Guaranteed burnout - Bookseller Changing Hands Book Store Employee Review

You'll work under and with people who are educated and open-minded. Most people who are promoted from entry level stay at this company anywhere from 5-30+ years. The owners don't demand any more from their employees that they don't do themselves. The business is well-established and is in no danger of going under.

Retail work is not flexible, so you don't get holidays off. Seasonal rushes can be stressful. The industry, in general, is low-profit, so don't expect very competitive wages.

You'll meet some amazing coworkers at this job, and it's an institution. Interesting people are drawn to independent bookstores and it's a great environment in that regard.

Horrific pay, Cindy Dach is an icy human being, and the place is generally managed quite poorly. They claim to be environmentally-conscious, egalitarian, etc. but it's very much a for-profit business, and you'll be reminded of that both tacitly and explicitly on a regular basis. For example, they might hire you if you purport to have interesting or unusual tastes, but not because they'd like to foster a community of unique, art-loving, creative, like-minded individuals - rather, because they'd like you to boil your tastes down to a few book recommendation lines that can be used to sell, sell, sell. Changing Hands is absolutely shameless in that regard; I worked for other independent bookstore owners who cringed and refused wholeheartedly to degrade their spaces by making them trinket warehouses, but at Changing Hands, any ol' $25 Shakespeare finger puppet will do, and any celebrity with a "book" out can stop by and hawk their wares, so long as the owners make a buck of it. Or take, for example, the face that they let the greeter choose the music, but their choice is very much restricted and the managers are trained to fear what employees will play, lest nasty Cindy Dash come by and shoot dirty looks. I have had many jobs before and since Changing Hands and I can affirm that my experience with Cindy is among the worst I've had. You don't have to take it from me, either - ask former employees and you'll very quickly discover that there is a genuine issue with ownership at this bookstore. Huge shame, because it could be and sometimes is a really special place. Sometimes the New Age-y customers were a handful as well.