The people who work in bookstores are, by and large, very brilliant. My co-workers at BookPeople, a large independent bookstore in Austin, were no exception. I started on Halloween in 2016 and worked my last shift on December 24, 2019. In my time there, I worked with filmmakers; comic artists; cartoonists; actors; activists; editors; farmers; writers of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry; and one tough, kind man who hated Nazis—kicked them out of the store when they surfaced after Trump’s election—drove an old truck, and loved dogs, especially his.
Working in a bookstore does not pay many bills. People do not choose to work there to make the big bucks. Most of my co-workers were under financial duress, which means that people who work in bookstores can also sometimes be petty and irritable. When I worked at BookPeople, weekslong—sometimes monthslong—feuds between employees could break out over one wrong look, though more frequently over whether people were working hard enough to minimize the group’s workload. Better pay and access to health care are largely why BookPeople employees unionized in 2018.
Mostly, though, the people who work in bookstores are very sweet. My co-workers did one another favors: They left baked goods at the front desk and loaned each other movies. When my mental health took a nosedive, my managers gave me hours prepping book orders away from the stress of customers. A co-worker gave me a rare copy of Speedboat because he knew I love Renata Adler but also because we were close, and I let him borrow my car so much that we practically shared it. Someone finally taught me how to nicely wrap a gift.
