I was lucky enough not only to host <a href="http://tulsaartblog.blogspot.com/">an up-and-coming Tulsa blogger</a> on this blog yesterday, but to also gather your tales of retail woe as entries for <a href="http://www.tashadoestulsa.com/2009/02/local-encounters-plus-giveaway.html">a Jeff Martin book</a><a href="http://www.tashadoestulsa.com/2009/02/local-encounters-plus-giveaway.html"> giveaway</a>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/34000000/34002285.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 416px; height: 600px;" src="http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/34000000/34002285.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />After skimming parts of this book and reading your comments, I'm going to a meanie-head and say: My experiences in customer service were quite pleasant, actually. I was one of the lucky ones. From the time I was 16 until my senior year of high school, I occupied a not-exactly-ergonomic but still cushy chair at the <a href="http://mazzios.com">Mazzio's</a> call center here in Tulsa. After that I worked at the Cherry Street location of <a href="http://panerabread.com">Panera Bread</a>. Who could complain about talking on the phone, bagging cookies and mopping out a giant oven all day? I'm sure there were days when I could have, but looking back on those years, Call Center Chick and Bakery Girl were definitely O.K. jobs.<br /><br />Does that mean I've never had one of those jobs that required me to fetch coffee, pick up dry cleaning, reshelve a wayward book of government maps five times in a day, label serials by hand in a hot, dark, musty, forgotten part of one of Oklahoma's largest libraries, refill the paper of every single printer in said library three times a day, or make copies on an ancient copy machine until my ears rang? No. But those jobs couldn't exactly be categorized under such a pretty term as customer service. They were more like adventures in indentured servitude.<br /><br />Not that I'm bitter.<br /><br />And now, the winner of a pristine, undefiled copy of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Customer-Always-Wrong-Retail-Chronicles/dp/193336890X">Jeff Martin's "The Customer is Always Wrong: The Retail Chronicles!"</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_tZVufRlMtzM/SZr3-lMHwyI/AAAAAAAAArw/_6Snve7xy4s/s1600-h/random.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 305px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_tZVufRlMtzM/SZr3-lMHwyI/AAAAAAAAArw/_6Snve7xy4s/s400/random.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5303824165689082658" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tZVufRlMtzM/SZr33iliPnI/AAAAAAAAAro/4Ji7vkPmSAQ/s1600-h/randomii.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 173px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tZVufRlMtzM/SZr33iliPnI/AAAAAAAAAro/4Ji7vkPmSAQ/s400/randomii.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5303824044731285106" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tZVufRlMtzM/SZr3wSwWqSI/AAAAAAAAArg/SMe5SxjT26U/s1600-h/comments.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 197px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tZVufRlMtzM/SZr3wSwWqSI/AAAAAAAAArg/SMe5SxjT26U/s400/comments.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5303823920222611746" border="0" /></a><br />Congrats, <a href="http://havesporkwilltravel.blogspot.com">Amanda</a>! Not only are you my best friend and my son's fairy godmother, but you are the winner of this book! I told you putting up with me would pay off. Now, never enter a contest on this blog again, because when you win, I look like I'm playing favorites, and my readers might retaliate by staging a mutiny.<br /><br />Yeah. A grizzly mutiny by the other three of my readers besides you who read books. I bet they'd even dress up as pirates. Me timbers, they shiver.