Mind the Pettyness

The Petty Crew

The social makeup of the back room has changed. In the past five years, it's mostly been older Black guys working the donations bay and furniture & electronics. With the hire of mattdamon maybe 6 weeks ago, now there are three middle-aged white guys.
The mood is different.

An example of a good change:
All three grew up fixing mechanical things and using power tools, and they enjoy and are eager to do that at work. Our hardware and electronics sections have never been in better shape.

A neutral example:
The three dudes were discussing Tom Petty the other day.
I like Tom Petty okay, but he's not someone my Black coworkers would play. In the 1980s, Petty had flown a Confederate flag on his Southern Accents stage tour. He regretted it--told an audience who'd thrown a flag on stage that he wouldn't do that anymore, said he realized it's like a swastika to a Jew.
So, I'm not complaining, just saying, the musical culture has changed.
(The sexism-level of the music remains unchanged.)

Not neutral:
Cock-of-the-walk energy has ticked up.  Ass't Man is a mansplainer, and new guy mattdamon is another.
Grateful-J, the third white guy, is not.

Yesterday I was in the tool room looking for painter's tape, and mattd was in electronics, around the corner.
"Do you have any painter's tape in your area?" I asked.

He came into the tool room and said, "You should look here," pointing to where I was looking, "where it usually is".

"I am literally standing here doing that," I said.

"Sorry, I'm being a total ass," he said.

So at least he knows it, unlike Ass't Man, but he does it a lot.
How fun is it to point out to someone that they're blowing in your face /flying an ugly flag, even if they're sorry?
None fun.
________

Mr Furniture, Croquette Jeff, and the other Black guys--even Big Boss, who is plenty patriarchal--aren't mansplainers.
Not that they're less sexist, overall. It's a different thing, I think:
speaking with authority to white people is not something Black men have been encouraged to do, to put it mildly.
It's entirely blatant.
Once a Fox News reporter--a white woman--interviewed Big Boss about the George Floyd uprisings.
Afterward he was fuming:
"She told me, 'Oh, you speak so well!'"

II. Book Flow

Otherwise, work is going great. My work is BOOK's, that's what I'm there for. Book donations continue to flow after a slow winter. Lots of good books too (as well as the usual crap--a box of crumpled, outdated romance novels went right into recycling).

I've kept the standard price for books at 99¢ for paperbacks, $1.99 for hardbacks--that's most of the stock.
Because of resellers, however, I've raised prices on more valuable (high interest) books, like these on display, above.
I want BOOK's to be a community resource--a place locals can enjoy browsing the books––so I aim at a price that will either put resellers off buying a book because their profit (usually reselling in bulk to Amazon) will be too small, or, if they do buy it, will at least make some money for our store.

I hated to raise prices, but for customers who buy books to read, we’re still cheaper than Half-Price Books and our selection is better than other thrift stores. Most fiction has low resale value (because so many copies are printed), so resellers leave most of it alone. Readers can still buy a pile of novels for a few bucks. Also, the store's expenses are up, yet I've never raised the prices I inherited from the former Book Lady five years ago.
And, now my blood pressure doesn't shoot up when I see resellers loading their carts with the most valuable books.

A friend and her teenage daughter are coming over to make collages in a couple hours. This is good because I like them, I like collages, and I NEED TO CLEAN MY APT.--a good side effect of having people over.
It's not too bad, but I haven't put away my laundry all week...
Off I go.
Have a great weekend, everybody!