The Inquirer

Issue date: 5/2/08 Section: Features

At the old DVC bookstore, Isidro Corona and his co-workers had to climb into the back of each delivery truck and unload every box by hand.

Not any more.

These days, Corona extends a new loading jack into the back of the truck, wheels a pallet jack directly into the trailer and pulls out the entire pallet. He can do this in a fraction of the time it used to take, and with one hand.

"The loading dock makes things a whole lot easier," Corona said, "and less strain on your back."

Corona is one of many DVC bookstore employees enjoying the benefits of the move from its old location of 50 years to a new building in October 2006.


Mary Johnson, who has worked as a cashier for 21 years, described the old building as "scrunched. "It was crowded and inadequate," she said.

At 16,000 square feet, the new bookstore is double the size of its predecessor.

"It was crazy," bookstore manager Bill Foster said of the old location, where employees "had to follow a detailed map to find books" when the shelves were empty, since the books were stored in trucks, the back room and elsewhere.

"During the rushes, it just got to be nuts," he said.

With the extra room, the new store has added a Peet's coffee bar and larger apparel and customer service areas.

"We have money counting machines now," said cashier Nanette Grunez. "Before, we had to count the money by hand"

And we have new registers," said her fellow cashier, Johnson, giving an affectionate pat to one of 16 new registers behind which she spends most of her time.

A second entrance has been also added which can be opened for the early-semester rushes, as well as a new Checkpoint Security system in an effort to cut down on theft.

But the most welcome addition, is the new shipping and receiving department

"This is where all the action is," said Andy Schachair, stepping out of a shiny receiving elevator and into the new shipping department beneath the bookstore. "(It's) easily twice as big as the old one."

Schachair and his co-workers have jokingly nicknamed their new underground work area "the bat cave", due to numerous Batman insignias hanging from the cement ceiling and walls.

"It was a rat race in the old store, but we managed," he said. "We had to re-handle everything over there. You had to move it here, then move it there before you shipped it out. "

Not any more.

Employee after employee summed up the difference in two words: "More room".

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