any Vinyl Record Store clerks?

Ah...

I worked in a record shop for a while.
Daily schedule for what I did:
Walk in.
Kick the boss awake.
Make him breakfast. (He lived there. Don't add this)
Sweep store.
Run through and organize shelving.
Run cds through cleaner.
Organize new items.
Sit in the back, play music, ring people up.
Fix electronics, speakers.
End of day.

For used Vinyl would be:
Clean:
That would depend on condition. Some warped stuff, I'd need to bake in the oven between glass.
Mostly:
We have a cleaner. Vinyl cleaner (google it) where you place the LP in and it spins and gets clean.
Then I place them against the wall on a static-free sheet.
Get new slips covers ready (plastic)
Take static-less socks. Pick up vinyl, into slip, into sleeve, place away.
Repeat.

You never use any products on vinyl. You need the dry and oil will kill them. Oil from the hands distorts sound.

Some places might just use a vinyl brush to clean them off. We cleaned them well.

You can't "fix" vinyls. You can de-warp them in a oven, but scratches and needle wear will not come out.

Flagship said:

I'm trying to figure out what exactly such a job would entail. I have a MC who opens a record store every day and I'm not entirely sure what she does there other than flips on the lights, flips the sign from closed to open, and stands behind the counter...

Bonus question: Do they have buffers there to fix vinyls like you might find at a game store for disks? Something using polish or oil that would stain black? Or is one of the workers gonna have to bring something from home and leave it at the desk?

Click to expand...

Never worked in a record store, but I've worked as a retail clerk in a toystore. Before the store opens, we had to:
Flip on the lights,

Vaccuum the carpets/sweep the tile,

Check for stuff misplaced or left at the counter,

Check whatever the guy who closed was supposed to do

Read whatever notes he might have left

Take the 'float' (the started money) out of wherever it's hidden at night, count it and spread it out into the till.

Make sure you've got the credit card slips, cash register tape, any other supplies you might need so you don't have to abandon the till during the day.

These days I'd add turn on the electronic cash register, and do whatever it's opening sequence requires, and maybe check e-mail instructions from boss or HQ.

Then you open the doors and flip the sign to open.

During the day, if you've got the staff/time, you restock the shelves, make sure things are in the right places, keep an eye out for shoplifters, do such maintainence stuff as doesn't interfere with the customers.

Closing at night is also a little more complicated than 'shoo out the customers, lock the door and turn out the lights'.

I have worked at a record store--back when things were mostly vinyl. Are you writing an historical piece?

1. Enter the store: depending on the layout, this is not always done through the main entrance. The main entrance remains locked (even if the opener enters thru it) until the official store opening.

2. Every retail place I worked had an alarm system, so shutting that down was always step two.

3. Prepare for opening (physical): Hit the lights. Straighten. I rarely worked anywhere that the main cleaning wasn't done at night. Mornings are usually straightening. I also can't imagine any sort of vinyl record store that had any sort of product volumne where "cleaning" the vinyl would be a daily task. It would take forever. I don't know what you and the others mean by cleaning the vinyl--I could be misunderstanding. If the store buys used vinyl, it would be checked for condition before a price was quoted for its purchase and then might be cleaned[SUP]1[/SUP] before being put on the shelf...

4. Prepare for opening (financial): Money for tills would be removed from the safe and placed into registers (not every register), again depending on how many registers/cashiers might start the day. each till is usually counted by whichever cashier is responsible for it. A small store might have one till that is shared (tho as a manager I never liked this idea). Again depending on size and volumne, someone might go to the bank for change. Record stores don't tend to open at the crack of dawn, so banks are usually open. More often than not, a manager visits the bank with a deposit and to make change later in the day.

5. Use remaining time to get the store into the best possible shape before opening the doors (as per Frimble's post).

Again, I'm thinking that a vinyl store is twenty or more years ago, so computerization would be at a minimum by today's standards. Even in the dark ages (80s), opening reports are usually light to nonexistant compared to closing reports--but you aren't interested in that, right?

[SUP]1[/SUP]Cleaning here means the process described by Will in his post.

What years are we talking about here - makes a lot of difference.

You guys know vinyl record stores still exist, right? Heh.

I only mention because everyone is saying like this has to be a period piece set 30 years ago.

My city has multiple such stores. I've been in and seen such stores in other cities fairly recently. They still exist, promise!

I have no doubt they do, but do they operate the same way they did forty or fifty or sixty years ago?

Do they still have private little booths where you can sit in a chair and listen before buying or do you poke your head into one of a row of small domes, or do they have headphones in the wall...

cornflake said:

You guys know vinyl record stores still exist, right? Heh.

I only mention because everyone is saying like this has to be a period piece set 30 years ago.

My city has multiple such stores. I've been in and seen such stores in other cities fairly recently. They still exist, promise!

Click to expand...

Flagship said:

Probably set in 2050-2070...

Click to expand...

In that time frame you could invent products to do what you want.

Jeff

Flagship said:

As for some sort of polish or oil that would potentially dye hair or stain clothing black, that would be a no?
Heh, I don't know how my MC is going to like this but I may just have her yank out the plumbing in the bathroom and scrape gunk through her hair. She needs a quick hair-dye to make her less recognizable at a distance.

Click to expand...

The last thing you would want to do with a old-school vinyl record was paint it, let alone oil it. Mixing hair dye with your Moby Grape LP is not recommended.

They play by resting a light & delicately balanced needle on minute grooves with ridges. As the record rotates, the needle picks up motion from the grooves and transmits them to a sound pick-up system. (OK, that's technically a horrible description, but bear w/ me.)

So anything that gets in the grooves, dust, hair, dander, oil, mites, carraway seeds, etc. will affect the sound quality of the record. That's why you had to hold 'em by the edges and use a special cleaner. A layer of Sherwin-Williams Matte black on your Bruce Springsteen collection is going to seriously degrade the listening experience.

Flagship said:

Probably set in 2050-2070, with a stagnant progression of human advancement. Not stopped altogether, but quite like the boom of the last 60 years.

Humanity has just colonized their first planet other than earth, and it has a population of about a million people. There's only like 12 record stores on the planet as it's much more of a vintage, niche-interest market.

As for some sort of polish or oil that would potentially dye hair or stain clothing black, that would be a no?
Heh, I don't know how my MC is going to like this but I may just have her yank out the plumbing in the bathroom and scrape gunk through her hair. She needs a quick hair-dye to make her less recognizable at a distance.

Click to expand...

If tech hasn't changed much from present day, why not use printer-ink? They presumable have a small printer for small, day-to-day stuff.
I don't know if it would dye hair, but it sure stains hands.