Ok, DU buddies...I need help. I had a very depressing visit to Barnes and Noble this morning.

[Are_grits_groceries]

40. I worked at BN for 10 years.

They had a decent group of liberal employees. We did our best to display progressive books, but a lot of what we did was mandated by HQ. I worked in several stores and this was generally the case.

In addition, BN has cut staff to the bone and there is minimal training. If she was a relatively new hire, understanding what she was seeing on the computer screen probably made little sense. Inventory can also be wrong for a myriad of reasons. Even trained, older employees can have trouble.

We had customers who were always accusing us of hiding the Limbaugh type books. They thought we had them stored in the back. We wanted to burn them to exorcise the evil spirits.

BN has begun to use a business model of giving huge displays of authors such as James Patterson and Danielle Steele. This is a real change from what they used to be.

Could you have run into a disgruntled jackass who didn't care. Sure. I've worked with some of those. The employee who helped you took you to the section. The jackasses usually move as little as possible.

Talk to a manager. Tell them that you were disappointed and need their help. This keeps the conversation on a non-adversarial level. Most will take it seriously. They may give you more help or know something that's not evident.

I am not excusing bad employee behavior. From experience though, I know that it's easy to have misunderstandings coming from both sides.