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Originally Posted by montsnmags
I recall this one time that I had bought a book from Dymocks. I'm not sure why I'd gone to Dymocks - perhaps they were the nearest bookstore, and I was on my lunch hour. I know it wouldn't have been because of the excellent service or well-stocked shelves or pleasant staff or sensible store layout or, what most would consider a prerequisite of a bookstore, a basic ability to file things in alphabetical order, because, as I said, this was Dymocks. Imagine the government trying to run a retail establishment, and imagine that by "government" I mean "large shoal of krill" and by "run a retail establishment" I mean "perform brain surgery on an unsedated gibbon", and you are welcomed to the wonderful world of Dymocks.
Dymocks is that kind of bookstore. They're an Australian legacy, and that legacy leaves them as one of the few major bookselling chains in Australia.
Subsequently, considering their market-dominance, they care about as much for you as a truck cares for the fly whose arse just came through it's own head to hit the windscreen too.
They're the kind of store that places three million copies of a newly released second book in a series in a cardboard stand at the front that you need crampons, ropes and pitons to get past to get the rest of the way into the store that has not a single copy of the first book, but they "can order it in", by which they mean take your name and phone number and sell it to blackmarket organ-harvesters because they're never going to use it to ring you back, nor have the book in at any stage before the next ice age.
They're the kind of store that files "The Origin of Species" under "Science Fiction" ("coz, like, you know, he wrote Planet of the Apes, dint he?") and "W.H.Auden" under "Gay/Lesbian" ("Yeah, that really cool poem in 4 weddings and a funeral. I *so* cried in that movie").
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[...] remainder snipped for brevity's sake
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In the meantime, remember, Dymocks aren't evil; they just suck harder than Paris Hilton in a post-game football locker room.
See, that's a rant. I feel somewhat better now.
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Ah, I see you've experienced what I call 'the English shopkeeper mentality':
'There it is, that's the price, we only have one in stock, an' if yer don't bleedin' like it, yer can sod off!'
We have the same problem (to an extent) in Canada. It tends to happen most with the smaller players who figure they can get away with it because they were here before anyone else. Canada tends to be somewhat of a closed market for retail goods, with limited selection and availability, with equally small-minded, closed-off retailers. And some items which are virtual commodities in the US are virtual examples of 'unobtainium' here.
Our Borders-clone, known as Chapters, isn't too bad, but I've often found that rather inexplicably, some books that are popular (or should be) are listed as 'special order' or 'website order only' items.
Good rant, though.
