Conversations with the clueless

Another conversation with B&N today:

Me: "I'd like to order a copy of (NCP book and author name)."

Employee (checking system): "Sure. That's a POD book, so it'll probably take two weeks."

Me: "Actually it's short run, not print on demand."

Employee: "Well, we just call it POD because it's nonreturnable."

Me: "It's my publisher, as it happens, and my editor tells me that our books are in fact returnable. It's probably in your warehouse, too, since it's in stock on BN.com."

Employee (checking again): "Oh. You're right, it is returnable. We have some at our BN.com warehouse, too. It'll be here in a couple of days."

Me: (politely) "Just so you know, books printed by LSI aren't necessarily POD and nonreturnable any more."

I was very nice. Really. But in my head, I was thinking, "Look, dumb*ss, why tell me it's POD and nonreturnable and a two-week wait before you even CHECK??"

Sheesh.