rain people

One of the down sides of the computer revolution is the tendency for customers used to databased inventory to be incurious and dependent. We still get what I call "book people", who are excited to find a 'real' used bookstore and vanish into the stacks for hours at a time.

But their spiritual opposites are legion, blank faced folk who bee line from the front door to the counter, ask about some specific author or book and then stare at you expectantly.

This situation can work if I know what they're talking about,which I often do.

But if I don't it can go off the rails, something like this:

"I'm not familiar with that , do you know what it's about?"

"It's a book?"
Blank stare.

"Do you know the topic? Is it a novel? Nonfiction?"

"It's nonfiction?"
Blank stare.

"Most of the store is non-fiction, can you narrow it down a little for me?"

"He's a journalist?"
Blank stare.

"Ok, journalism is in the loft at the head of the stairs."
Relieved to get some traction.

"Oh, it's not journalism. It's nonfiction."
blank stare.

This is the point where I generally check out of the conversation and avail myself of Amazon's database (which creates its own problems, because if you look on a computer and see the book, they expect that it's on hand. Which didn't work even when I was at Waldenbooks- if the machine said 50 copies, it MIGHT be in stock, but we didn't make any promises.)

I understand that people are used to being spoon-fed, what I don't get is the inability of many to adapt to a different environment.

The conclusion Oh, hey, this isn't Borders, they can't just look the guy up and have the machine tell them where he is, they need my input doesn't seem that hard to draw.

Corporate America is turning everybody into Rain Man.