Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Helpful Soul

Following a phone call from a charity shop (No not Oxfam) about a book, a woman arrived at the shop with the "ancient volume" for me to value on their behalf. Of course this was a completely dead 1960's piece of worthless tat, but never mind.

Having told her this (Very gently) I was about to return to my work when she commented that she had another 3 crates of books in her car outside for me to look at.

Although I nearly began my "Charity shops are bankrupting me" rant, I thought I would just be nice, and look at them for her. So i went out, and rummaged through the boxes, and gave her a few suggested prices for the better books, and suggested that she give the rest to a charity shop she didn't like.

Although it is tempting to leave this as a tale of the presumption and cheek of the charity sector, sadly due to my policy of truth and honesty I can't.

She produced a box of chocolates and big thanks for my time. I felt most touched, and only afterwards wondered who would have eaten the chocolates if I hadn't agreed to go out and value the crates of books.

But please local charities - don't take this as a suggestion that you all come along with you books for me to value. With 22 charity shops in the town centre, I wouldn't have time to do anything else.

1 comment:

Griffin said...

Well, at least she gave you the chocs for your time. Somebody loves you... I mean apart from people like me who love bookshops more than my bank manager thinks I should.

It makes up for certain parties trying to palm off magazines with the Tesco 1999 edition plastic binding on you.