In the middle of the month, a wad of brochures would be sent to us for the perusal of customers and for us to become familiar with what items were going to be part of the next promotion. As soon as the new promotion had begun, bundles of the magazines would be placed on the two counters by the tills, on the promotional tables and inside each carrier bag.
With one week to go, boxes would arrive from the warehouse which contained items to be priced up, ready to be displayed on the tables from the first day.
Books, bibles and CDs would be reduced in price and new titles would be promoted alongside them.
Each new promo’ had its own set of sale stickers and they had to be placed in the top right-hand corner of every item. Because these stickers remained on the product for 30 days, they would often be difficult to remove without either damaging the surface of the book or leaving a residue. So, the stickers on the existing sale items had to be peeled off very slowly and the book or CD then had to be wiped clean. This, however, could not happen until the very last day of the month, so that customers had chance to make the most of the current promotion. But posters, flyers and window displays had to be changed on time. Once the tables were ready, all the items that had been removed from display needed to go back onto the shelves at regular price.
Added to this, invoices, gift vouchers and postal orders had to be tallied and the two “Top Ten” books stands needed to be rearranged.
Sometimes the changeover happened at the same time of year that the haul of new dated material (Sunday School magazines and daily bible reading notes) arrived. These had to be placed aside until the shop was ready for the new promotion.
The most frustrating part of this changeover was the fact that we never received enough stock. For example, a popular title would be listed in the brochures as being half price, attracting the attention of many customers, yet we will have had only been sent two copies. Excited customers would often telephone to ask if we could put aside an item for them, only to be told they were completely out of stock both at our branch and the warehouse. All branches were in the same predicament and we would be contacting each other frantically trying to see if anybody had what we needed.
One day Louise was on the ground floor working next to me and she said,
“Sharon, have you noticed that those boys over there by the window keep giggling and whispering to each other?”
“No.” I replied.
“Yea,” she continued, “this is the third time this week that I’ve noticed them huddled together in that spot, laughing to themselves.”
I hadn’t noticed.
She continued, “There’s a book they keep picking up and putting back down. I wonder if that has anything to do with why they are so amused?”
“And why they keep coming back?” I suggested.
“Um, yea,” she said. “I’m gonna take a look.”
As Louise made her way towards the young lads, they dispersed and began picking up other books from the display tables. They seemed nervous when she approached them, and they soon left.
Lou stared at the books on the table, and suddenly grabbed a large hardback, white one.
“Aha!”
She flicked through the book and went very quiet. She seemed to be stuck on one particular page:
“Huh! Not surprised! Why oh why? That’s ridiculous! Did they have to make it so…”
“Bring it here!” I shouted, eager to know what all the fuss was about.
Louise shut the book before she handed it to me and smiled wryly awaiting my reaction.
I looked at the title and it all became clear.
It was from “E24”!
Every single book we stocked was allocated a code. For example, the “J” section contained all the books for kids and teenagers: Books for toddlers were classified under “J10” ones for older children were “J12” and the teenagers had “J16”. The “E” section included books about family and psychology, but “E24” was the category entitled, “Love, Sex and Marriage”.
The boys had stumbled across a sex education book and the pictures inside left nothing to the imagination. This was supposed to be an explanatory guide for parents to give to their young children when they begin asking how babies are made. With the vivid images that were displayed, and the sentences used, no explanation was really needed.
Over time, we were sent books that were far more questionable than this one and Lou and I were to be raising our eyebrows once more. But I’ll tell you about those later.
