How I Quit Working for a Psychic

In April of last year, I was passing a used bookstore about ten minutes’ walk from my apartment when I saw a sign in the window saying part-time help was wanted.

Must be familiar with books, friendly to customers and open to the paranormal.

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I decided two out of three wasn’t bad, so despite being more of an unbeliever than Thomas Covenant, I went in and said I was interested in the position. The owner, who claimed to be a psychic, said she needed someone to handle the store on Saturdays so she could give readings and commune with the spirits and so on.

That worked well with my schedule, because for the rest of the year I would be doing clinical placement in a hospital, leaving my weekends free. And as well as being very familiar with books, I’d worked in customer service for a medical laboratory network for over two years before going back to college, so I felt sure I could handle this.

As for the open-to-the-paranormal part, it never actually came up during the interview, so I shrugged it off. When I was in the Middle East, I’d worked for a church despite being an atheist, so this didn’t seem any different.
No matter which country I’m in, I’ll do pretty much anything for my bank account, which was starting to run low in my last year of college. The psychic bookstore wasn’t paying much, but it would still cover half my rent, especially since I would be paid under the table.

What I did find odd, though, was the psychic asking for a reference (which my landlady provided) and then writing up a contract the likes of which I had never seen before. One paragraph is reproduced verbatim below:

The Employee, if through an act of God is not able to receive wages this will not in anyway, shape or form be encumbered upon the owner to provide for those lost wages. Again through no fault of my own if I get sick or there is a power shortage and all manner that I have no control over them I shall not be responsible for loss wages that the employee may incur. If the employee to sick, they will need a doctors note saying not to work. If I deem the Employee too sick to fulfil their duties, they will be sent home and I shall not incur the responsible for loss wages.

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Slightly less peculiar was a statement about my salary being paid biweekly upon my presenting an invoice (remember that, folks, because it’ll come up later). There was also a paragraph about regular staff meetings, and when I asked if these staff meetings would consist of the two of us sitting down to talk about something, she crossed it out. I thought it was ludicrous, but the contract was only for two months, so I signed it.

Then she said she needed a copy of my Social Insurance card. I didn’t like the sound of that, and I didn’t see why she needed it, given that she wasn’t reporting my salary to the government. So I said I would bring my card next week, and that was the last I ever heard of it – she seemed to have forgotten all about it by the time next week came.

It was not the first indication that I’d taken on the weirdest job of my life, but I had no idea just how bizarre things would get.

To be continued…

There were some positives to the job. For one, I got an employee discount on books, not to mention a few free books when we culled the shelves (though that rarely happened). For another, I’d held customer service positions where I’d worked nonstop from the moment I’d come in until my break. This wasn’t one of them. Used bookstores tend to be quiet places, and although there were times when I worked hard, there were others when I sat behind the counter or flipped through a book. Plus, I really enjoyed having access to so many books—I must have bought about twenty in the time I was working there—and I liked being able to help the customers.

The psychic, though, had instructions on how I was supposed to help the customers.

”When they come in, greet them with joy in your voice. Say hello, how are you, it’s a lovely day outside. Tell them to come in, because we have lots of books. Don’t ask them questions, because people get defensive when you ask them questions. Look at their body language to see if they’re a regular here. If they’re not a regular, tell them the books are all priced inside and that includes tax and we take debit. Don’t hover around them, but don’t go off doing something else if your subconscious tells you they need help. You have to be people-oriented, not task-oriented. Don’t tell them ‘thanks’, because that’s slang—say ‘thank you’ instead. And remember to put JOY in your voice.”

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I got this lecture on average every couple of weeks, and it made me less joyous each time. Towards the end of my tenure at the bookstore, I was never so relieved as when the customers left. If the psychic wasn’t around, I was fine, but if she was, I could barely make eye contact with the customers—with all the rules about how to deal with people, I felt as though I was walking on eggshells.

What really frustrated me was that the psychic was rarely if ever clear, direct or consistent about the myriad rules (except for the JOY in my voice). Once, after a customer left, she said she needed to talk to me about how I’d handled the situation.

Me : Did I do something wrong?
Her : I don’t want you to think in terms of “right” and “wrong”. That’s very black-and-white thinking.
Me : Okay… is there something I could be doing better?
Her : Using terms like “better” is making comparisons, and you don’t want to be doing that.
Me : Okay… what would you do in my position?
Her : It’s not what I would do. It’s what you should do. Ask your subconsciousness.

At that point I was just about ready to tear my hair out. Finally it turned out that my grave error was to ask the customer if she wanted a plastic bag for the books she had bought. “People don’t like it when you pepper them with questions,” the psychic said.

Despite all the criticism I got, the psychic wasn’t so great at customer service either. Once, a customer came to the cash register with a book that wasn’t priced. I asked her if she could put a price on it, and she picked it up and began reading.

After a few minutes I cautiously asked about the price and she told me not to rush her. The customer seemed to get tired of waiting and left.

Some of the psychic’s decisions about books were also a bit strange. For instance, I found a copy of Judy Blume’s Wifey in the children’s section (and labelled as a children’s book). When I asked about this, the psychic said Judy Blume was a children’s author. I can understand not knowing that Blume also wrote a very adult novel, but shouldn’t the title have given it away? Why would children want to read a book called Wifey?

I hid it behind all the other children’s books, just in case.

Another problem with the books was that the psychic almost never got rid of anything. As a result, the books overflowed the shelves and ended up in huge dusty piles on the carpet. Some were stacked in precarious columns on the edges of shelves, ready to drop at any moment. Once a column did drop—right on the psychic’s head, since she was searching for something on a lower shelf—and after she finished swearing and rubbing her head, she told me I should have noticed the books falling and warned her.

Think of the money, I told myself. I said that to myself a lot, especially when the psychic snapped at me for no reason. Once or twice, though, she blamed that on the moon being full, which made me want to reply, “Thank you for letting me know. I’m just going to pop home to get my gun with the silver bullets.”

As a result, the most peaceful times I had in the bookstore were when she either went upstairs to take a nap or gave a reading (which wasn’t cheap - $75 for half an hour, though that came with a “cassette tape”). But then came the day that I was the subject of a reading too.

To be continued…

Thanks, guys! There's more to come.

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Another psychic (a man this time, so we'll call him Guychic) wanted to advertise his services in the store, so my psychic decided to check out the quality of his spiel. For that she needed a guinea pig, and there I was.

I had no objections as long as I was getting paid for my time, so off we went into the back room. Guychic sat across a little table from me and told me that he communed with the spirits. Then he closed his eyes, presumably to initiate the celestial contact, and when he opened them he informed me that my dead grandmother was with us.

I raised my eyebrows but didn't reply. When it comes to cold-reading, I was determined not to give the guy any help, although I didn't want to jeopardize my job by saying anything sarcastic like "Which one?" either. The thought crossed my mind that the guy must have taken one look at me and decided I was too young to have a dead mother, so a dead grandmother was a safer bet.

"And there's another woman with her," he continued. "She's dressed in colorful robes. I'm getting the impression she was your great-grandmother, who was the village healer."

This might come as a surprise, I wanted to say, but just because I'm brown-skinned doesn't mean I grew up in a village.

"Your grandmother says that you should trust in yourself," he said. Did she say that in Singhalese? I thought. Or has she learned English in the afterlife? "She wants you to follow your dreams and do what's right for you."

No, both of my grandmothers would have wanted me to go to church, obey my parents, get married and have children. Are you sure you don't have Ann Landers on the line instead?

"She also believes you have spiritual healing power and that you could be sitting in my position some day."

At that point, even if I'd wanted to make encouraging noises I didn't dare open my mouth for fear that I'd start laughing. So I sat there in near-silence for half an hour while Guychic yattered on. The closest he ever came to reality was the part about my having healing power - though it would still be a huge leap from that to my doing a clinical placement at a hospital.

That being said, though, I could see how people might fall for the spiel. I didn't believe a word he said, but the overall impression he gave was one of warmth, niceness and friendliness. If I'd wanted to believe, his demeanor would have made it easy to convince myself. His performance still fell short of even my psychic's standards, since I never saw his advertisements in the store.

As for my psychic's gifts in that regard, one of my jobs was to write "For Entertainment Purposes Only" on all of her flyers (which claimed 85 to 90% accuracy). Some of her customers completely bought into that, though, and would gravely discuss channeling, pyramid power, regeneration and so on with her.

I quickly got used to hearing those kinds of claims, but every now and then she would come up with something so absurd I'd be at a loss for words. One Saturday she told me that aliens lived among us, but all of them meant well except for "the negative lizards".

Another day she told me that electron microscopes had detected how, at the moment of conception, "the egg lifts itself to meet the sperm". I refrained from saying that I'd seen, for myself, how electron microscopes worked at the hospital. Everything is dead by the time it gets to the scope. Nothing is lifting itself, to meet the sperm or for any other reason.

Then there were all the unsolicited opinions I got, and for some unknown reason most of them revolved around what I ate for lunch, or how fast I ate it.

"You shouldn't be eating fruits and vegetables together."

"You're drinking milk? Did you know dairy farmers put bleach in their milk to kill germs?" I guess she'd never heard of pasteurization.

"You should infuse your food with light before you eat it." I felt like saying, "I do. It's called a microwave."

"I'm not your mother, but shouldn't you be chewing your food before you eat it?" That time I did reply, "I don't chew. I inhale."

But none of that was as disturbing as the day she informed me she had published a book.

To be continued...

Warning : This section contains references to child sexual abuse. Nothing explicit, but please be advised. I'll have some text hidden as well, which you can highlight to read.

*******

"You've published a book?" I said.

It turned out she'd had it printed and bound at the local Staples for $30 per book (!), though when she showed me a copy I saw why. The book was the size of a magazine, and filled with color illustrations she had painted herself.

"I wrote it to help victims of child sexual abuse," she said.

DANGER WILL ROBINSON alarms went off at once. Child abuse is one of those things that IMO you have to be very careful about if you're trying to help others, and I didn't think the psychic was up to that, but I opened the book anyway.

Big mistake. Big.

I don't remember the text. She had written it all from the POV of a fictional girl, and I have a feeling there were glaring punctuation errors, but I don't remember anything else about it, because all that leaped out at me were the paintings inside. They were explicit depictions of children with naked men. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

The only consolation was that she was selling this monstrosity for $35 per book, so hopefully not too many people would buy one. And as a friend of mine pointed out, the kind of people who were likely to buy it probably had, uh, needs of a different kind than whatever the psychic had in mind.

I closed the book without saying anything. It was pretty clear the psychic was working through her own issues, which was one thing, but to try to market a book like that to people who had been traumatized already was quite another. Fortunately the books were also kept on a specific shelf behind the counter, where customers were less likely to find them. From then on, I thought of that as "the child porn shelf".

I thought I'd had a narrow escape when she didn't ask me for any kind of feedback on the book, because what in the world could I have said? Two weeks later, though, while I was pricing some new romances which had been donated, she started a conversation that quickly spiraled off the deep end.

"I dreamed about you last night," she said.

I had a feeling that wherever this was heading, it couldn't be good. "Oh really?"

"Yes," she said. "Do you astrally project?"

"Not that I know of." And if I did, it wouldn't be into your bedroom.

"I sensed a heaviness about you," she said. "Is there anything you need to talk about?"

"No." I glanced hopefully at the door, willing a customer to come in.

"I think I can help you anyway," she said, and got up from her chair. "Come into the back with me."

To be continued...

Archerbird said:

Uh..sorry, I don't get it. What's the point again?

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The point of my posting this? Just entertaining people with a story of something bizarre that happened to me.

Your patience is rewarded, Chumplet.

*******

With a sinking heart, I followed her.

The back of the store isn't completely isolated from the rest, because the front door is still in sight, but there's a bookcase cutting off the rest of the view and providing some privacy. There's a nook of sorts behind that bookcase and the back wall. I waited there while the psychic fetched a huge piece of blank paper and set it down in the middle of the floor.

Paper. Okay, maybe this won't be too bad. I sat down on the floor beside the paper.

"You need to move back," she said. I scooted back, but apparently that wasn't enough, because she had me move all the way until my back was to the wall. She stood poised over the paper with a large crayon in each hand.

Then, with a loud snarl, she leaped on the paper and began scribbling wildly on it with the crayons. She was swearing as she did so, jerking black and red smears all over the paper, gasping through clenched teeth.

If I could have sunk back into the wall and disappeared, I would have done so. I drew my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, hoping desperately a customer would come in, but no such luck. Finally the psychic stopped scrawling on the paper and looked at me, still panting from her efforts. At any other time I would have asked if she wanted a cigarette.

"Art therapy," she said between gulps of air. "It's very cathartic."

"Yes, I can tell." Thank God it's over.

She got up, fetched a new sheet of paper and held out a crayon. "Now it's your turn."

I couldn't believe it. "Uh... I... I'm not really comfortable with expressing my emotions in public like that."

"It's OK, I won't watch," she said, and turned her back.

What could I do? With one last forlorn glance at the front door, I took the crayon and went to kneel beside the paper. After a long moment I drew a curve with the flat side of the crayon, making a rainbow.

The psychic took a look. Obviously this wasn't what she'd had in mind, because she said, "No, you need to loosen up."

So I drew an undulating line, which was a sine wave.

"No, you really need to open up. Let go."

I drew some wiggly things that looked like an opened can of worms.

"You can release all the negative emotions you have," she said, gesturing at the paper. "You can swear at your parents or anyone else you like. You can snarl and growl!"

"Gur," I said.

At that point even she realized that the more she kept pushing me to "express emotion", the more I was going to clam up. So she took the paper away and I went back to pricing the romance novels.

To be continued...

kenthepen said:

Thanks for sharing that story, QoS, it's bizarre and horrifying.

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Thanks for reading. The art therapy session was definitely the weirdest point of my tenure at the bookstore.

Have you ever seen "The Mentalist" TV show? The lead character is a reformed psychic who solves crimes. Very entertaining, and refers to the tricks of that trade often.

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I didn't know about this, so thanks for mentioning it! I'll check it out.

I did watch an episode of Penn and Teller's "Bullshit" which dealt with psychics and spiritualists, as well as reading something James Randi once wrote on the topic, but an entire show sounds even more informative.

Chumplet said:

I love The Mentalist, but I think this lady has even bigger issues. That's not the end, is it?

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Oh yes, she had issues all right.

No, it's not the end. I think I can wrap this up in one more post. Stay tuned.