Record Store Clerks / Overheard In The Record Store

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Overheard at Kim's on St. Marks last weekend.

Customer: You don't take your job too seriously, do you? (sounded kind of annoyed, but more joking than anything else)

Clerk: DO I LOOK LIKE I WORK AT A SERIOUS JOB?!

...

Cleark: I'M AN ASPIRING MUSICIAN!

....

Cleark: IF I WANED A SERIOUS JOB, I WOULDN'T WORK AT A RECORD STORE.

Customer: ha, ha, ha, okay, okay.

-----

There is a chance the customer was a friend of the clerk's. I don't know what was going on, exactly, but the customer seemed joking / mildly annoyed and the clerk seemed to be giving him as much shit as he could get away with. It made me think, "Gee, I hope your band goes nowhere."

Maybe one of you is this clerk. Somebody is always watching and listening! An eccentric millionaire might give you a big fat wad of cash if you stay on your best behavior at all times!

― Lemonade Salesman (Eleventy-Twelve), Thursday, 7 April 2005 13:12 (twenty years ago)

Having *been* the clerk in the record store I'm on their side. Most of the abuse in record shops flows from condescending/clueless customers to clerks, not vice versa, so any attempt to glean humour out of a shitty situation is well worth it.

― We Are All Full Of Kate (kate), Thursday, 7 April 2005 13:18 (twenty years ago)

Dude whatever. (xpost to the original poster)

Calling them "clueless customers" is indicative that the problem resides with you.

― Alex in TCBY (ex machina), Thursday, 7 April 2005 13:20 (twenty years ago)

Wait, so Alex in Yogurtland has insulted both posters to the thread so far. I bet he is a really nasty TCBY clerk!

― Lemonade Salesman (Eleventy-Twelve), Thursday, 7 April 2005 13:22 (twenty years ago)

is the clerk in this story different from the cleark?

― lauren (laurenp), Thursday, 7 April 2005 13:26 (twenty years ago)

OK, I admit, I don't have the kind of personality that suits retail. But the sort of assumptions and demands made by record shop customers have sometimes been just ridiculous.

You don't walk into a grocery shop and assume that every person stacking shelves for minimum wage is a combination nutrionist/chef. So why walk into a chain record shop and assume that the person at the desk - also on minimum wage - is going to know every single fact about every song ever recorded (in every genre ever invented, even if it is perchance a specialty shop) and be able to recognise songs from your mangled attempt at singing the hook.

Sounds to me like the customer started the snark-fest with the "don't you take your job seriously" snotty remark, so they got as good as they gave.

― We Are All Full Of Kate (kate), Thursday, 7 April 2005 13:30 (twenty years ago)

What does it mean to be an 'aspiring musician' anyway? Is he tryng, but failing, to play music?

― Minnie Driver, Thursday, 7 April 2005 13:30 (twenty years ago)

That makes me one, anyway.

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 7 April 2005 13:31 (twenty years ago)

ppl always moan about service at kim's and other music, but most of the time it seems like status anxiety on the part of the customer. they assume the clerk will laugh at them for making unhip/uneducated choices, so they go in on the defensive and take anything less than bowing and scraping from the staff as a dis.

― lauren (laurenp), Thursday, 7 April 2005 13:34 (twenty years ago)

(hahaha it is absolutely fantastic that Minnie Driver made that post!)

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 7 April 2005 13:35 (twenty years ago)

285: A clerk ther was of Williamsburgh also,
286: That unto musick hadde longe ygo.
287: As leene was his hors as is a rake,
288: And he nas nat right fat, I undertake,
289: But looked holwe, and therto sobrely.
290: Ful thredbare was his overeste courtepy;
291: For he hadde geten hym yet no rocke starre bande,
292: Ne was so worldly for to have groupies.
293: For hym was levere have at his beddes heed
294: Twenty guitarres, clad in blak or reed,
295: Of Jimmy Paige and his philosophie,
296: Than robes riche, or fithele, or gay sautrie.
297: But al be that he was an aspiringe minstral,
298: Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre;
299: But al that he myghte of his freendes hente,
300: On stringes and on lernynge he it spente,
301: And bisily gan for the deales preye
302: Of hem that yaf hym wherwith to signe him.
303: Of studie took he moost cure and moost heede,
304: Noght o word spak he lesse than was neede,
305: And that was seyd in high irreverence,
306: And short and quyk and ful of hy sentence;
307: Sownynge in egomania was his speche,
308: And gladly wolde he lerne but poorly teche.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 7 April 2005 13:36 (twenty years ago)

If you wrote that just now, you are the greatest human ever.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 7 April 2005 13:38 (twenty years ago)

Well, cut and pasted from the original but then laden with appropriate word substitutions, so you could say I *re*wrote it just now, yes.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 7 April 2005 13:39 (twenty years ago)

Is that "Mondo" Kims?

If so, heck try Bleeker Bobs and see what happens.

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 7 April 2005 13:41 (twenty years ago)

bleecker bob gave me a lecture once because he thought i looked jewish and it was a minor holiday and i wasn't at temple.

― lauren (laurenp), Thursday, 7 April 2005 13:43 (twenty years ago)

Ned, I never knew you were secretly a myddle englisch poet.

― We Are All Full Of Kate (kate), Thursday, 7 April 2005 13:48 (twenty years ago)

Hark, what lo.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 7 April 2005 13:50 (twenty years ago)

I went once. Bob (I think) was on the phone, no-one else in shop. I looked through some racks, saw the prices on the second hand Beatles albums and tiptoed gently out.

Although I did appreciate the Rubinoos album story in Kris Needs' book...

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 7 April 2005 13:50 (twenty years ago)

I like the idea of a modern Canterbury Tales that isn't some rubbish exercise post-Ulysses. Let's have it that they're going from midtown Manhattan to Coney Island.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 7 April 2005 13:51 (twenty years ago)

The Nedde's Tale - driving from Orange County to Seattle to see a shoegazer band. ;-)

― We Are All Full Of Kate (kate), Thursday, 7 April 2005 13:54 (twenty years ago)

Hey! There were a ton of bands I'll have you know. ;-)

And passed him on the Seattle streete
A dronke lady singer, who semede indiscreete

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 7 April 2005 13:59 (twenty years ago)

DAEREST RECORD STORE GURL...

― Ian John50n (orion), Thursday, 7 April 2005 16:55 (twenty years ago)

REALLY THOSE ALBUMS I TRADED IN WERE CRAPPY IMPULSE PURCHASES FROM TWO YEARS AGO, THATNOT WHAT MY TASTE IS REALLLY LIKE. YOU GOTTA BELIEVE ME!

GOD YOU'RE CUTE.

― latebloomer: strawman knockdowner (latebloomer), Thursday, 7 April 2005 17:00 (twenty years ago)

ten years pass...

A friend who works in the record shop says she was accosted by an angry woman because they didn't stock 'Laura Marling's disco album' which she heard in the late 80s and has the word 'who' in the chorus.

What on earth could she be really talking about? I figured maybe Laura Branigan?

― canoon fooder (dog latin), Wednesday, 26 August 2015 13:22 (ten years ago)

three years pass...

285: A clerk ther was of Williamsburgh also,
286: That unto musick hadde longe ygo.
287: As leene was his hors as is a rake,
288: And he nas nat right fat, I undertake,
289: But looked holwe, and therto sobrely.
290: Ful thredbare was his overeste courtepy;
291: For he hadde geten hym yet no rocke starre bande,
292: Ne was so worldly for to have groupies.
293: For hym was levere have at his beddes heed
294: Twenty guitarres, clad in blak or reed,
295: Of Jimmy Paige and his philosophie,
296: Than robes riche, or fithele, or gay sautrie.
297: But al be that he was an aspiringe minstral,
298: Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre;
299: But al that he myghte of his freendes hente,
300: On stringes and on lernynge he it spente,
301: And bisily gan for the deales preye
302: Of hem that yaf hym wherwith to signe him.
303: Of studie took he moost cure and moost heede,
304: Noght o word spak he lesse than was neede,
305: And that was seyd in high irreverence,
306: And short and quyk and ful of hy sentence;
307: Sownynge in egomania was his speche,
308: And gladly wolde he lerne but poorly teche.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, April 7, 2005 8:36 AM (thirteen years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

― budo jeru, Thursday, 24 January 2019 02:40 (seven years ago)

why this not on ilm

― budo jeru, Thursday, 24 January 2019 02:42 (seven years ago)

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