs, so the customers that can see you are usually very nice. They approach - respectfully, with copious “excuse me”s and “sorry to bother you”s - to ask for recommendations or opinions.

Some even ask if we are hiring, because they’d like to work here, too. One shopper even remarked, with zero irony, watching me rearrange the top shelf of Psychology: “I wish I had your job.” It’s terribly flattering. I want to ask if making $10/hour with no medical benefits is her idea of a vocation, but I hold my tongue.

April & May: Overgrown

I tell my boss that I’ll be away so could he please remove me from the roster. “How long?” he asks. “2 months.” He OKs my leave without batting an eyelid, and starts telling me which bookstores to visit in the UK.

A salesperson for Penguin Books, passing through the office, hears of my trip and asks for my age. I tell her I’m 36. “What kind of 36-year-old works part-time and goes on 2-month holidays?” she demands.

June: Coworkers

I return to work and my gift of Border biscuits ingratiates me with the more food-motivated of my coworkers.

My favourite full-timer is Andy (all names changed), who takes care of non-fiction. He rules over his realm, always making sure there are obscure books in stock even if they’re not trending. He is as willing to discuss arcana with nerds as to tell spine-crackers to fuck off. When on duty with him we talk about our latest snack finds from Mustafa, obscure Malaysian royalty & Straits history, and travel destinations such as Auschwitz. I think he is the least boring Singaporean I know.

The other one is Carmen, who wears a face mask to discourage strangers from talking to her. Carmen reads at an astonishing speed and finishes at least 1 novel per day off. Of fanfiction, she says: “isn’t it amazing how there is an almost infinite amount of stories out there for people to read.” Yes, she ends every sentence or question with a full stop, that is the way she talks.

I am surprised to meet other 30-something part-timers here: Maya and Jane, both “hanging out” here after rage-quitting jobs in customer service and admin.

Maya is a former military brat who moved around the globe as a child, leaving her with a weird half-ang moh accent and a secret disdain for stable boring Singaporeans with frog-in-the-well mentality. She is killing time before her planned move to rural Germany where her mum has retired, to help with bereavement matters.

Jane is an in-between-jobs admin assistant on track to early retirement, so it seems. She owns a flat, which she sublets to a tenant (the rent pays the mortgage), and is extraordinarily frugal. She prefers the physicality of the bookstore to the stress of office work. But the pay is low, so she will return to admin. For now, she’s “just treating this place as a free gym.”

July: Mature Adult

I turn 37 years old. This seems absurd given my personality, which is as volatile, bad-tempered, and lost as any 17 year old's.

I can only guess that any past resemblance to a Mature Adult was pure coincidence. Maybe it was a costume I wore for work purposes - and, having left that world with no intention to return, I have shed it like so much reptile epidermis. Without the conditioning of a workplace populated with Mature Adults, I have reverted even more to adolescence.

I change my hours and now work 8-hour days twice a week. The “Mid-Shift” isn't too bad at all. I clock in at 11am and end work at 8pm, avoiding all rush hours. Lunch break at 2pm, or whenever I get hungry. I eat my brought-from-home lunch and enjoy a solid hour's uninterrupted reading in the break room. (All bookstore workers deeply respect the right to read and will leave you completely alone if you have a book.)

You're probably thinking: pfft, anyone would love their job if they only work 2 days a week. And you're right! 2 days out of 7 is the perfect amount of work. Just enough work to keep you healthy, but still leaves most of your week free for writing, reading, long walks, and family time. 

It seems odd that societally we have not progressed to this inversion of weekdays and weekends. Are we not living in the age of AI and automation - how can devoting 70% of your life to work still be considered normal?

August: Jobs

As my 1-year work anniversary approaches I get skittish. Worried that I might never leave the bookstore, I start applying for jobs. While my applications for Library Officer and Polytechnic Lecturer are instantly rejected, I get to try out Personalized Internet Assessor (US$13.50/hour) and Art Enrichment Teacher ($14/hour).

I actually pass the last one. But the experience disturbs me. Each art class has a “lesson plan” and the focus is squarely on up-skilling 6-year-olds to make them more attractive to future employers. After class, teachers report to parents on what techniques Junior has learnt and what skills need extra work. No room for self-expression here.

So I stay in the bookstore. Which, despite being deeply capitalist, is less disturbing on a existential level.

September: Low Income

The Straits Times informs me that I am among the lowest-earning in my age group.

As things stand the bookstore job is the only income I can reliably count on. Working 16 hours a week I get just under $600 a month. In theory I could work more hours to make more money. But CPF deductions apply to any earnings above $500, so if I work longer hours, my take-home pay per hour would (perversely) be lower.

The rest of my income is a patchwork of rabbit boarding and grooming fees, food delivery, a few dollars here and there from selling discarded used books. So far I have been making close to $1,000 a month, which just about keeps the household in crumpets, coffee, fruit, and all the other necessaries of life.

In the past I made some money doing freelance writing, but it’s been a dry spell lately. Maybe everyone's using ChatGPT - who knows?

My favourite customer - I don’t know his name, but he reads a lot of philosophy and we talk about Walter Benjamin - says that I am part of the "precariat”:

existing without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare.

I do not feel all that bad.

In the bookstore-verse there is an alternate economy and hierarchy of humanity. Outside, the richest, highest-earning people are superior. Not so in the bookstore. Inside, we cannot help looking down on people, no matter their social rank or income, who read shitty books. We may be lower paid than you are - but we are superior in the ways that matter.

We pity you, you poor rich people with no taste.

October: Anxiety

Hanging out with my gainfully employed friend, I notice the effects of marinating in a corporate environment. She's been working in the same place for a year, and it’s a nice setup. But she seems low-key anxious all the time. If she’s not worried about workplace changes and performance expectations, then it’s about whether she’s making enough money or getting the right skills to snag a better job.

Such hangups are nonexistent at my workplace. The world's go-getters steer well clear of retail jobs; instead we are all incredibly impractical people who only care about books.

In lieu of career milestones like promotions, we look forward to the day we receive our staff discount card (after 3 months of work) and our payday book hauls. The office is filled with bundles of books secreted away for future purchase. We pump our meagre salaries back into business revenues.

November: The End

I get Covid again. It’s less fun this time. I reflect that I have been falling sick a lot the entire year, starting from my first bout of Covid in February. Worried, I get some blood tests done - on my own dime! The doctor says I’m fine and healthy as a horse. This suggests the frequent bouts of illness are from working in an enclosed, crowded space.

I think about leaving my germ-y workplace but procrastinate for various reasons. We are getting a pay hike to $12/hour. We just got a little performance bonus. It’s Christmas season and we’re inundated.

But I think maybe I am just reluctant to go back to doing food delivery.

Hunger games: my real-life experience as a Deliveroo rider

Being an employee - even an employee with low pay and no benefits - is a million times better being than a platform/gig worker.

You don’t live in fear of algorithm changes that impact your pay, work area, and hours overnight. You’re paid by the hour rather than per job, so troublesome customers and other hold-ups don’t drive you crazy thinking about the money you’re losing every minute. You’re not in direct competition with others for every itty bitty slice of the pie, so you don’t fundamentally view every coworker as a threat.

For all that, I leave the bookstore in January to nurse myself back to health.

A Few Observations

Despite being a bunch of nerds, our work at the bookstore is outright physical. Squatting repeatedly, climbing up and down ladders, crawling under tables to retrieve stock, and carrying heavy cartons filled with books. Every work day is an 8-hour gym session and I became the leanest I’d been since my powerlifting days.

My coworkers and I are always hungry. At mealtimes we need mountains of carbohydrates and fatty protein; after a lot of trial and error we learn that only Lucky Plaza cai png or Tori-Q with extra rice is sufficient to replenish the lost calories. We take turns to restock our stores of rice crackers, biscuits, chocolates and sweets in the back room.

You’d be amazed that people who make $10/hour are willing to spend an hour’s pay on lunch. But without all this food we cannot work, so it would never occur to us to deny our stomachs.

Despite earning probably about $2K+ a month the retail workers seem to spend quite freely. People are always buying rounds of Starbucks or bubble tea or fancy doughnuts to share, and the break room chatter is always about purchases of cute collectible plushies, expensive trading cards, anime merchandise, and concert tickets.

I have never heard a coworker talk envy office workers making 5 figure salaries, even though I’m sure some people are qualified to join the professional ranks. There is a general understanding of its psychic cost. There are always hushed whispers about ex-colleagues who have “gone corporate” and now live the pitiful, circumscribed lives of the middle-class salariat.

I get the sense that earning a lower income than a corporate drone paradoxically makes you freer with money. Your salary isn’t high enough for you to climb the socioeconomic ladder, so you live with your parents and avoid being mortgaged up to your ears. That leaves you more cash to spend on day-to-day frivolousness.

Whether society at large approves of this extended childhood is another matter. When I told my mum I have no desire to upgrade my house or buy a car ever, she remarked: “If everyone lived like you, Singapore’s economy would collapse.”