As many people my age, my work history is a collection of weird, spur-of-the-moment jobs I took just because I needed to make money. Before I got into my career as a writer and journalist, I had quite a few part time jobs in high school and through college: movie theater idiot employee, pizza delivery scumbag driver, toy store "manager," and I even worked at a arcade, fixing games and yelling obscenities because I didn't have electrical training.
One job I worked through during my college years and still work at once a year (James Brown Christmas Eve as I call it) is at a local comic shop. It's the job I've stunk at the least, aside from maybe this one. However, my first few weeks, I realized the job was nothing like I expected. Working at a comic book shop, and even a chain comic shop like I did, was different that a lot of retail experiences I had. While most people walk into a comic shop and think it's going to be a lot like Comic Book Guy on the Simpsons, it really isn't like that at all. In my years of working at the store, I learned there are a ton of thing quite different about this place.
7. Pre-ordering Comics is the Most Important Thing in the World
Before I started working at my local shop, I had a pull list with about 10 books on it. I rarely changed up my pull list or added or dropped things. If I was interested in an upcoming book, I'd never pre-order and just check it out when it came out. Many times, because I visited my store on Saturdays, I'd miss out on a lot of books. When I started working at my LCS and saw "how the sausage was made," I became a dude who pushed pre-ordering books on everyone.
Pre-orders gauge how many comics are ordered for the shelves. If 50 people pre-order a book, we're going to order more for the shelves than a book that go 5 pre-orders. While I ever actually did the ordering because I was obviously not the manager, it's a pretty easy concept to understand. Sure, we can special order books for customers from our other stores in the chain, but in order to guarantee customers get the books they want, they need to pre-order it.
If you take anything from this list of things, please take away the fact pre-ordering comics is something you have to do to help your LCS, publishers, and creators. It's super-easy and super-helpful.
6. There's No Time to Stand Around and "Read Comics"
I had no delusions about taking on this job when I started. I didn't imagine my work days to consist of me basking in the glory of thousands of comics and reading anything I wanted to until the store closed for the evening. It's a job, and a retail job to boot, so I knew there was going to be a lot of daily tasks.
However, what I didn't realize is that the day-to-day tasks would be a bit more demanding than other retail jobs I had in the past. In no way am I going for the "woe is me" angle, since this is a job and every job is tough. However, when working at a comic book store, there's a lot to do. Aside from just keeping the store straightened and clean, so you don't look like slobs, there's a lot of counting... tons. You gotta know the numbers for what you're selling and on what week, after coming out, that they're selling the most. In addition, it's also keeping track of inventory to see what hot books are flying off the shelf, without being paid for. Stealing doesn't happen that much though.
Without getting too into the whole "what did I do every day of work," I will say that every workday was pretty packed with tasks and routine, and all of it was mindless work, which was actually pretty nice. In the 6 years of working at my LCS, I read two comics during work. In both cases, my boss told me I had to check out a certain issue.
5. Every Repeat Customer had an Unclever Nickname
Working at a comic shop is unlike any other retail job I ever had because both you and the customers had a specific weekly routine. There were certain customers that came at specific times, every week, to the point where I would have their pull list, in hand, seconds before they entered the store. When you come into the store a lot, you get a nickname. Sadly, none of them were clever... none of them.
The first nickname for a customer that comes to mind is "Thor Guy." Guess what he liked? Yeah, it didn't get more creative than that. There was GI Joe Guy, Wolverine Guy, Sonic Girl, Buffy Girl, and even Art Adams Guy. We defined all of our repeat customers by what they liked. There were a couple folks that stood aside from that like Cop Bob, Comedian Bob, and Talky Mike, but again, there was nothing incredibly special about those names. And for all we know, they could be 1920s mobsters over comic store patrons. The tradition of bad nicknames started before I became an employee and went across numerous stores. That little nugget of info is real interesting, right? Well, how about this...
4. You'll Talk to Some of the Coolest People You've Ever Met
Without a doubt, some of the coolest people I've ever met in my life, I met at the comic shop I worked at. People that came in were generally awesome folks that I enjoyed talking to and they helped move the day along pretty well. Fans love talking about their favorite characters, their favorite movies, or even their favorite video games ad the vast majority of people I talked to at the shop were awesome.
Even with forums and message boards being the place people go most of the time to chat about their passion, comic shops still hold this special place in their hearts as a place to go and chat with like-minded folk. That, combined with weekly routine created lots of great moments, like a little thing we called "Matturday," where three customers named "Matt" (Mat, in my case) would spend Saturday afternoons discussing 80s movies, cartoons, and everything in between.
I have a group of friends I still talk to on a regular basis that I met while working at the shop. Usually, it's a pretty positive place and the folks that come into the shop are fantastic people. Sadly, there are not many memorable stories of some of the great conversations or moments from my tenure there because all the bad times stick out so much more...
3. You'll Talk to Some of the Worst People You've Ever Met
Without a doubt, some of the worst people I've ever met in my life, I met at the comic shop I worked at. The idea of the "Angry comic book nerd" does exist in the wild, and it's a unwieldy beast. Fanaticism can be a dangerous thing. As you've probably saw on the Internet, at any given time, some types of personalities on the net are just the worst. I'd like to point out that it's not just comic book readers. Fanatics of all types are terrible human beings. However, did you know those horrible people sometimes leave their house? It's true! It's true! Now, horrible customers were few and far between. I jokingly used to say it was an 80/20 mix. 80% of our customers were awesome and 20% were awful. Looking back, I'd say, at most, 2-3% of the people that came in were nightmares.
Every story I have from working at the comic shop is a bad one because stories about someone being awesome aren't as interesting as someone being awful. What makes for a more interesting story? The time a customer helped me with my car or the time a customer berated me for not opening up the shop early? While I could easily tell lots of stories about being belittled by the common man, I'll just give you guys one:
A couple years back, in fact, this may have been last year but I can't remember, I was working a weekend shift and filling in for a friend. It was a normal Saturday and we had a few people in the store, checking stuff out. I noticed one gentleman, in his 40s, in the back, reading comics. Now, we have a strict policy against reading books in the store. You want to look through them quickly to see if it's for you? No problem, but reading books is taking money out of the store's pocket. I walked up to him and politely said to him something like this "Hey, if you want to look through the books to check them out, that's cool, but we'd appreciate it if you didn't read them." He complied and kept looking around. After a few more customers came into the store, including quite a few regulars, he strutted up to the counter, where I was standing, and said in a booming voice:
"You don't tell me what to do. You know what you lost? You lost a $25 sale on Magic cards! (He never looked at the Magic cards by the way) You think you're a big shot because you work at this s***hole? You're pathetic. How does that make you feel to be a loser working in a comic book store?"
Now, at the time, I was mainly working in the English department of a local college and working here. Regardless, making fun of someone's job is the 2010s equivalent to calling someone a virgin online: a pointless and laughable endeavor. However, as he berated me using the 34 words he knew in a variety of combinations simply because I asked him not to read a comic book, the rest of the customers in the shop were watching him. He stormed off after telling me he was going to get me fired by calling the owners and as he opened the door to leave, before he even get out the door, the other customers erupted in laughter at him as I smiled and said "Have a nice day." See what I did there? I told you a horror story about the comic shop featuring someone who isn't even into comic books. Bam!
Note: He did call the owners and said something along the lines of "the tattooed guy was a big meanie to me." The owners did nothing because I guess he started his "yellings" by calling them losers as well. Way to go!
2. You Become Kings/Queens of Broad Generalizations
Everyone that came into that store had a character or concept they loved. Whether it be Wolverine, Batman, Spawn, or whatever, they loved a certain thing to a varying degree. Once you know what a certain repeat customer loves, your first impression of all customers who are into that character is the same.
Here's an example: Cop Bob LOVES Batman. Seriously, it's like his favorite thing in the universe, and he was even an extra in a couple of the films, as a Gotham City Police Officer. Cop Bob was one of my favorite customers and a super nice guy. Because, as a comic shop employee, I'm pretty illogical on the "what are customers like" front, in my mind, because Cop Bob was awesome, all Batman fans became awesome, even if they were horrible people. Retail sometimes dulls your senses.
On the reverse side of things, Sonic Girl, as mentioned above, was really into Sonic The Hedgehog. In fact, that's all she ever bought. Sonic Girl has this magical ability to yell at me every time I bumped into her because we were out of Sonic comics we didn't have on the shelf. I'd special order books for her and tell her it needs to be on her pull list to guarantee her a copy, but she's refuse to do so, even though she had a pull list. She was pretty dang mean, so therefore, all Sonic fans became the worst to me, which makes no logical sense, but that's just how my brain worked then.
1. Customers Have the Magic Ability to Know When You're Busy
It's safe to say that customers are magic creatures with mystical powers that are the unicorns of the real world. There's no other way to explain the fact that they only need help when you're in the middle of something. I'm sure there's some sort of scientific study out there which says that people are more apt to asking for help when the person they're asking looks busy, but I'm just too lazy right not to see if that's a thing.
Not a day went by, at the shop, where I'd be in the middle of counting new issues, or some other task, and a customer needed me to help them with their shopping list of books. This never happened during moments when I was staring into the ether though. It only happened when I was super-busy. You're probably thinking, "that all goes back to that fake scientific that may or may not exist!" Well, this also happened over the phone. During moments where I was on a deadline to get something done, someone would call with a laundry list of books for me to check out. It's like I put some sort of bizarre pheromone out into the the world, which also travels through phone lines, and it results in people being attracted to the store. They also know when you are working alone and really have to pee. Customers are a mysterious creature.
There you have it. What have we learned? Well, working in a comic shop is a job and there are good times and bad times. Pre-ordering comics is awesome. Customers are all super-powered beings. LCS employees have no creativity and make broad generalizations... see what I did there?
If you've ever worked in a comic shop, let us know what you learned. Also, follow me on Twitter and tell me how wrong I am about everything.