Chipper record store staff alert
On a recent trip to give my spare money to Rough Trade I noticed that the staff were amiable, attentive and even chipper you could say.
I really don’t know what’s going on here.
It all started a few months back when I set out one sunny morning to Soho to buy the boy a Roy Ayers LP and myself, well, anything interesting that came along. I went to Sounds of the Universe and the people behind the counter were strangely pleasant and helpful.
This was surprising, but I could handle it.
Then the same thing happened again in Ray’s Jazz and then in Vinyl Junkies where a staff member actually left the security of the counter and asked me if I needed help with anything. We then had a conversation about how great Art Blakey is/was.
Since this auspicious day, the record store staff of London have been positively oozing good humour and cheerfulness. A guy in HMV spent at least 10 minutes searching through the racks looking for a 12” I was after and the proprietor of a local vinyl emporium waxed enthusiastically to me about the delights of Steely Dan.
This has now culminated in not one, not two, but three Rough Trade staff in one visit asking me if was finding what I wanted (and telling me not to buy the new LCD Soundsystem record). In any other shop this could be irritating, but I am just so shocked that I am prepared to deal with it.
Have record store staff suddenly realised that being nice to customers might help keep them in business or is it just me?
November 28th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Very few record shop employees I’ve ever met have been anything other than dismissive and aloof.
have they put something in the water?
November 28th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Actually the people in the now sadly departed Missing on Great Western Road used to be nice. Sometimes.
November 28th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
Hmm……..I suppose they were ok. Fopp was always a little po-faced though. I miss the old John Smiths bookshop on Byres Road. Steven Pastel used to work in there. They were pretty helpful too and were a goldmine for ‘hard-to-find’ vinyl and cd’s. Suppose they aren’t all bad……………..;D
Missing expanded to about three stores at one point, including a big old place round the corner from their original shop. They now only run a tiny little place under the Central Station canopy on Argyll Street.
November 28th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
You are Glasgow, illman, mentioning Stephen Pastel and John Smiths! Unfortunately, I think that shop closed two weeks before I moved to the city.
One of my favourite Glasgow facts/myths is that that canopy on Argyll Street is one of most polluted places in the UK. Get a fish supper there and inhale the poison!
November 29th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
The canopy is actually known as ‘The Heilanmans Umbrella’. Not 100% sure why. Possibly to do with migrating and homeless Highlanders huddling under it for warmth back in the latter part of the 19th century. It’s still a shitehole and you walk under it with a fair amount of haste.