Listen to Jeff Martin talk about retail on NPR's All Things Considered:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97591689

From Mom and Pop general stores to huge chains, it is impossible to think of American experience without thinking about the buying/selling culture that is retail. It is almost a rite of passage to pay your dues in a retail environment. The Customer Is Always Wrong: The Retail Chronicles is a funny, yet informative collection of essays by writers from all corners of the literary world. Elaine Viets, author of the Dead-End Job mystery series, describes all the crazy jobs she's done to write her books; Jim DeRogatis (author of Let it Blurt) describes hanging out with Al at Al Rocky’s Music Store; Colson Whitehead describes how three summers working a Long Island ice cream store put him off ice cream and desserts of all kinds for the rest of his life; and filling out the table of contents are Wade Rouse, Michael Beaumier, Po Bronson, Stewart Lewis, Victor Gischler, Timothy Bracy, Anita Liberty, Trisha Thomas, Kevin Smokler and T Cooper.

This book however not only shines a light on the absurdities of retail, but finds the delight in it as well. If it weren’t for the customer, our economy would not function. And for every abusive customer or moronic employee, there are people that come into our lives and change its course forever.

Jeff Martin was born in the summer of 1980. Growing up in Tulsa, Ok, Jeff never expected his adult life to be filled with customer complaints and secret shoppers. With various aspirations from superhero (unrealistic) to the next Bob Dylan (impossible), he paid little attention to his school- work. His retail career began at a video store. Jeff soon began idolizing director Quentin Tarrantino for the simple fact that he is the only ex-video store clerk to go on to win an Oscar and make millions of dollars. Upon graduation, Jeff decided to leave his hometown and make his way in the world as a writer. A little over a year later, he returned home with his tail between his legs and a lot of bad poetry.

With the writing not paying the bills, he was forced to look for alternative forms of income. A week or so later, he was working at a local bookstore. Seven years and one wife later, he’s still there.

Five-city author tour: New York, NY; Ann Arbor MI; Chicago, IL; Tulsa OK; Los Angeles, CA

"Eat, Memory: I scream" by Colson Whitehead

Mine is the story of a man who hates ice cream and of the world that made him.

I was once like you, always quick with a “Two scoops, please” and a “Whipped cream, damn it, whipped cream!” I loved a Breyers vanilla-chocolate-strawberry rectangle straight from the freezer. Never mind if it was a bit long in the tooth, nestled in there next to a half-empty bag of carrots-and-peas medley — scrape off the icy fur and it was good to go. Orange sherbet? Cool. In Baskin-Robbins, I used pure will power to persuade the red digital lights of the Now Serving machine to announce my number, which was a sweat-smudged blob on the pink paper strip in my quivering hand. You can keep your Kiwi Mocha Bombasta: the nuclear green sludge of mint chocolate chip was as exotic as it got, and that’s how I liked things.

Then I went to work in an ice cream store.

I started scooping at Big Olaf in 1985. Sag Harbor, on the East End of Long Island, was still early in its Hamptonization. Page Six couldn’t find it on a map, Schiavoni’s Market didn’t stock sushi and Billy Joel wasn’t driving into trees. Perhaps Big Olaf was a harbinger. When it opened on Sag Harbor’s Long Wharf, it made quick work of its nearby competitor, the Tuck Shop, which had been the town’s longstanding ice cream joint. Big Olaf’s secret weapon: the Belgian waffle cone, made before your very eyes. The smell of the batter haunts me still.

Most people think, Scooping ice cream, I could do that. But they don’t understand the complexities, the high-stakes brinkmanship of the modern-day ice cream industry. You had to memorize the names and ever-shifting locations of the trendy flavors, this week’s double-chunk whatever. You had to learn the ropes of the toppings bar and become a bit of a cop in the process to keep the Heath Bars from rumbling with the gummy bears. You had to figure out a solid scooping technique, no matter what the cost. As a teenage boy, I was seized by a potent suspicion that my right arm was growing bigger than my left. You can imagine what chiseling ice cream all day was doing for my self-consciousness.

Don’t get me started on the Tofutti. I’m never going back to that place.

Most of all, you had to master all things waffle. There was a bit of theater involved in the making of the cones. You sat by the door on a special perch so that everyone could see you while you ladled batter onto the four waffle grills, which were mounted together on a wheel. Spin the wheel, remove the cone, roll it up, add more batter, spin the wheel and on to the next. Move too fast and the cones peeled off limp and useless; move too slow and they turned out brittle and crumbled to dust when you looked at them.

And all the while, the hungry masses in bright polo shirts and pleated khaki shorts watched your every move, a mob eager for this spectacle of cone process. The apparatus was probably leftover torture gear from some Belgian cold war spy agency, unbolted from the floor of a basement interrogation room and shipped to the Hamptons. Where it found a home.

The perk of the job was all the ice cream you could eat, and ice cream was all I ate. There was a hot-dog machine on site, where the franks spun eternally like grisly, grim planets, and occasionally I’d make a wretched feast of one, but most of the time I ate ice cream. Chocolate in a plastic cup with rainbow sprinkles, chocolate shakes, chocolate ice cream sodas, chocolate twist dispensed by a lever into wavy, brown, short-lived peaks.

For breakfast and lunch, or lunch and dinner, depending on my shift. For three long summers.

I was nauseated at the end of each day, but I persisted, never suspecting that I was conditioning myself to hate that which I so ardently desired. My metabolism is such that I did not suffer any physical effects from my gluttony. I was cursed in other ways: in my aversion to ice cream, which spread quickly to most sweets, and then to all desserts.

When a person is offered dessert, a polite “I prefer not to” rarely does the trick. After hearing the details of how long my host labored over the apple brown betty, it’s hard to refuse a bite. (Not so hard that I actually have some, but hard nonetheless.) There is a cost, I’m saying.

Birthday parties and weddings force me to share my tales of Olafian woe with my incredulous companions, who shake their heads before asking if they can have my plate. Take it, take it all. Most people mistake the terrified expression on my face in our wedding photos as a sign of regret. In fact, my face records the horror at the knowledge that I must eat cake at some point or, in the post-cutting photos, utter revulsion over the spongy clump of frosted hell scraping through my gut.

It is no small thing to remove yourself from the world of decent people. Predators abound. The natural enemies of the ice cream haters are the dessert fascists. You recognize them by the way they jab their little spoons at you from across the table, by the evangelical flourish with which they offer up their favorite phrases: “Have some,” “You have to try this,” “Trust me, you’ll like it!”

Any resistance to their entreaties and they’ll quickly turn on you. “How can you not like dessert?” they demand, and no excuse will calm these bullies. Your whole family could have been gunned down in some Ben & Jerry’s massacre and they’ll just wrinkle their noses and ask, “Not even one bite?”

To hate ice cream is to know dread at the clearing of the table, for at any moment the waiter will return with the dessert menu and put your nice evening to the test. Eventually you learn to compromise. Sometimes it is best to say, “I’ll have a bite if you order something,” and hope that your companions forget your promise. Most of the time they do — at the core of all dessert fascists is a frozen block of narcissism that will not melt. They don’t want to share; they want affirmation of their choices.

Say what you will about ice cream haters — pity us, condemn us, take us off your guest list — but we don’t need anyone’s validation. We are content in ourselves, and at the feast of life, we happily dine alone.