InsaneJournal

Current mood:	frustrated
Current music:	Third Eye Blind - Blinded

Okay, not too sure on how I feel about this, but I defintely know something wrong happened here...



So there's two gentlemen who come into our store. Let's call them Dude and Guy. Dude comes in with his kids sometimes and is incredibly nice to us. He understand when we have to give him a low offer for his books and is overall a friendly person. Guy's a smidge bit of an asshole, but at least apologizes when he does wrong and, by my book, has been pretty decent thus far.

Both are part of the Nazi Party via their upbringing. (Google the term, as most sites I've visted are either completely anti- or pro-, nothing is just simply information. I've gathered that they defintely believe in white power via old traditional 1950 mentality and are against change; which is the change of races in our country. So yes, very discriminating, but nothing NOW says anything that they are anti-Sematic. This is an important note.)

My manager, henceforth known as Bro, very much hates them, due to his wife being Jewish and had past relatives involved with the Holocaust. Before I learned more about the Nazi Party, I understood my manager's hatred for them but didn't really feel comfortable with it. Any time they would come in to sell us books or ask questions, Bro would immediately refer them to someone else.

So tonight Dude and Guy strolled in. Guy came up to the counter holding a book wrapped in plastic.

"Hey, I wanna sell this, but can I hold onto it? It's real brittle."

I smile to him, "I'll be sure to take VERY good care of it. I'll keep it up here by the monitor so it doesn't get harmed."

Guy gives me an uneasy look and hands the book to me. I tell him ten minutes, thinking Oh great, it's going to be another old crap book that's falling apart...

I was true to my word and opened it up carefully. I was defintely right about the falling apart bit, but was completely wrong about the old crap book.

It's Adolf Hitler: Bilder aus dem Leben des Fuhrers from 1936 (Adolf Hitler: Pictures from the Life of the Fuhrer). A PRO-Hitler book. It was falling apart, the front cover damaged, but as I carfully opened it, I was amazed. The pictures inside weren't printed- they were glued onto the page and in terrific condition! None of them were faded and while the pages saw wear and tear, the pictures had no damage that I could see.

I was psyched as I looked it up on AbeBooks via Bro's command. It started off at a very high price and just kept rising. Not only that, but I was holding a piece of history! We always got in anti-Hitler books, but a pro-Hitler book printed from 1936?! How freakin' sweet!

Bro is my manager for the Nost section, where we take care of the old books (I'm in that section too, LOVE IT). He looks at it and likes it. It's neat.

"Yeah, the damage is pretty intense... We could probably bag it, maybe the store manager might want to see it..." He pauses. "Feh, give it back to him."

I stare at him as if he had grown a second head, "what? Why don't we make him an offer of a dollar and, like, tell him that we'll get back to him after the store manager looks at it?" I know what part of the charm of my store is about; getting really rare or collectable books. This was an insane find!

"Eh, nah. I mean, yeah, okay. Go ahead and offer him a penny... If he just wants to throw it away, I want it. Or our co-worker might want it."

"Well, I want it too, but..." I frowned.

I didn't like this. I liked the idea of bagging it and putting it out for sale. Or at least having the store manager looking at it. But Bro wanted me to pretty much hand it back to the guy? I knew that we took broken books before- we have a first edition of Peter and Wendy with a busted spine. And the pictures in the pro-Hitler book were in GREAT condition!

So Bro walked off and I carefully bagged it back up, feeling something wrong with this. Guy eventually came back with an anxious look on his face.

"Did you even open it up?" he asked when I handed the bag back to him.

"Oh yes! It's really cool, we looked it up online and saw the really nifty pictures inside," I replied. I felt torn. I really wanted to say "Look, this book is AWESOME. I can make you an offer of a dollar right now, but I want to take down your information so that our store manager can look at this. We can probably give you more money for it, but we need our store manager to come to a decision on how to price this." or something to that effect.

Instead I looked apologetic and told him that I could make him an offer of a penny.

"A penny?!"

"Yeah, because of the damage we just can't sell it," I said, down heartened. I would never see this book again...

"No, I'll just hold onto it."

"Understandable sir." I looked at the book and before I could stop myself said, "good-bye really cool Hitler book."

The two left and after a bit, Bro called me over.

"So how did he react when you said a penny?"

I still felt uncomfortable with this whole thing, so I kept my face blank as I stared back at him. "He didn't really."

"Hm. Well... I mean, it's a cool book for collecting, but for a life style? Not so much."

I stared at him as it registered in my head. He didn't want to buy the book because they were Nazis. He... He just discriminated against them.

I finally broke off the gaze with an "okay" and went about my work.

It bugs me. We've bought books that were broken before, and a find like this in MONROEVILLE of all places is absolutely awesome. The content doesn't really matter, as we buy pretty much everything (except books by the Frugle Gourmet, which I have issues about). The condition, while still pretty poor, wouldn't have been issue because we've BOUGHT broken old books before. And it was something rare, a true treasure! A piece of history that isn't just a reprint, but an honest to goodness FIRST edition!

If it had been an old man selling this to us, or a young women finding books in her dad's attic, I know he would've paid for it. I don't doubt this in my heart at all- he would've taken a look at it and would've spoken with the person directly.

I'm going to the manager about this, but am nervous. I really do feel that he discriminated against the customer, but... I don't know.

Insight anyone? What would you do?


By the way, if you find any information that'll help me with this issue (such as accurate, non-biased info on the Nazi party) I'll be very grateful.

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