A Couple of Weekends Ago

Up until a couple of weekends ago, every one of the book signings have gone off without a hitch; the last one went well, but there were some serious problems. I put half of the fault on my own back. That week was the week of Mom's heart surgery, and I wasn't as focused on the book signing as I normally am. I didn't get to promote myself as well as I should have, but there's no one to blame but myself.

Anyway, the morning of the signing was a blur. The night before my hubby and I decided to redecorate my office into a guest bedroom for my mother. What we thought was a small, 2 hour job ended up lasting most of that night and the next morning. We were almost done that morning when we received a call from Mom at the hospital; they were releasing her that day, but she didn't know when. That threw my family and I into a tailspin. Not only did we have to complete the project before noon, we also had to clean the rest of the house, do laundry, AND I had to get ready for the signing that afternoon. Long story short, we cleaned our house in less then three hours.

After lunch, John dropped me off at the book store for the signing and left to pick up Mom at the hospital. Normally, I'm pretty calm, but the events of the morning, and five cups of coffee, left me extremely jittery. To make matters worse, the book store was not prepared for my signing. To my horror, I noticed that my flier was not in the door, and the signing table still had the books from the previous visiting author on it; none of my books were to be seen anywhere.

Okay, no big deal, I thought as I walked to the customer service desk. I was met by a male employee, obviously irratated because I interrupted his flirting session with a female employee. I ignored his sour expression, extended my hand, and introduced myself. The guy sneered and actually said "What do you want?"

I felt my blood pressure rising. What a creep! I took a deep breath, smiled, and explained my problem.

"And what do you want me to do about it?"

I was fast reaching my boiling point. "Would you please ask someone to help me move the other books. I don't know where they belong.

"Hmm. Okay." The fellow turned his back on me and started another conversation with the pretty female employee.

Surely he'll call someone. Wrong! After a few minutes I gave up on getting help from the creep at CS, and started looking for help elsewhere. After a brief search, I found a floor manager that was more then happy to help me.


The rest of the signing went well. I met interesting people, and I enjoyed signing the books for them
Part of me wanted to report the rude employee, but what good would that have done?