[Prestidigitweeze]

Amazon is often seen as the antidote to the bloated dominance of companies like B&N, but I'd rather work at B&N than one of Amazon's "centers." I've never heard of a book clerk being placed under Amazon's level of scrutiny. This isn't how I want workers to have to live.

Movies and magazines in the '90s often editorialized that chains were killing off smaller stores, with their quirks and personal touches. Now that chains are becoming too real-estate-dependent to survive in a website-with-warehouse market, and customer service in stores has been replaced with self-service whenever possible, we're seeing worse conditions and stability for workers than the '90s could have imagined.

Having read about this, I'll try to redirect more of my business to indie stores like St. Marks Books and Powell's, which offer e-books as well as the printed kind, and to companies like Kobo which are interested in helping indie stores as well as well as their own chain.

I'd like to see online booksellers rated by worker treatment as well as customer service, and not just in permanent job slots. I'd like to know how temps are treated as well.