The Bookstore Owner’s Apprentice

Nicole learns the glamorous truth: owning a bookstore is all about schlepping

At 4:02 p.m. on a late June day, I sprawled cattywampus like a snow angel on Shaker Mill Book’s cold wood floor. Owner Eric had left me to mind the store while he ran to the post office. I could mind it prone between the checkout counter and first editions just as well as I could sitting behind the counter, and I did.

It was the end of my first day as Eric’s apprentice at Shaker Mill Books and the adjacent Book Mill. In the “olden days,” apprenticeship was a legally-binding agreement. Parents or guardians signed the care of a youth (today’s preteen or teen) over to a master tradesperson. In addition to training the youth in a trade, the master agreed to provide basic necessities and to stand in as a father figure for their apprentice. In his 1839 An exposition of the law, accompanied by remarks on the rights and duties, of master and apprentice, John Binns stressed the importance of that “obligation” to masters. He also pointedly reminded apprentices that they needed to respect their master’s authority as a father figure.

The autobiographies of two apprentices, printer and statesman Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography (late 1700s) and famed chef Jacques Pepin’s The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen (2003) show why masters and apprentices alike needed guidance. An apprentice’s work was grueling, grinding, tedious, humiliating and, as Franklin complained, demeaning. Few people were apprenticed to their brothers like Franklin was, but many chafed at their restrictions. Meanwhile, masters resented their attitudes and rebellions. 

My apprenticeship was kinder, gentler, and much shorter than the customary seven years of indenture an apprentice experienced. The only agreement Eric and I had was that we’d make each other take hydration breaks. I had always associated working at a bookstore with children’s books and magic and Meg Ryan’s and Tom Hanks’s film You’ve Got Mail. I’d never put “bookstore” and “hydration” together until I learned the surprising truth. The real labor of bookstore work can be boiled down to one word: schlepping. More specifically, an unending process of lifting, sorting, carrying, sweating, lifting, sorting, carrying, sweating. And hydrating!

An apprentice's task: unload the gaylord.

The first day of my apprenticeship began with a 4 x 3 x 3 pallet box called a gaylord. Canvas protected its contents, and the gaylord sat smack in between Shaker Mill Books and the adjacent seasonal store, the Book Mill. Our job was to unpack the books, move them into the Mill, and sort them into categories. Two hours later the gaylord was empty, and roughly 2,000 books filled tables and floor space. Among our treasures: perennial best-selling summer authors like Maggie O’Farrell and Kurt Vonnegut, glitzy hard-covered cookbooks, bird and wildflower identification cards, non-fiction by Erik Larson and Bill Bryson, and a surprising number of books about mushrooms. 

I gleefully broke down the empty box and moved onto the next step of sorting the books by author and carrying the books over to Shaker Mill Books’ basement, where they would later be shelved appropriately. But that would have to wait because there were other things to do. 

Whew! One task done, dusted, and approved...what's next for the apprentice?

My apprenticeship taught me two rules of working in a bookstore: 1) no job is ever complete and 2) multitasking is the name of the game. Disruptions, not of a bad sort, punctuated our day’s work. Midway through unpacking, Eric had accepted a delivery and touched base with a staff member. In between trekking books from the sweltering Mill to the wonderfully cool, air-conditioned book store, Eric consulted with another staff member, restocked shelves, chatted with customers, and took a phone call. Soon, he became the sole staff member and set me to work inventorying richly-hued, smart-looking framed posters of classic book covers like Pride and Prejudice and The Hobbit. I matched the posters to the inventory list and, when I got too hot in Mill, wrestled an armful of the bulky buggers over to the Shaker Mill Books where they leaned precariously against bookshelves for pricing…later. It was closing time.

At 4:02 p.m. all the wind went out of my sails. I am not sure I could have remained standing to mind the closed store even if I had I wanted to. I didn’t try. I sprawled out, welcoming the cold floor against my back, closed my eyes, and inhaled the comforting aroma of new and old books mingling.  Rest assured I wasn’t going to be caught malingering. As soon as the door opened with a tell-tale ring of the bell I was upright, cross-legged, and intently examining the lowest shelf’s slim volume of William Butler Yeats’ poems. But the truth will out. I confessed, commenting on how exhausting the book business is and feeling some empathy for apprentices of yore. If I were one, truly indentured, I could have been in real trouble if I’d been caught in any sort of dereliction of duty. Or I could have gotten fed up and skedaddled, as numerous newspaper postings for the return of runaway apprentices attest. In an 1801 Boston paper, for example, one Thomas Rich promised “a reward of ONE CENT” for the person who returned his apprentice to him. 

Despite my exhaustion, I didn’t want to run away. I loved my two-day apprenticeship and regretted it when it was over. I still regret it, and I’m thinking of posting a want ad of my own. Adjusted for inflation, it would read: “WANTED: Chance to apprentice at Shaker Mill Books. Will pay TWENTY-SIX CENTS for the opportunity. Will start ASAP.”