~Post by Kate, BookPeople’s first intern
There is a little card from a customer on the wall in the managers’ office that says “I hid a hot dog in your store. Can you find it?” Well, my internship is almost over and I have not found the hidden hot dog. However, I have learned some other really cool BookPeople secrets.
1. BookPeople is secretly an ocean. All the big displays have nautical names. My personal favorites are “the whale” by the registers and “the kraken” by the stairs on the first floor.
2. BookPeople has a fourth floor! And, unfortunately, it’s not a unicorn farm or a chamber of secrets. The fourth floor has many offices, some nice employee restrooms, old posters from old events, and the receiving area. Basically, all the awesome people who keep BookPeople running smoothly operate on the fourth floor.
3. There are also secret stairs. You would think employee stairs would be easy to operate, but they’re actually a scary dungeon (to me, at least). The stairwell is hot and humid. To get out, you’re supposed to use the coded door on the second floor. Sometimes I mess up the code and get stuck going all the way back up. My favorite thing about the stairwell is all the old posters in there. How times have changed!
4. Have you ever heard scary noises while in the Book People elevator? Well, it’s not the customer elevator that’s making those noises, so don’t worry. The slams and moans you hear are from the nearby freight elevator. I’ve had to fetch carts of books off of it and it terrifies me. I imagine riding on it to be like the tower of terror at Disneyland.
5. That blue door between the bookshelves on the first floor is actually the managers’ office. It’s not very exciting; it’s just where the employees keep their stuff and where the managers have their desks. My favorite thing about it, though, is all the funny pictures and notes on the wall, such as the aforementioned hot dog note.
While my other friends were doing projects at boring accounting firms or with persnickety wedding planners, I was having a blast being a book person. I definitely had the best job of all my friends because I got discounted books and coffee and got to talk about books all day. The best perk, though, was getting to read Michael Chabon’s new book for free five months before its release date. BookPeople is a special place because the employees love books so much and take so much care in helping customers. I’m so happy that I got to do my internship here, and I’m even happier that I’m going to stay here for the summer and actually get paid to do what I love. Thanks for reading, and see you this summer!
BookPeople 