Book Lady

Borders: Interview with CEO George Jones

In the downtown Seattle Borders, the Sony E-book on display is broken. When the staff is asked, everyone calls everyone else, eventually finding the one staff member who knows how to turn Sony Reader on and off. She does know her stuff -- but she's apparently the only one in the store that knows anything about e-books. Two Borders staff members asked me to explain the term "e-book reader" when I first started asking at the information desk.

The Seattle store is undergoing a remodel, so perhaps the knowledgeable book people are too busy shelving to be on the floor. But when the customer service person in science fiction area has never heard of bestseller Terry Pratchett (although stacks of his books are displayed for sale when we did find that shelf) or nobody seems to know where the mysteries are hiding (we followed the clues and found them eventually).

You have to wonder if anyone from Borders headquarters ever visits any of their non-concept stores.

However the sales coupons are great and unlike B&N, Borders doesn't charge for people to have their cards. So I look at it as a good self-service stop in my bookshopping day.