My vent of the day...
Bookshops that don't actually
act like a bookshop!
I have just started an online course. Got my booklist a week or so ago, plus the address/website of the campus bookshop. Went there and saw that they have an online ordering facility for distance-education students (which I am) and that books may be ordered for postage or pickup.
Fine. As I will be at the college a week after placing my order (tonight, actually), I decide to order online with a view to picking the books up tonight. Go through all the process online, noting that stock of one book is down to one. Get to delivery info stage and discover that there is
only an option to ship the order, at a cost of Can$15 plus tax. Cancel process and phone bookstore.
Staff in bookstore do not have the details the website has of essential texts for each course, so instead of telling them my module codes I have to list each book individually. They then tell me that they cannot hold the order for me to pick up a week later as they have no space to keep individual orders. They tell me to order online and have books shipped. So, even though it will cost me more, when it would have been convenient to pick up my books tonight, I ordered them to have them shipped - was conscious of that one text which only had one copy left.
A week later, no books have arrived. When at the college tonight, I went into the bookshop to ask when my order was dispatched.
They have no record of my order. 
So now I have to call tomorrow with my order confirmation information and try to get it sorted out. I will then have to wait to get the books dispatched. In the meantime, my course has now started and they are out of stock of the one essential text which I did actually manage to order. So, having been organised enough to have my books in time, I now have nothing.
AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! Wendy
