Borders' Employees

I can't say I'll miss Borders too much. They were not a good customer for me. Their stores, after the first few years, started looking bland and corporate, with some big exceptions.

From a livelihood perspective, I will be impacted by reduced print runs and lower returns.

But 10,700 booksellers lost their jobs. This is mind numbing. I'm not talking about the top level, most hired from outside the book industry, or the geniuses that hired them, but the booksellers, buyers, and "lower" level managers. These are people who worked very hard at low pay for years to do the best they could with revolving door leadership whose style alternated between inaction and bad decisions. A few will find work in the book industry, but most will probably move on, and this is too bad. If there were a way to harness all that experience and knowledge, some great new bookselling ventures could be created.