Citizen Reader

I'll say this for many of the contributing authors in the essay collection The Customer is Always Wrong: The Retail Chronicles, edited by Jeff Martin: they know their way around a first paragraph. Consider these openings:

"The first rule of retail is that everyone wants to check out at once. I can stand at my cash register for half an hour without a single customer. Suddenly, by some hidden signal, everyone in the bookstore will get in the checkout line."

"The bookstore I work at has been my laboratory for analyzing, diagnosing, and treating assholes of all shapes and sizes."

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

And, hands down, the winner:

"It's been my experience that people don't have the slightest idea what they want, and will stop at nothing to get it."*

The entire book is a series of essays about retail and customer service, and if you've worked in service, I'm pretty sure you'll like it. I was completely amused, although I thought the quality of the essays was a bit uneven. But do give it a try, and consider buying it--if only to help all of these authors to never have to work in retail again.

*That last one is by Michael Beaumier, who also wrote one of my favorite nonfiction books of all time, titled I Know You're Out There (about when he worked in the personal ad department of a small newspaper).