Tid Bits from Work

This past week at work, I was given the tedious but necessary task of converting all our contracts from paper to electronic.  This way, when returning customers phone in an order, we'll have their details already and it makes the process much quicker.  Plus, it makes the customer feel like we remember them, which goes with our whole small-independent-familial-publisher mentality.  Some are print-outs from online orders, so all I see is the name, address, phone number, and book(s) that the person ordered.  But some people still write in and send a check.  These people are generally of the older generation.  And recently, we had a special running in a magazine for a novel called "The Girl at the Farmhouse Gate".  It is kind of your stereotypical, old lady, cheesy sweet, romance novel.  We have a lot of these kinds of books--it is a rather stable demographic for A and B.  They all tend to have the same kind of theme, most often set in WWII.  The storyline usually conforms to: American GI goes to England and falls in love with proper Englishwoman.  OR WWII wreaks havoc on a family, but through their struggles, love blossoms between those that the war has thrown together.  They are all easy reads, really sweet, and either have happy endings or bittersweet endings.

Well, as I completed the online print-out contacts, I got to the hand-written letter ones.  Some are very straight forward.  "Send 'blah blah blah'  to 'cute English cottage name, cute English road name, some abbreviated form of their city/county, postcode'".  The names of people are always intriguing to me.  We had a Mrs. Allison and a Mrs. Busby (ironic, as those are the two last names of the founders of this publishing house).  And I also came across a Mrs. B Still, which I thought was humor since it is kinda a sentence..."Be still!" haha.  In other letters, the handwriting is atrocious, calling for the need of the Royal Mail's address finder website.  And sometimes, the spellings are just plain confusing, especially if from Wales.  For instance, one area is named "Ceulanamaesmawr".  But some are still written out as actual letters, as if speaking to an old friend.  I read one written by an older gentleman, and it said, "Could you please send me 'Girl at the Farmhouse Gate'.  It is for my wife.  She was the girl at the farmhouse gate and I was the boy who waited for her."  Aw!  How adorable!  I loved reading the letters that had an actual story.  It made the dull task of constant typing of contacts must more enjoyable.

I have two more weeks of my internship and then I'm finished.  I've learned a lot and the length of this internship was just perfect--not too long but not too short.  I've definitely enjoyed the experience. :)