Yes, I am a former still-disgruntled Borders employee. It didn’t take long for me to get that way—back in 1998, I worked there for a brief while, in fact helped to build store 2226487 or whatever it was, in a Southwestern town that needed another bookstore like it needed another bottle of tequila. Before the marauder’s arrival, the town had lots of pleasant independent bookstores in which one could spend many happy hours browsing, drinking tea, and visiting with one’s bibliophile neighbors. Filled with literate clerks picking worthy inventory, they accompanied several decent music stores, of the High Fidelity variety… where you dared not bring the wrong selection to the register for fear of utter derision.
Within a couple years of Borders’ arrival--in the form of 2 stores, not just 1, in a town of 60,000--many of those same salubrious places were forced to close shop. And the ones that managed to stay open were barely squeaking by. Why? Because not only did Borders boast a much larger selection than indie stores could afford to keep in inventory, but also because the mega giant pushed the concept of discounting, whereas bookstores were previously able to sell books at full cost. I suppose we could point the finger at consumers for not supporting their beloved haunts, but in a town in which there are many smart-but-poor folks, the discount proved to be a big orange carrot. And yes, another finger could point to Amazon, but in 1997, Amazon was still a toddler.
Borders started all employees, regardless of their job responsibilities, level of education, or previous employment history at the same wage: one dime above minimum wage. Café employees were not permitted to set out a tip jar, which might have actually enabled them to earn a near-livable wage, ostensibly because Borders didn’t want their customers to feel “pressured” (the fact that there’s a tip jar on every other café counter in America mattered not). Oh, the utter filth of dollar bills sitting in a jar, distracting customers from their book-buying duties! I remember this being a great bone of contention, to the point at which some workers banded together and tried to form a union to address both the low wages and the tip situation. Goliath squashed them like a bug.
Unless you worked full-time, employee benefits were just about nil. Certainly no sick leave or vacation time, no stock options, retirement plans, and a measly discount on all food you bought at the café. Hey, at least you didn’t have to tip! They made a big deal of offering an “employee appreciation” 30% off holiday shopping day, which was a mad-festive 2 hours in which you got to enrich Borders’ coffers by spending your entire paycheck on their wares, yet somehow walked away feeling like Borders was so very generous for permitting this bit of holiday cheer. (Forget the fact that they made a mint on these employee-shopping sprees, as tens of thousands of workers drank the Kool-Aid.)
Borders’ managers were a cross between platoon sergeants and convent librarians. Sitting was not allowed, even when one was working the register and there were no customers for miles. Leaning was also verboten, even when one had worked an 8-hour day and had very sore feet. Talking or fraternizing with coworkers was frowned on, and employees who became too friendly were routinely separated or sent to a manager for a talking-to. Surprisingly, there was no detention. I was 35 when I worked there, but often felt like I was 12. I’ll be good…I’ll sell books…I swear…don’t hurt me…
Shockingly enough, Borders attracted the cream of the crop in employees—a fact I’m sure was completely lost on it. Among the original store clerk staff, I can count at least 3 with genius-level IQs, several with grad school degrees, a number who’d been in the workforce for at least 25 years, and many who would bend over backwards to help customers with even the most absurd requests. And when it came time to reward these shining stars, Borders stepped up to the plate with… about 25- to 50-cent/hour raises, after 6 months to a year.
The company relied on the fact that there was a degree of both desperation and masochism in the town’s job-seeking populace. For many workers, it was either this or unemployment. Borders took advantage of the fact that women who’d been long out of the workforce found it “pleasant” to get out of the house and earn a few bucks—literally. That those with PhDs in medieval philosophy would rather spend their days hocking Jude Deveraux novels than sitting home with an empty fridge. That writers like me were used to making pittances with their English degrees, so why not capitalize on this situation? And that some would have such low self-esteem that they’d even aspire to a higher level career as a manager in the corporation, and therefore be willing to “pay their dues” at starvation wages.
Fortunately my self-esteem and I took a big walk outta there 4 months later.
Did the giant shed a tear for the loss of a great employee? I think not.
Flash forward to 2005, when after gobbling through most conceivable American locations and shredding local indie timber like logs in a sawmill, the company opened its largest store: a 60,000-square-foot monstrosity in Malaysia, of all places. God knows they weren’t paying those Malaysian clerks the big bucks we Americans were making. And I’m guessing the rent was cheaper than in midtown Manhattan--or Boise, Idaho. But considering that Malaysia’s GDP for that year was less than US$8,000, I’m not clear on the logic of this move. Sometimes the patent manifestations of greed turn back in on themselves in a swirl of absurdity.
Trust me, I understand that bookstores are not high-profit entities, and thus, wages are low industry-wide. And of course there are certain sacrifices that bibliophiles willingly make to work with books, reasons why people may accept lower wages if working conditions are pleasant enough. However, most of the owners of independent bookstores I know do their absolute best to pay a fair wage and make damn sure their employees are happy and compensated in other tangible and intangible ways.
This was far from the case with Borders. The Goliath made it very clear that it was in BUSINESS. And to that end, it proceeded with an agenda of nothing but greed to systematically unseat all of its competitors in every market it entered. And enter it did, into just about every possible market—to the tune of 1,249 stores throughout the world. Just thinking about the loss sustained by all those businesses in its path makes me physically ill. Even if the leviathan was responsible for the closings of just two indie stores per location, that’s almost 2,500 local businesses felled by Augustus Gloop. And while Borders has filed Chapter 11 and its top execs are undoubtedly still sitting pretty with their multimillion-dollar severance packages, all of those 2,500 stores are gone forever. Not only is this an economic disaster, it also represents an inestimable loss of culture and community.
Big box stores were a giant soap bubble, the fantasy of children who wanted to believe that endless expansion and boundless wealth were possible. And for a while, that seemed in danger of appearing real. However, as E. F. Schumacher once noted, “Infinite growth of material consumption in a finite world is an impossibility.” I’m sure former Borders’ execs have not been sitting around reading Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered. But now that they have a little time on their hands, maybe they can pick up a copy at their local independent bookstore.
