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Routine work
In
the morning, as Mrs. Hsueh-hui pulled open the door a new busy day came.
“Sweeping and mopping the floor, watering the flowers, cleaning the windows and
tables are the routine works in every day’s morning,” she said. Jie Lan watered
the flowers, Haiwen cleaned the window, Yilong swept the floor, and Peiyi
cleaned the table. Everyone was busy! We also sorted out the books that should
be returned and moved them to the door.
Selling books
“Is
there any painting books suitable for grade one students?” We answered the call
by leading the customer immediately to relevant part of the bookstore and sold
the one he selected with a 25% discount. If the book demanded by a customer was
not available, then we wrote down the title, publishing house of the book, and
recorded the name and telephone number of the customer so that we could inform
him when the book he booked was available.
Mrs. Hsueh-hui taught us with
patience how to search for information about books on the internet. “First we
log on the website of Sanming Bookstore or Bokelai, enter the key words in the
searching bar, and then….” It was really convenient to search for the books
people want on the internet.
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Cleaning
is the first job of the day
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Interaction with customers
How
to interact with customers? Mrs. Hsueh-hui taught us how to greet and receive
the customers, explaining the charges and recommending books. It was not easy
at all!
We observed how Mrs. Hsueh-hui
interacts with customers. Apart from casual chat, they also talked about the
Book Club, story-tellers in Chungyi Elementary School in such
a intimate way that they just looked like old friends. We realized that
managing a bookstore demanded not only management and sales techniques, but
also the eagerness, time and vigor to promote reading.
What we have learnt
We called it a day
at 4:00 PM. Apart from the techniques of managing a bookstore, we have learnt
how to approach customers and what it took to maintain the bookstore. |
