Angellee Martinez, an Unsung Hero of SCCC

Angellee Martinez stood at the Ammerman bookstore counter while she spoke with a customer, who was looking for her textbook. She was the first customer of Martinez’s shift. 

After checking the codes, the student provided her, asking for more details about the requested books and then conferring with her colleagues, Martinez walked out from around the counter and went to the bookshelves to navigate the textbooks, bending down on some occasions and tiptoeing to reach the books on others. 

No more than 15 minutes later, she located three textbooks. “See, it is my job,” Martinez said, taking a deep breath as the customer was leaving.

 Martinez, 20, has been working as a bookstore team member for one year. She graduated from the college as a Communication Studies major and was planning to continue her study in Farmingdale State College. 

To save for future tuition, Martinez took time off and decided to work for the bookstore to help the college student. Since Martinez was good at customer services, learned the necessary skills quickly and was hardworking, the store’s management was satisfied with her performance and recruited to take on a permanent position.

The work done in the bookstore is mainly about helping students find textbooks for a new semester, then to sell or rent the books to them. Students always take a note with relevant information, such as codes numbers, textbooks names, professors’ names, or ISBN numbers on it as clues to locate the books. It is not a complicated work for Martinez to finish, but it is challenging for her to help every student to find the books that they want.

 “We have only about 100 books in stock, and it is impossible to obtain each book for students,” Martinez said. “It needs a lot of communications before I can help. But I want to try my best to help students.”

 However, she always has other methods to tell customers how to find books that her bookstore doesn’t have. Martinez will also share how students can get what they need elsewhere, such as the college website, or other Suffolk campuses.

Matinez said the bookstore’s management has created a sense of family and it’s a feeling reciprocated by co-workers.

“She is a patient person,” Jessica Dooley, one of Martinez’s colleagues said. “I remembered, last month When I couldn’t find a textbook and wanted to give up, Martinez approached me and was willing to take more time to help the student. She showed more patience while checking all the necessary ways to find those books, and in the end, she found them, and that student was very grateful.”

“She is a kind and friendly person,” Amanda Soto, another colleague added of Martinez. She noted how Martinez showed her the process of returning, renting and refunding books through the bookstore’s computer system when she ran into some problems.

When the bookstore moved to upstairs from basement earlier this year, Martinez and her colleagues spent more than one week settling in the new location. The bookstore was suspended, as it moved. To avoid a long service interruption, Martinez took on extra tasks and worked overtime. Working through the weekend, Martinez spent ten days on the relocation, allowing the bookstore to reopen three days ahead of the plan. “I decided to do more to make our store’s service recovered as quickly as I can, otherwise where would students rent their books” Martinez said.

There are windows around at new location, and it is more spacious. Students can enjoy comforts that the new environment has brought to them. “It is definitely a change for the bookstore as it has enlarged its books capacity so that students will have more chance to locate their books,” Martinez said.

The bookstore’s management spoke highly of Martinez. “Martinez is a good kid. She is so smart that it only took two weeks for her to have learned so many things about the bookstore’s rules, relevant skills, and customer services principles,” Michael Janes, the bookstore’s operation manager said. “She is excellent, and we don’t want to lose her.”

Outside of her work, Martinez is a big reader and an art lover, including paintings and drawings. She took up the sport of Fencing in high school, sometimes continues to practice it. 

As for the bookstore, Martinez said she is glad to have taken the job and see a future with the company. “I am developing myself with the bookstore team,” Martinez said. “I am happy with it.”