Brick and Mortar

I specifically waited until my wife and I were in SoCal before going to a book store for the two items I wanted to get my father for his upcoming birthday. We stopped by two stores and, at the second (Barnes and Noble), we actually spoke with a worker at the Information desk concerning one of the two books.

You see, my dad was born and raised in Detroit, MI. There is a book out now called Goodfellows that talks about the championship high school football system at one of the schools nearby to where he lived. I thought he might like reading about that as he is from there and because he is a football fan.

We looked up the book in the B&N computer and saw "In Stock". Yay, we thought, we can get both books, buy a bag or some wrapping paper (or use some of my mother's when we visit her) and wrap these up for dad and give them to him for his b-day.

But no. In Stock meant that the company as a whole had it somewhere. When we clicked on the more details section, no store in Southern California had it-- it was available in Michigan (333), Rhode Island (19), and one other location (1), but not in SoCal. We then flagged down the person working the desk and asked him about it.

The worker, who gets paid to be at and assist people at the brick and mortar store, suggested we go online either with his company or through Amazon.com to get the book. He suggested this as it would be less expensive than buying it in the physical store AND it would ship faster to the location. We asked him about transferring stock from one store with it to one here where we could get it... and he said it would still be faster to order it online and ship it to a residence rather than doing that!

People wonder why brick and mortar stores are closing down left and right. They wonder why many people are losing jobs and not able to find replacement jobs. Well, why the man's candor was appreciated, his responses show exactly why this can happen.

I'm left wondering why that brick and mortar store is even there, in the end.