not via phone hacking then!? lol

Haven't you got a better picture? He looks a bt mental in this one! lol

It would be nice, then, if the Hexham branch was stocking promoted titles ! Basic really.

I thought they had shops in Scotland, or is that John Menzies ?

Waterstones should forget about accolades of 'bookseller of the year'. A bookshop is not a supermarket and should NOT aspire to work like one. That was HMV's mistake. That and thinking that employing staff who look like they sleep in a cardboard box and then come to work will attract 'new' markets, i.e. the young - forget about the older generations who have all the money. I get more over 50s spending more than £75 on a Saturday than under 25s. I had a customer today who asked for a suggestion and who went away with 7 books, no hard sell involved and nothing to do with cut-price books. Would this be possible on the net? I think James Daunt needs booksellers who can do more of that and in his shops he probably has that kind of staff. Let's hope that in time we'll get them in Waterstones too. The customers certainly deserve them.

No one leaked this who was disgruntled. I've read the full piece, and there isn't really much of substance bar a rather russian worshipping interviewer, and a guy talking about his upbringing, mixed with his feelings on the industry. Really wasn't anything in the whole piece to cause many ripples, unless wild speculations are your chosen flavour. Was just nice to see the human side of the money being put into us. And I won't say I'm all gung-ho, go team Mamut and such, as it's still early days. Things are looking worrying in some aspects, but in other areas, the guys are trying to make a difference and are slowly pushing in ideas we've screamed for, for months. A cut back on POS, and forced display that just make a one size fits all chain. A pay rise, after a long long time. And some may moan and say oh you get enough, but for some of us giving well over a decade of life to a firm, and working damn hard each day, it's nice to be recognised by the powers that be. Daunt may be doing intriguing things with ordering, but he doesn't seem so stupid that he'll bury his head in the sand like GJ if things go tits up. We need to change to survive, and I agree with "Breaking the mould" in that we don't need to try to compete with any supermarket, or mass pusher of books. We need to be a book shop like we used to be. No stupid fancy training aids like get selling, just a damn good kick up the ass and be reminded that good manners and common sense will get you often far further in selling than memorising the correct pose to strike, or needing to know every title we stock. If we have presence, people will come. I for one don't give a monkies if a fellow employee can't recall a so called classic title, but I would care if they act like they can't be arsed. But then apathy has run rife in some as the chains be shaken back and forth over the last couple of years. If Daunt and Mamut can somehow get the employees back to mindset that was once there, and all the promises of autonomy, and range selling come to the fore front, then really it's not going to be a bad thing. But as any comment on this site will show, some will ignore this and scream for waterstones head, others will clap hands like a pleased seal, and others will just ramble off topic and talk about something just plain off topic..............wait.

Let the (usual when a waterstones subject is raised) tedius angsty whining commence.

Agreed

Agreed.

I've no idea why people made such a show of "was obtained by The Bookseller" quote. Waterstones’ intranet is hardly CIA or MI5, and if someone thinks that leaking this interview is "really sticking it to" the bosses then Lord help your excitement levels when you get around to watching All the President’s Men. The article itself, from what we've been shown, is a balanced and realistic one in its outlook on Waterstones' current situation. It's also a welcome change to see a billionaire investing in something other than a bloody football team in the UK.

Of course, Mamut is looking for Waterstones to stand on its own two feet, as it should, but he appears to be taking a grounded approach to the business of selling books that had disappeared in the past decade or so with the advent of Amazon, Tesco et al into the book business creating a culture of desperation in trying to secure sales in such a way that threatened to sink Waterstones on more than one occasion.

I agree with the idea that if you employ the right people then business will improve. Unfortunately, from my own experience of working in Waterstones several years ago, there was a clamour to employ younger beings who, though they were more pleasing on the eye, knew sod all about dealing with customers beyond their age range. They also knew sod all about how to stand up to some of the bullying nature of management and the atmosphere in the store was unpleasant to say the least.

Hopefully Mamut's passion is a genuine one, and in the years to come we can see Waterstones take on Amazon not just through its pricing, but more importantly through a sociable experience that can't be bettered, or beaten, by sitting at home and clicking a mouse. But it won’t happen overnight, and therein is the danger of expectation, especially in today’s expectation of instant success. Just as books can take years to write, so too is the crafting of a good business.

Re: Buff's point about young ones - in our branch too the policy was to take on the young ones, not because of their looks, but because they were malleable, didn't know how a bookshop should be run; they didn't remonstrate and if they had views it was usually about issues which had nothing to do with making the shop better, and then they shut up about them, and ultimately because it was just a job to them. So some who knew nothing about geography were doing the travel section, others couldn't spell so couldn't find books on Phoenix. Nevertheless, these people were put in charge, 'fast tracked', to run very experienced part-time staff, and the only way they thought they should assert their authority was to tell them how many buttoms on the old black shirts had to be done up.

It is true that when you are 20 you care less about what happens, largely because you haven't yet seen how it should be done properly and you simply can't evaluate the consequences stretching into the future. They don't see the folly of the current stock delivered in the 'totes', or washing crates as we call them, which lead to an incredibly wasteful shelving, as all the stock in them comes in in a total mess. I resorted to unpacking a maximum of them in one go and make sorted piles on the floor and my colleague meanwhile shelves what I have pre-sorted. The 'I Love Waterstones' brand-reared manager bounces up to me and gives me a dressing down.'We have to shelve everything as it comes out of the totes.'That means running back and forth to a section all day, because the relevant stock for it can be in any number of crates. We get so many totes delivered sometimes that they form tower blocks and the shop floor looks like a warehouse.

Experienced people who know how to save time on the shop floor get a blank look. So far, if they tried to pass on more effective working methods to younger ones, it was viewed as bossing people about.'We are all equal, no one should tell another what to do,' I was told, when I asked permission from my manager to help my new,young colleague to deal with customers who were asking for books she had no clue about. I was told this person needed time to 'learn'. Never mind about the customer.
There should be a whole new culture introduced, where a new, young person is paired up with a very experienced one for at least two months. They should be encouraged to work out effective ways of working, dealing with customers and learn the most valuable people skills.