Crustacean Out of the Spotlight

A Look at the People Behind the Scenes

By: Rory Conroy

Two-thirds of the surface
of the earth is covered by
water. Here, life began.

At a depth of 600 metres
the ocean is night black,
unforgiving and seemingly
lifeless. Into those depths,
below the photic zone, falls a
constant rain of detritus,
nutrient rich remains of dead
plants and animals. But it is
from such depths that a cold
up-welling flows to mix with
stratified surface water to
provide a continuing cycle of
replenishment for all marine
plants and animals.
Microscopic — single-celled
marine inhabitants make up a
basic soup, the beginning of
a universal food chain that
imprints on all plant and ani-
mal worlds.

At the surface, or more
specifically, the intertidal
zone, the perennial tide, surf
and winds pound the volcanic
formations above and below,
grinding out sandy beaches
and carving rocky promonto-
ries. In the convergent zone
where survival is fleeting, life
and death are revealed in a
most abhorrent reality.

Here plankton serve as a
meal for diaphanous diners,
the diners themselves
become a delicacy for mus-
sels and clams, only to be
consumed by starfish who in
turn bear the insistent stab-
bings of screeching gulls.
Scuttling from under rock, the
crimson crab, a scavenger of
enormous appetite for any
decaying organism, performs
its macabre dance.

An iridescent damsel fish
darts desperately to and fro
in an effort to protect its coral
home and brood from the
covert plundering of innumer-
able ravenous herring; dis-
traught it misses the ponder-
ous approach of a grouper
that effortlessly coasts by,
silently vacuuming up any
young in its path.

Surreal is the perpetual
struggle; one moment, ago-
nizingly slow; the next, faster
than a lens shutter!

And as if this scene was
not graphic enough, the sea
offers up an amazing array of

predation and terror as to
astound any Stephen King!
No, not just the frenzied feed-
ing of the shark, but the sud-
den piercing sting of an
anemone or an_ innocent
looking jelly-fish or the dead-
ly paralytic toxins of a dinofla-
gellate, Alexandrium!

Nowhere on earth is this
predatory relationship so evi-
dent, so urgent and so final!

Nowhere else on earth is
this rhythmic heartbeat expe-
rienced so primal.

Satiated, the moray eel
backs through the crab-shell-
littered entrance into its rocky
cavem; a toothy grin.

She was, now, the matri-
arch; her life slowly drawing
to its conclusion. She did not,
however, feel satisfied. How
could she, when her only
daughter, Mary was being
manipulated and abused by a
philandering husband,
Stephan.

Maureen had had a good

=
(Now! Ceags!)

TWS BRAS NOTHING To DO
NIH CRUSTACIAN STOR...

life with her husband; privi-
leged. But he had passed on
leaving to their daughter,
Mary, a substantial inheri-
tance.

Maureen was certain that
it was the money that attract-
ed Stephan to her plain,
homely offspring. And now
his spending habits were
becoming as atrocious as his
personal ones. Her spies told
her of his slovenly womaniz-
ing as well as the gambling
and the drinking. He would
disappear for days, on busi-
ness and although in the past
he had been relatively suc

(continued on page 12)

By: Aphra Hughes

Who would you expect to
be the most knowledgeable
shoppers at the university,
staff, faculty or students? If
you said students, you were
right. Mardeana Berg, the
manager at UNBC’s book-
store, says that students are
not only the most price sensi-
tive group and the most fash-
ion-oriented, they are the wis-
est consumers. Students ask
more questions about the
merchandise than faculty or
staff. As an inquisitive cus-

tomer, | asked Ms. Berg.

where her first name comes
from and how she says it. It’s
Mar-, as in the first syllable of
Martin, dean, as in Dean of
the College, and -a, as in
most female names. The
source: the radio. Her moth-
er heard the name on the air-
waves and liked the sound of
it.

How does she like having
such an unusual name?
Well, her two grown sons are
called Rick and Dan. One of
her sons went to the
University of Alberta, to
study Engineering, and the
other lives in town, and has a
Business degree from the
Okanagan University
College. He could have
attended UNBC, but wanted
to play football.

The member of the Berg
family most likely to attend
UNBC is Mardeana herself.
She has worked her way up
in retail from being part-time
casual to managing indepen-
dent and department stores.
Along the way she took night
courses in Business
Management, earning a cer-
tificate in Marketing from
CNC.

Her first few years since
she started work at the
UNBC bookstore in October
1997 were busy as she tried
to get the bookstore running
the way she felt it should. Ms
Berg expects to be able to
relax a bit in the years to
come, though, and wants to
take a degree in Business
Administration. She consid-
ers the Business program
here a good one, and would

love to go on to an MBA here.

Ms. Berg’s responsibili-
ties here include both the
bookstore and the corner-
store, which she says are just
two outlets of the same store.
The merchandise basically
falls into two categories,
books and general.

Books are sold on a strict
cost recovery basis, and she
is as horrified by the price of
science textbooks as you are.
The bookstore has a pricing
formula, to cover costs, and it
is applied across the board.
Science students, arts stu-
dents and regional students
all are treated equally.
Students are also not dinged
extra for freight if a title ran
out and had to be special
ordered—speed counts when
stocking textbooks.

All Ms. Berg can do
about the cost of science
texts is make sure the prices
are accurate and that the
bookstore picks up as many
used texts as possible. This
has been harder lately,
because so many publishers
put out new editions in the
year 2000. Increasingly,
books come with value-
added features, such as CD-
ROMs and websites. These
can be great, but guess who
pays.... Of course, buying
science textbooks may not be
as bad as you think, because
that big brick may well last
you through two or three
courses.

The big brick is just as
heavy as you think it is,
though, and the weight of
books is a real issue at the
bookstore. Ms Berg says
that ergonomic considera-
tions are important in retail.
The words she dreads aren't
four-letter ones: they’re the
six-letter duo, Carpal Tunnel.
(Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
occurs when the tunnel inside
the wrist through which the
nerve passes to the hand
narrows, pressing against the
nerve.) Ms Berg believes
that once you have Carpal
Tunnel, or back trouble, the
problem never goes away.
Problems with the sciatic
nerve, which runs down the
spine, are also common in

retail, and she has heard that
they are “excruciatingly
painful’. Awareness of these
problems has _ increased
hugely in recent years, and
WCB procedures now exist to
protect workers. The book-
store staff are trained in safe
motions and proper lifting
techniques, including use of
carts. They block aisles, but
they save staff's wrists. The
bookstore handles its own
merchandise all the way from
pickup at the main dock to
your hands, so they shift lots
of weight around.

One reason for the
increased awareness. of
repetitive strain injuries, such
as Carpal Tunnel, is the
workload increase. There
used to be more people on
the floor in stores. Most of
those were women, because
retail was and is female dom-
inated. Thirty years ago,
most of the female employ-
ees would quit when they got
married, though, and didn’t
worry about the long-term
effects of their jobs. Those
women who stuck around
would hit their heads - hard -
on the glass ceiling. In that
respect, retail has completely
changed since Ms Berg start-
ed in the field; women in retail
are more educated and much
more assertive now. Large
chains, such as the Bay, have
really opened up for women,
and woman managers are
frequent now.

The bookstore and cor-
nerstore sell a wide selection
of merchandise, normally for
profit. The exception is bus
passes, which are sold strict-
ly at cost, as a service. Arep-
resentative from the transit
company was here October
3rd to post new bus sched-
ules—go figure. Ms Berg is
anxious for bus service to
resume, as she feels it is a
public need, and that the
transit union is hurting itself
by prolonging the strike.
Meanwhile, Ms. Berg is mak-
ing a special effort to stock
the cornerstore with things
students in Res might other-
wise have to go downtown
for. As the mother of two

(continued on page 15)