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Comment by loorinm | Hacker News Reader

Reading that Storytime guy’s tweet, I really wondered:

Has this guy never taken a look at his situation and noticed something off?

He works in a relaxing huge retail store reading books to kids for free, and makes above min wage and keeps his job for the next 20 years and supports 5 kids???

That’s insane, and completely abnormal. No one else with that same type of job has that kind of life.

It reminds me of someone I know who lived in an in-law with no rent control and no law against eviction, for 15 years, paying 60% of market rate. And then was completely stunned and devastated when the landlord gave 60 day notice. Really???

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Your comment is so uniformed. Relaxing? The guy is a receiving manager. That's a physically tough job, requires a high level of organization, and he still takes time to help on the book floor by doing storytime.

A receiving manager at B&N makes around $15-17/hour. If his partner works, that's a reasonable enough amount of money to live, but not in a high COL location. How is this abnormal?

What's abnormal is thinking that this is abnormal. $35k/year isn't a high salary.

I couldn't agree more with this. I think it's the OP that hasn't taken a close enough look at the B&N employee's "situation" and just spouted off an opinion.

I just said that guy had an abnormally great situation compared to most retail jobs.

Have you ever worked retail? There was presumably much much more to that guys job than reading books to kids.

Yup, I have. It’s usually hard, stressful, customers are assholes, work is part time and unpredictable hours, and pay is horrible.

Have you?

There are a lot of retail employees who support families. He probably didn't make that much money. Retail is anything but relaxing.

Agreed, but that does not negate the overall point of the post.

Which is that Barnes & Noble is currently digging their own grave, and that this did not have to be so.

Honestly I’m surprised they are still around.

Don’t get me wrong I love the stores, and it’s sad to lose nice things. I’m not happy about it.

But don’t blame the new CEO, blame the old CEO for doing nothing for a decade as the market transformed around them.

I would assume he has WAY more responsibilities than just reading stories.

That said, I agree on the evictions front. One of the worst things I saw in the debate about evictions in SF was tenants getting compensation based on how much their rent would go up post-eviction -- so they're PUNISHING landlords for letting tenants have cheap rent for decades??

I was thinking he was way too emotionally attached to his job.

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