Okay I have a thing to say https://twitter.com/ompeileen/status/1252615202169917448

While the majority of people who have ordered from @justonemorepage during this madness have been absolutely lovely, a small number seem to have gone out of their way to take issue with what they perceive our flaws to be—our website, our policies, our point of sales, etc...

Some have even done so by comparing us, unfavorably, to Amazon, an independent bookstore’s main competitor and all-around economic and labor-rights nightmare.

Now, the problems with Amazon aside (I might come back to those later, we’ll see) I really want to push back against this expectation of immediate instantaneous gratification that Amazon has engendered

There is a pandemic on, y’all. I don’t know if you have noticed, but things are a bit up in the air right now. Even your precious Amazon, with hundreds of warehouses and thousands of underpaid workers, have suspended or delayed most of their shipping...

...so I’m not sure why you think six people with 3 computers between them can get you that obscure memoir from 2011 that you ordered at 10:45 Saturday night to you by Tuesday morning when the biggest, most insidious, tax-evading economic monolith cannot

I know you’re scared. I know you’re worried. I know you’re stressed. We are too. My husband broke his leg the week before all this really kicked up, so we have been in and out of surgery, hospitals, and doctors’ offices at the height of the pandemic...

...all the while worrying about our jobs and the theatre and bookstore that we work at, respectively. Times are uncertain and scary. No one knows what will happen in the long run, or what this will all look like on the other side.

But if your reaction to this is to take out your feelings of fear on booksellers who are in and of your community, who are facing down a pandemic and continuing to work, ordering shipping & DELIVERING YOUR BOOKS TO YOUR DAMN HOUSE, then maybe take a long hard look at yourself...

Take a look at why you feel like it is within your rights to criticize people who are working longer more stressful hours to make sure that you and your families have jigsaws a-plenty to while away your quarantine hours.

It costs you nothing to be kind, patient, and understanding to people who are working their hardest and doing their best, and who are often beholden to other people’s schedules and delays in the book supply chain.

And if your takeaway at the end of that self-reflection is that you should send these booksellers an email bemoaning that it is easier to order from Amazon, then the only thing I can tell you is go with god and order it from them, Susan, you still won’t get it until May.

I am very mad and protective of my coworkers and my bookstore, and if you come at me with this nonsense, I will tell you exactly what I think of it. It’s nonsense, and just because you’re scared doesn’t mean you can be a dick.