A Song of Retail and Brimstone

[chocolatepot]

Every night I think, "I should check AO3 for [fandom] fic," and every day I forget what fandom I'm supposed to be looking for. It's something small and finished, I think - a book series with a couple of books in it, maybe?

So I've decided that, while I'm still working on getting my cover letter and resume out to museums, I'm going to apply for some other retail jobs at the mall. They'll pay exactly the same, I'm sure, and be the same amount of hours on my feet ... but I can't take the emphasis on making each sale as big as possible anymore, and checking on each person's average dollar sales, and posting whose ADSs are below the store's for the week (hint: I'm always one of them). Yes, of course the store wants to sell things, and I do make an effort, but my style of salesmanship is to make the customer's experience a good one, and not put them into a state of annoyance by over-offering things to them and trying to talk them into buying what they don't want. I don't want to have to be angry at people for only buying a few things, or to wonder whether the management is really that stupid that they think I ought to be able to talk people looking for car air fresheners into buying jar candles. Maybe I'm wrong (but hopefully not) and all chain stores are like this, I don't know, but I'm going to find out. This whole thing is supposed to be temporary while I get a job in a museum or a more serious internship - I shouldn't have to stress about meeting goals so much.

A thoughtful rebuttal to Sady Doyle's review of ASOIAF (which has lots of stuff that's applicable to fantasy/historic fiction in general), and Doyle's even more thoughtful response.


GAH why are there so few Sansa chapters? I guess because there's not much for her to see, since everything that happens in King's Landing is behind closed doors. But I like her perspective and I want things to happen with her. :(

OH TYRION AND SHAE. I liked the fakeout with Shae being kidnapped OH WAIT it's not her! But I am becoming more and more convinced that something really horrible is going to happen with Shae, although I'm torn between thinking she's going to betray him even worse than what happened with Tysha, or if she's going to be horribly raped and killed.

Ygritte's story that she told Jon is making me think that Bran and Rickon are hiding in Winterfell's basement with Osha and Hodor.

Getting kind of fed up with Catelyn and her ~feelings~ about Brienne, but if she changes at some point I'll probably like her again. I was already annoyed by how much of her narrative seemed to be noting Robb's adultness - which is understandable, yes, but I don't want to read about it - and adding "oh, everyone is laughing at Brienne, doesn't she realize she's unwomanly," did not help. Actually, though, one thing I've been noticing that makes the sexism complaints make less sense is that female warriors seem to not be remarked on that much. It's not impossible for them to exist the way it is in some fantasy, it's more about convention and such. Which is interesting and I have no commentary on it.

So, when I read about the assassin guy who killed some people for Arya changing his face, I was like, "OOH, this is really familiar, where did he come up before?" And rewatching GoT showed me the scene where Dorea is bathing with Viserys and is like, "I once saw a man who changed his face like others changed clothes." So I am excited for what this all means.

Almost as excited as I am about the fact that MAGIC IS COMING BACK TO THE WORLD because of Dany and her dragons. That's a) something I like as a plot twist and b) a really awesome thing to be traced back to Dany.

Comments

[rose-bertin.livejournal.com]

Loft is like that.

[chocolatepot.livejournal.com]

Ugh, really? I was hoping that clothing stores in general weren't, because it seems like usually the people on the floor who sell you on things aren't also the cashiers, so they can't keep track of who's doing what.

Well, I will have to ask about this sort of thing when/if I have interviews, so I can make ~informed decisions~.

[rose-bertin.livejournal.com]

Well, we didn't keep track of how many sales everyone made, but we did keep track of how many of the Loft credit card accounts each person opened. And it was very much a sell sell sell add on everything you can mindset.