Imagine working at a bookstore, and you go to locate a book for a customer. What would you do if the book on the shelf was clearly a used book instead of a new book? Would you give the customer a discount, refuse to sell the book or ask your manager what to do?

The employee in this story is in this exact situation, and she has to go to her manager for help. But what really baffles her is how the used book even got on the shelf.

Let’s read the whole story.

Ah yes, just replace our stock.

I work in a bookshop. We, of course, sell books. This happened twice now.

The first time a woman asked me for a book.

I knew it was still on the shelf and go to give it to her.

When I’m holding it I stare at it in disbelief. It was wet, there was a bookmark inside, the spine was broken in multiple places, the pages curled up… And the sticker on the back had clearly been peeled off something before.

It worked out well for the customer though.

I know I had a completely new copy of that book in my shelf maybe 2h ago. Someone came in and replaced the new book with their read and damaged one.

The woman was shocked as well and while she wanted the book, she of course wouldn’t have bought that. I also wouldn’t have sold it to her.

I talked to my boss and she said I can just give it to the woman if she takes the damaged copy, since we’d have to throw it away.

She was super happy and even bought the next book in the installment even though she hadn’t planned that because she said she’d feel bad otherwise. She was super sweet too.

It happened again.

The second time I’m cleaning up, fixing my shelf and spot one of the books having the spine broken in multiple places.

Now, mind you, we sell new books. We don’t break spines obviously.

I take it out and there’s a bookmark inside. Some pages are damaged, the spine as I said broken, the sticker with the price stuck on badly. And the material it was made from is prone to having some of the colour on the cover rub off when you are reading. I’ve been there myself, it’s a clear indicator of a read book with that material.

But yeah, someone put their read book on my shelf. Again.

I am seriously questioning how someone could even come up with such a thing.

Well, hopefully nobody who reads this story tries swapping an old read book for a new book at a bookstore.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

It was probably the same person both times.

This is shaping up to be a mystery novel.

This is a good question.

This is a good point.

A hotel employee weighs in.

People steal the strangest things.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.