Winter 2022: PFB is Hiring!

Pulpfiction Books, Vancouver’s legendary independent bookstore, seeks two or three mature, enthusiastic individuals to join us full time in calendar 2022, in response to an ongoing surge in business. These position(s) are new positions; they do not reflect turnover of existing staff and are meant to provide support for our current operations and for some exciting upcoming business expansions, of which news in due course. We are in no hurry to hire and are willing, if necessary, to spend months locating and hiring suitable & temperamentally kindred candidates. 

The successful candidates will: 

• Be comfortable taking on any role in the business, which might involve, on any given day, moving 100+ 40 lb. boxes; shelving or pricing books for an entire 8 hour shift; breaking down the cardboard recycling; working the cash desk; building shelves; cleaning; transferring stock between branches, etc. 

 • Work 40 hours per week. These are full time positions. Please do not apply if what you really want is a part time gig or side hustle; our unique and somewhat idiosyncratic business model doesn’t really do part-time, and we’re unable to consider candidates who’re unable to work 40 hours (5 weekly 8 hour shifts) a week. 

 • Not currently be attending college or university full time, or planning to within two or three years. We ask for a minimum 1 year commitment, and a longer period is strongly preferred. Almost all of our current staff have been with us for 5+ years! 

 • Be available for a variety of shifts, including mornings, evenings, and weekends at all three of our locations. A valid driver’s license and access to a vehicle is preferred but not required. 

• Possess good practical intelligence, and the ability to work quickly and multitask under pressure. The jobs involve a lot of physical and mental activity, and are best compared to fast-paced restaurant work. Those interested in standing behind a cash desk socializing and/or being paid to read will not be a good fit with us. There’s lots of physical activity, in an often cluttered and hectic environment. Those expecting a calm environment where job responsibilities don’t really change from day to day, or a white-collar office job that involves tranquil desk work & lots of time to write memos, develop org charts, etc. will also not be a good fit for these positions. 

• Be client-focused. Each time we hire we invariably interview folks who know lots about books, but very little about client service, and even less about sales. We can teach our retail systems to almost anyone, but can't teach empathy and good judgment, which are more elusive components of character, and highly prized around here. 

• Previous book-related experience is helpful but not required. Almost all of our current staff came to us with no previous bookselling experience of any kind. 

 • Have a wide familiarity with contemporary literary fiction and non-fiction. 

 • Already possess an undergraduate degree or equivalent work history. • Bring other skills and abilities to the table. Examples: social media (Twitter; Instagram); basic accounting and/or bookkeeping skills; carpentry; HTML; SQL, PHP & MYSQL coding experience, etc. 

We offer competitive compensation of $21-$26/hr depending on experience and specific job responsibilities, paid vacation in excess of what BC labor standards require, and a vibrant, entrepreneurial work environment. 

To apply for these positions, please forward a detailed resume to pulpbook@gmail.com. 

Please, NO phone calls, non-resume email queries, or walk-in requests for employment. 

We thank all applicants for your interest, but may not, depending on resume volume, be able to reply everyone.

COVID & PFB (The Short Version)

Just a short note to update you on how we @ PFB are handling the Corona pandemic.

All 3 of our shops remain OPEN for the foreseeable future, absent a "shelter in place" order from the city, province, or feds.

Please note that our hours have changed effective 3/21/2020, until further notice: 

Main Street 10am-7pm Mon-Sat, Sun 11am-7pm
Kits 11am-7pm Mon-Sun 
Commercial Drive 11am-7pm Mon-Sun 

We are sanitizing highly trafficked surfaces (door handles; debit machine pinpads, etc.), & not permitting more than 10 clients at a time in each location.

We are still actively buying and trading books at Main Street and Commercial Drive.  We are NOT currently buying at our Kits location.

Some folks may not want to come into the shop(s), but would still like to pick up books!  We can take orders by phone (604.876.4311), email (pulpbook@gmail.com) or twitter (@pfbvan), and are mailing out and delivering packages every day.

$50+ at once gets free delivery anywhere from Pemberton to Hope, and we are happy to try to work smaller orders into our full time delivery driver's schedule at no additional charge.

I have also been asked, "What happens if you are legally required to close?"  If we're closed we're closed, along with everyone else for the duration of a legal closure, although in practice we will probably be around Main Street at least a few hours a day to answer email, take orders, prepare orders for delivery, & etc.

I think it is also important to mention that our staff will be paid, to the best of my ability, through any business closure, & not laid off en masse.  This is a moral, not legal requirement; I feel that this is the least I can do for the very talented and hard working folks who have chosen, for better or for worse, to join their fortunes with mine.

Please contact me directly if you have questions; I am almost always around.

Best,

Christopher Brayshaw
Owner, PFB

Regarding an Incident at our Commercial Drive Location

On Sunday 18 August, a client called our Commercial Drive shop to ask if we were buying books. A staff member said we would be happy to look, and the client brought books down to offer for sale.

 

Between the client’s phone call and his arrival at the store, the staff member took a phone call from another bookstore that made him feel uncomfortable about buying the client’s books. 

 

When the client arrived, the staff member did not discuss the concerns raised by the other bookstore with the client, but simply said that he was unable to buy the client’s material.

 

The client was, understandably, confused and upset, because he had been told on the phone that we would at least look at his books.  Voices were raised, and an argument ensued that eventually involved other customers.

Frustrated and angry, the client left the store and threw his books around on the sidewalk.  For reasons I do not understand and definitely do not agree with, the staff member chose to leave the store and hurl the client’s books back at him.  An altercation ensued that ended up with a 911 call and the staff member and client being interviewed by the VPD.

There has been extensive online discussion suggesting the client was profiled and assaulted because he is Indigenous.  This allegation is untrue. The staff member did not realize the client was Indigenous until he was being interviewed by the VPD, and the client’s indigineneity played no role in the staff member’s poorly conceived decision making.

To be clear: the client did nothing that excuses or explains his treatment by my staff.  Our response was unconscionable, offending even basic standards of common sense, good judgment, and empathy.  The staff member and I apologize, unreservedly, to the client and his family for our collective failure.

 

To be clearer: I am a settler who owns and operates businesses on the unceded traditional territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations. 

I believe all levels of Canadian government have systematically failed Indigenous people since first contact, and that so-called “reconciliation” efforts are typically attempts at maintaining a preexisting power balance in favor of a settler state.  I do not want to reproduce, in miniature, existing power relations.

I am available for ongoing dialogue with anyone affected by this incident, either by phone (604.876.4311), Twitter (@pfbvan), or email to pulpbook@gmail.com.

Christopher Brayshaw

Owner, Pulpfiction Books

20 August 2019      

Now hiring: Full Time Bookseller(s)

Pulpfiction Books, Vancouver’s legendary independent bookstore, seeks mature, enthusiastic individuals interested in joining us as full time booksellers in August 2019.

The successful candidates will:

• Work 40 hours per week.  These are full time positions.

• Not currently be attending college or university full time, or planning to within two or three years.

• Be available for a variety of shifts, including mornings, evenings, and weekends at all three of our shops.

• Possess good practical intelligence, and the ability to work quickly and multitask under pressure.  The jobs involve a lot of physical and mental activity, and are best compared to fast-paced restaurant work.  Those interested in standing behind a cash desk socializing and/or being paid to read will not be a good fit with us.

• Be client-focused.  Each time we hire we invariably interview folks who know lots about books, but very little about client service, and even less about sales.  We can teach our retail systems to almost anyone, but can't teach empathy and good judgment, which are more elusive components of character, and highly prized around here.

• Have previous customer service or supervisory experience.  Previous book-related experience is preferred but not required. Some of our best staff came to us with no previous bookselling experience of any kind.

• Have a wide familiarity with contemporary literary fiction and non-fiction.

• Already possess an undergraduate degree or equivalent work history.

• Bring other skills and abilities to the table.  Examples: social media (Twitter; Blogger); basic accounting and/or bookkeeping skills; carpentry; HTML; SQL, PHP & MYSQL coding experience, etc.

We offer competitive compensation and a vibrant, entrepreneurial work environment.

To apply for these positions, please forward a detailed resume to pulpbook@gmail.com, or drop a resume off at any of our locations. Please, NO phone calls, non-resume email queries, or walk-in requests for employment.

We thank all applicants for your interest, but may not, depending on resume volume, be able to reply to everyone.

PFB Events, October/November 2017: Jen Agg; Lynn Johnston

On Monday, October 23rd, Toronto's Jen Agg, author of I Hear She's A Real Bitch (Random House, 2017) and owner of Toronto's The Black Hoof, Grey Gardens, & etc., will be in house at 7pm to talk (for a while), answer questions & argue (for probably longer), drink wine (continuously), & maybe even sign some books.  I've read her book, & Agg is a business owner after my own heart -- smart, funny, possessed of real service standards, & ferociously opinionated.  If you'd like a seat, I recommend arriving c. 630pm for a 7pm start.  Both booze & books will be available in abundance.

On Thursday. November 9th, Lynn Johnston, creator of "For Better or For Worse," and one of the world's best living newspaper-strip cartoonists, will make a rare appearance at Main Street from 7-9pm, in conversation with Kurtis Findlay, her editor on IDW Books' new complete edition of For Better or For Worse.  This event will definitely be over capacity and we may have to turn people away if we max out the load limit on the floor!  Facebook event here, though please note that signing up on Facebook does not guarantee a seat; seating is strictly first-come, first-served, & showing up at 6pm for the 7pm start might not be a bad idea.  Free admission; books will be available for purchase.

PFB Events: February 2017

Winter looks to be coming to an end, at least up at Main and Broadway. and we've lined up a variety of events for the remainder of the month, including one next week that will be standing-room only:

Next Saturday, 18 February, from 7 to 9pm, we're pleased to welcome Lawrence Weschler to Vancouver.  Weschler is a writer of creative nonfiction and 20+ year veteran of the New Yorker whose work encompasses visual-art criticism and in-depth profiles of figures like Robert Irwin, David Hockney, J.S.G. Boggs, and David Hildebrand Wilson and Diana Drake Wilson, co-founders of LA's Museum of Jurassic Technology.

On the 18th, Weschler will read from, and discuss, his latest book, Waves Passing in the Night: Walter Murch in the Land of the Astrophysicists (Bloomsbury, 2017), a profile of the legendary sound and film editor's other love, astrophysics, and, specifically, "the rehabilitation of Titius-Bode, a long-discredited 18th century theory regarding the patterns by which planets and moons array themselves in gravitational systems across the universe."

This event will be 100% packed out!  Admission is free, as is box wine & the deli tray, but I definitely suggest early arrival if you don't want to be standing halfway down the aisle.  And thanks to our friend Genevieve Fuji Johnson, for arranging Lawrence Weschler's visit.

On Thursday, 23 February, from 7 to 9pm, our friend Robin Bougie launches the 10th anniversary edition of his extreme cinema zine, Cinema Sewer, at Main Street.  Leave the kids at home, but come for chips, free wine, zines, and a variety of shock- & smut- related merch and door prizes.

On Friday, 24 February, we're down at SFU Woodwards for the launch of Jaleh Mansoor's Marshall Plan Modernism (Duke UP, 2017). Free admission.

Finally, because I can never close these letters without a recommendation, Eden Robinson, author of Monkey Beach, a perennial PFB favorite, has just released a new novel, Son of a Trickster, which reads like an extended riff on Twin Peaks, but with First Nations spirit beings stalking around an otherwise realistically rendered Northern BC.  I devoured this book in under 24 hours, and unreservedly recommend it.

Now Hiring: Contract Web Position

Pulpfiction Books is currently seeking an experienced web designer for a part-time contract position of between 40 and 50 hours of work, to be performed over the next month or month and a half. As far as we know, this is not a continuing position.

The job will involve updating our handmade webpage(s) under the guidance of senior staff, to improve their visual appearance, especially on mobile devices.  It will not involve designing pages from scratch.

Familiarity with HTML, CSS & image editing programs like Gimp and Photoshop is assumed.  Familiarity with Python, MYSQL, Google Adwords, or any combination thereof is a definite plus.

Most work to be performed @ PFB Main Street during regular business hours, ie., no late nights!

Compensation: $20/hr + staff discount on books.

Please submit a resume of relevant experience to pulpbook@gmail.com, clearly marked, WEB POSITION.  Please do not submit a resume if you don't live in the Lower Mainland; if we can't meet you face-to-face on a daily or weekly basis, we'll be unable to consider you for this position.

Thanks for your interest, & we hope to hear from you soon!