I Work At A Bookstore Now; Bookstores Are Cool

The above is a crude approximation of a quote from Doctor Who, where the Doctor is actually talking about how he wears bowties. Or fezzes. Or Stetsons. Or whatever it is he's wearing on any given moment since his eleventh reincarnation. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go watch Doctor Who. You will not regret this decision.)

My job history has been largely unsatisfying. In the first few months of my blogging I liked to complain about the one girl I babysat, but really, it went downhill from there. (Just goes to show what gratitude can do for a girl, huh?) After the babysitting jobs and the gradual failure of my job working for my old bishop (which finally just kind of stopped in January), I went out to Provo and managed to snag myself a job making sandwiches at five a.m. It was by no means an ideal job- I knew that going in- but I already had a food handler's permit, left over from when I worked at BYU Concessions during my freshman year of college. So I would get up at five-thirty, pull on clothes and a jacket, and walk a couple blocks to the Creamery Outlet and I would go in and put on a special coat of special (meaning a white lab-like coat) over my regular coat and a hairnet (which I always put on over my hair but under my hat) and then plastic gloves over my real ones and then I would go into a large fridge and make sandwiches.

I thought it was okay. I liked making sandwiches. That was fine. It smelled nice and I could come home and shower before I had class.

Yeah, no. Getting up that early began to take its toll on me. I was sleeping in class, barely functioning. I was like a robot. I was not thriving. The thing is, and I didn't realize this until fairly recently thanks to my beautiful and intelligent mother, is that I have always required a lot of sleep, like more than eight hours a night, to function properly. I was sleeping through the night before I was a year old, probably before I was six months old. My mother has stories about how she would wake up in the night and panic because she thought I was dead because I wasn't crying but I was actually just totally conked out. (Dream baby, right?) So I was getting like five, sometimes six hours a night. And it didn't help that I was neglecting my homework because I thought I was getting into a relationship which turned out to be based on a pack of lies and a dog in the manger. And my body and mind just said, "NO." So I started looking for a new job right around late November, early December.

I then was able to grab a job at the Creamery on Ninth East. Still food, but great, because I didn't have to get up until eight on the days I worked and I only worked three days a week! Great, right? It was a fun job. I would walk there in the morning, put on my awesome shirt and a baseball cap, wash my hands, and start setting up the restaurant part of the Creamery for the crew who came and did the actual cooking. I got ice cream for people. I told them regretfully, "Sorry, the grill's not open until eleven." I sliced onions and scooped raw meat into a metal tin. It was a largely independent job, based on routines which I performed admirably. I've always been good at following a set pattern, if I do say so myself. (This is why I get nervous with strangers. More on that later.)

But I wasn't satisfied with this job because I knew that I was going to have to start working regular restaurant hours in the summer, and my brain objected to that because as much as I like food and hamburgers and things, I didn't want to make them. Grease perfuming my hair and clothes and high temperatures and stressful shouting and running around and making food- all things I'm not okay with because of my mental issues, which like to shut me down when I have to deal with those things.

So I started applying for jobs again. My good friend Fairy-Tale Princess helped me out with my resume one night, when the two of us and Superwholockmarauder watched a fantastic movie called The American President. (It's not about Obama and it's an adorable romantic comedy-drama thing.) And I started sending that thing out and around.

And then I looked on the BYU employment website and I saw it.

General Book Sales Clerk at BYU Bookstore. 7:45-11:00 am shift.

And my whole brain started screaming: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH SARAH SARAH SARAH YOU SHOULD APPLY BECAUSE YOU CAN WORK IN A BOOKSTORE AND AAAAAAAAHHHH YOU COULD WORK IN A FRICKIN' BOOKSTORE LIKE OH MY WIZARD GOODNESS WHAT IS GOING ONNNNN IN THIS WORLD?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?"

I kid you not, that's what it sounded like in my head.

So I sent in my resume and application and cover letter and things, and I made sure to sound perky and happy and skippy even though I'm not really a perky happy skippy person all the time and I mentioned that I really, really love books and that I want to work with them forever.

And then I was actually proactive, and I called back a few days later, and said, "Hi! My name is, uh, Sarah, and I was wondering about the status of my job application which I put in on Thursday!"

My voice, in case you were wondering, goes up an octave in pitch when I'm talking to strangers. And I did nearly forget my name.

"Oh, of course! Well, call back on Monday and ask for *insert name of manager here*, okay? He won't be in until Monday."

It was encouraging. I was excited. So on Monday I woke up at nine literally so I could call and ask for Manager.

"Hi, Manager, my name is Sarah, and I was wondering about my job application status for the general book clerk position..."

And I kind of trailed off because males of any sort intimidate me.

And this slightly gruff but very gentle-sounding older man says in my ear, "Yes, we'll get to those later today. I was at a funeral this weekend and I didn't have time to work on them, and if we select you for an interview, we'll call you back, okay?"

"Sure thing! Thank you so much! Have a nice day! Bye!" And then I hang up, relieved, because talking on the phone is nervewracking. It really is.

And I waited. And waited. And later that evening, I got a call and they said, "Hey, can you come in for an interview tomorrow at two?"

And I said, "YES! YES I can, absolutely, thank you so much, thank you," because I am a sap. And I went in the next day and a girl named *insert name of supervisor here* and this nice older guy named Manager, who I had talked to on the phone, came in and asked me some questions. And then they asked me the last book I had read, and I said The Host by Stephenie Meyer, because it was true at the time. And then they said, "Okay, we'll let you know."

By now I had this mad fantasy of a time where I would get up at six and shower and I would buy a travel mug and make herbal tea for myself every morning and take it to work and I would feel grown-up and responsible and hipstery because of taking a travel mug full of a warm liquid typically associated with the British and with intellectuals and drinking it in a bookstore where I worked.

That fantasy was crushed when I got an email that very evening that said, "Sorry, but you have not been selected for this position."

And I cried. I did. I laid in bed and I cried for a good half-hour and I was really bummed out because I wasn't quite done with finals and I didn't get this job and I really wanted it and I didn't want to do restaurant shifts at the Creamery every other day because I would feel perennially gross and now I would have to. And I prayed and asked God if he could please make things okay because I was trying my hardest to improve my life and recover from the mental issues that had been plaguing me all semester, the mental issues that sometimes made it impossible for me to get out of bed in the mornings, the mental issues that made me seriously consider stepping in front of a bus or downing a bottle of ibuprofen, the mental issues that sent me to bed crying uncontrollably because that was all I could do when I couldn't control anything else.

And the next day I had my last final and therapy and an appointment with a psychiatrist because of mental issues and I had to run around from place to place, and I was about to get a job interview set up at another place, so I was tired and annoyed and feeling crazy, and I walked out of my therapy session and checked my phone and there was a new voicemail.

And I listened to it and it was from the bookstore and they wanted me to call them back.

So I did.

And they offered me a job- not from 7:45 am to 11 am every day, but from 10 am to 1 pm every day.

And it was an answer to my prayers.

And then they told me the story of how I was hired.

I was second in line for the job. The girl who got the original job is my coworker. She's very nice. Supervisor and Manager, who had interviewed me, found out that they could hire just one more person at the last minute. And they picked me. And the only reason that I was in second place, apparently, was because I was reading The Host, and Manager disapproves of SMeyer because of her inane style- but the girl who got the original job was reading Wuthering Heights, and Supervisor disapproves of Wuthering Heights (and so do I, but I understand their viewpoint that it is higher quality literature than The Host). And I did mention that I thought that The Host was worlds better than the Twilight books because a) it is and b) it has some interesting psychological stuff that other sci-fi/fantasy hasn't really considered before, at least not in a whole book to itself. And Supervisor said that she really liked my resume and stuff and that she really wanted to hire me and was sad when they couldn't hire me and then was really happy when they decided they could hire me. And I was happy too.

Basically, I was hired on the basis of a miracle. This is how I know God answers prayers- when I need something and want something but am not sure I'm going to get it, he's either going to say "yes, here you go," or "not yet, but at some point" or "no, but you're going to be grateful for it later." This one was definitely a "not yet" and I am so glad that it was, because if I hadn't had that "not yet" I wouldn't have been sad when I didn't get it originally and I wouldn't have been inspired to pray and ask for things to work out okay.

So in case you were interested, I am now employed at the BYU Bookstore. I work every day from 10 am to 1 pm and I am found at the desk with all the ducks on it that says "General Book Information" over it on the wall.

What do I do? I stock, organize, and dust my assigned sections of the shelves, fix incorrect price stickers, answer customer questions and help them find books, wander the sales floor to help customers out, look to see if we carry books in stock, sometimes answer phones and make announcements over the loudspeaker, run special errands for Supervisor and/or Manager, and sometimes, in my free moments, I get to sit at the desk and read because I'm done with things but I have to stay in case customers ask for help.

Basically: I work in a bookstore and I give people advice about books and I have a very good general knowledge of what we are selling and I am learning about ISBNs and important things that I will need to know about because I want to someday write and publish books.

This is actually my dream job.

And I know what's happening, and why. For the first time in a long time, I'm beginning to see light during the day. I went to the psychiatrist and got pills (antidepressants) that I take every morning which make me happy. I go to therapy every week and talk about my problems. I have two classes right now; one is about Mormon church history which is fascinating and one is about literature and film with a focus on courtly romances like Lancelot and Guinevere or Tristan and Isolde or Pride and Prejudice or Jane Eyre. Like I kid you not we are reading P&P and Jane Eyre for class. And I have this great job and I moved out of my old apartment and I don't live in a shoebox and I have my own washer and dryer and I pack my lunch for school and I'm eating healthy and I don't eat when I'm bored because I'm not hungry which is a side effect of the pills and I exercise twice a week at the gym with Superwholockmarauder and another friend and I'm remembering to pray every night and I am just really, really happy right now. My life is wonderful and perfect.

And although I find myself wishing I could have a boyfriend or a husband to be with- watching people get engaged and holding hands and things, it's really cute- it's not something that hurts me as much as it did just a few weeks ago. I'm doing better. And although I don't really know what I'm doing with my life just yet- I feel that for once, everything is coming up me.