-Excellent
May 24, 2008
I actually got to help a patron find books today. She came over and asked me “where's that other lady?”
“You mean the children’s librarian?”
“Yeah. She usually helps me.”
“She’s not here today but maybe I can help you.”
It was amazing. She wanted books on cats. And then she wanted the entire Tokyo Mew Mew series. And then she wanted the entire Erin Hunter series. And books on drawing. And Books on fantasy art. And she was enthusiastic, and took a pile of stuff with her and reserved a bunch of stuff that we didn’t have on the shelf. All this while gushing about how much she loves our library, and how nice I was being to her, and: “I haven’t smelled a library in a really long time. I just love the smell of books. A library has a smell that no other place has.”
It almost, ALMOST, makes up for the shit I have been put through here. But I only got to help her because the Children’s librarian wasn’t here. Why can’t adult patrons be so mature and friendly?
Labels: ears, hurting, loud, ouch, shouting
Please stop shouting. It was bad enough early this morning before we opened, before I'd had any coffee, but you just keep it up all day. If you were a patron I could ask you to please keep your voice down, but I have to work with you every day and I don't want to make trouble.
And honestly, sometimes I can hear you talking to yourself from halfway across the building in the other room.
(Sighs.)
Labels: overheardMay 23, 2008
Them- "My computer says I only get 45 minutes!"
Us- "We close in 45 minutes"
Them- "oh"
Them- "Do you have a quarter you can give me?" pro-offers a canadian quarter
Us- "Sorry, we can't take that, our bank won't accept it in our deposits"
Them- "Yeah, but do YOU have a quarter you can give me?"
Us- "No"
Leaves & comes back in, throwing nasty look my way
Them- "It's a good thing I had change in my car!"
Us- wondering why they didn't use their own money in the first place?
Them- "What time do you guys close?"
Us- gives time
Them- "When you do that!"
Us- "We've always closed at that time on fridays."
Them- "No way! I remember...>insert long rant about how we used to close at another imaginary time."
May 22, 2008
~Little Girl~
"I need to go to the store" says manager, "But I don't want to go by myself, why don't you come with me since you're on your break". (Directed at co-worker)
"But I'm just getting off my break." says co-worker. Oh well she'll just go anyways.
1 1/2 hours latter, I finally get to leave the desk and take a dinner break.
Then coworker, after her dinner break proceeds to work with the aide schedule and the aides at the circdesk talking at the top of her voice.
So for today I'm actually glad I don't work at that branch, but I feel sorry for those that do.
May 21, 2008
Today I already violated my recent pact with myself to stop fighting with patrons. Even when they’re wrong. Even when they’re jackasses. But what do you say when they keep demanding an answer, interrupting you, and just plain are being nasty?
On phone:
“I need to know my late fees on my videos. I rented them out.”
“Sure. I just need your library card number.”
“I’ve never needed my library card before. They always use my social security number.”
“We don’t keep social security card numbers on file to protect patron privacy.”
“They always have before.”
“We don’t have the numbers in our system. I need your card number to look up your account over the phone.”
“Fine. Here.”
(Side note: If she had the fucking library card number to start with why would she offer me her social security number?!)”
“Ok. You owe three dollars and fifty cents in previous fines. The fines on your videos won’t show up on the account until you return them, but if you return them today....”
“No. How much do I owe on my videos.”
As I was saying there is a fine of fourteen dollars accrued against...."
“I don’t know what the hell you are talking about. How much do I owe on my videos?”
“Nothing until you return them. There is a fee of fourteen dollars accumulated against them, but if you don’t return them today that fee will continue to accrue....”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“That means it will go up.”
I know what that means. You don’t have to get snippy with me. Tell me how much I owe today if I return them today.”
“Seventee...."
And then she hung up on me.
Fucking Hell.
Meanwhile Another call from a patron who wanted me to give her information about an account that wasn’t hers, but her adult nephew's, and "it’s ok he’s standing right here but no he can’t come to the phone he just got out of jail but you can tell me because he’s here."
And another patron who wants me to “get his file back that he accidently deleted" and then he logged off the computer but "I need that file back.”
They just keep coming.
And I went in the back room to eat a cookie ( Yeah. I know. No more cookies.) and my two coworkers were still sitting back there on their cell phones, where they have been talking for three straight hours. THREE HOURS. I can see them through the glass; it’s not like they are hidden from public view. I can’t stay on the phone for two minutes with a PATRON without having someone tug on my arm or drum their fingers on my desk because they need my help with their damn broken puters.
May 15, 2008
Does my pay increase when: I do the reference librarians job because they are at the desk, watching you-tube (with headphones on) and ignoring the patrons.
Why do I bother coming to work? I’m an invisible entity. Miraculously patrons’ items check themselves out.
Is it we don’t like this perticular person day today? Because as much as the reference person and are sub are showing no interest in patrons and I’m all “Hi how’s it going? What can I do for you?” The patrons just keep on walking to someone else. Maybe if I look like I'm doing something they will immediatly come up to the desk and start asking me something.
For as much as I’m doing right now I could be just as effect doing something I actually like at home.
I stand at this desk, wishing the fucking thing would just self combust and then I would no longer have to be a work. Of course there is the possibility of being singed.
May 14, 2008
You are the biggest pain in our collective side. We have problems with you every time you come in. It's gotten to the point where we don't even have to say anything to you, you know by our looks when you need to leave. You act like the entire library, and every item in it, is yours to use, abuse and destroy. I wouldn't doubt that you'll end up in the state penn someday, serving a multiple-lifetime sentence just for being a dumbass. You've called me a motherfucker, an ass, and have repeatedly flipped me off. You've broken chairs, put cookies in the CD ROM drives, and broken at the very least one of our windows. Why don't you understand why it's not your right to go around and turn off all the computers, causing everyone to stand around and yell at me because their computer is off. Why? WHY? WHY?!
I'm not a violent person, yet I just want to grab you by your ankles and swing you around until your head connects with something solid. Please don't come back in the library. I'm done with you.
Obviously I am chopped liver.
It’s not the first time I have been left at the desk by myself. However that does not mean that I can not help a patron in need.
Now nothing against our aids, they are very helpful and yet they need to do their job and not mine.
So if a patron is having a problem on the computer and needs help and I don't know they do (because the patron just happens to ask the first person walking by), come get me, because I’m not just standing at the desk for my health. Do Not walk past me (at the desk) to go get the branch manager out of their office to help the patron. A) That makes me feel like I’m not doing my job and B) the branch manager doesn’t know what they are doing. I could have had the problem fixed in no time. It took the particular manager 5 minutes to figure it out and then I still had to help.
Labels: computer, internet, lobotomy, patrons, typing
A young-ish guy came over and complained that his computer wasn't working and he wanted a different one. The keyboard was sticking. I went over and did some test-typing and it seemed fine to me, but he was insistant that when he used it, it didn't work, and he wanted another computer.
Ok. I'm getting pretty sick of fighting with people about computers (incidentally, when you have 6 windows open of your web-based email service, it slows down the computer, therefore there will probably be a little bit of a lag between when you hit a key and when the letter shows up on the screen. It's not the fucking keyboard's fault), so I decide to humour him. I told him that I couldn't assign him to a specific computer, but I would take that one out of service so that the automated system would assign him to a different one. He seemed happy with this solution. I figured that after he left I would boot it back up again and everybody would be happy.
Stupid me. I walked away from the area for a minute and when I came back he was attempting to log-in to the "broken" computer again.
"I just took that one out of service, it's not going to let you login, remember?"
"Yeah. But I saved my file on here and I need to get it before I can work on the other computer."
"........"
Which led to a conversation about what happens to your files when you save them to temporary folders, and why his files are gone, and WHY THE COMPUTER IS OUT OF SERVICE.
I'm just going to start telling patrons: "All of the computers are broken. We have shitty equipment. Also, I am an idiot. And yes, I am the only idiot who is trained to help you. This in no way reflects on your ability or inability to operate a computer. I'm sure you know exactly what you are doing.
That should just about cover it. Meanwhile I'm going to go have a lobotomy. I think I'll be much happier.
May 10, 2008
Why do I bother with good customer service? Right I think it’s because I like being employed. If I tell you several times (and show you the policies regarding small children) I do not consider you child standing in the middle of the library screaming at the top of his lungs amusing. But you just keep on working at you computer because that’s what’s more important. No the copy machine is not a toy either.
If it looks like I’m helping a patron, chances are I’m actually doing just that. Don’t run into the library, knock into the person I am helping and expect me to wait on you on bended knee. I’ll get to you next (never if I had any say in it).
On a slightly more cheerful note I got to help a patron find the rest of a series she was reading.
May 8, 2008
Okay better late then never right?
Yeah, so if you're not going to help in the first place then don't help at all.
Patron at computer says following words: damn, ass, shit. Non-library appropriate verbage, so I go over and tell her she's got to leave (politely mind you). She gets mouthy and says fine, right after she gets her prints. Fine. If she gets her prints she'll leave. Won't take that long.
Oh, but it does, because now she is cussing at the printer for it not giving her dollar back and she "doesn't know where the fuck the little number she needs is".
(Meanwhile co-worker A and co-worker B are not helpful, but busily deciding what labels to buy for the books). So I go back over to help get her dollar back and it's at the recieve print window. Fine get the print (get the fuck out).
I go get co-worker C (who is actually working but in a different part of the library blocked off from where this is happening), when co-woker A decides to stick her oar in and the situtation escalates. Because by the time said patron and cronies leave I have been called a fucking bitch and a ho.
But it's okay because co-worker A feels much better by "helping out". She can kiss my ass.
I like Tuesdays, after 5:30.
She’s doing it again today. She yelled at me from the circulation desk (way across the branch, mind you. Can I PLEASE shush a library employee?)
“Come over here. Hey! Come over here a moment.”
I’m looking around to see who she is talking to and finally stand up and walk over to the desk. She wasn’t pointing at me or saying “Excuse me Excellent Help bitch, could you come here for a moment?” So I wasn’t sure she was yelling at me.
“Did you need my help?” I ask.
“He needs books on showtunes.” She waves in the general direcetion of EIGHT patrons who are milling around the desk, and then walks into the back room. Nobody is looking me in the eye.
“Did somebody need books on showtunes?”
Nobody answers.
“Did anybody need help finding something?”
“I needed a car repair manual.” Suggested a confused man at the back of the crowd.
“Great. I can help you with that.”
Would it be so hard to just refer the patron over to the inforation desk if they need help with something that she can’t handle? Yelling across the branch and feeding me completely false information is BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE for our already confused patrons and makes my job even harder when I try to figure out exactly what they want.
And now she’s in the back room on her cell phone. Again. While people are lining up at the desk. So I must abandon my post and work two desks at once again…..
Labels: computer, Copier, coworkers, printerMay 6, 2008
My coworker at the circulation desk has today told patrons that:
The color printer also copies, and will make color copies. (It does not. The copy machine will make a black and white copy....)
I can "fix" a patron's resume for them, after it has printed in the wrong format. After the patron has signed off the computer, and failed to save it to a flashdrive, floppy disk, email, or any other means. "Just go over to the girl at the Information desk and she'll take care of it for you." Yeah. Me and the magic wand that I was never issued.
And she just did it again. She sent a patron over to me for help with the copy machine, when what he really needed was help with the print release station.
I should really stop bitching about people who can't tell the difference between a printer and a copier, when I'm discovering more and more that it's not the patron, but my coworker, that the problem originates with.....
Labels: Copier, customer service, Library Cards, Monday, patrons, phoneMay 5, 2008
As always, having fun in the library on Monday:
On the phone with a patron:
“Ok. I just need your library card number.”
“Card number? What’s that?”
“It’s the number on your library card..”
“Oh ok. I see. 555-BOOK.”
"Umm. That sounds like the number for the main branch of our library.”
“It’s the only number on the card. I’ve got it right here in front of me.”
“Well… the number you just read, ending in BOOK, is a telephone number. The library card number is on your card. Probably on the other side….”
“That’s the only number on the card.”
“Ok….”
Then there’s the elderly patron on the copier. He’s a regular. I know the machines are confusing. I know it’s crazy of us to expect you to make your own copies, but that’s what Kinkos is for. If you don’t want to or are unable to make your own copies, please go there. I’m not a copy girl. If I make your copies for you that’s all I will have to time to do today. I can show you how to use the machine; I can’t do it for you. That what “self serve” means.
“”Well fine. Show me how it works, then.”
“You put the paper here, face-up.”
“Like this?”
“No. With the text facing up, so you can see it.”
“Here.”
“No. So you can see the writing on the paper.”
“Well I can’t figure out what you’re talking about with these crazy machines.”
“You see the picture on top? Put the paper just like the picture shows.”
“Like this?”
“No. Turn it over…. here. Fine. I’ll do it. Now hit the green button to make your copy.”
“Which button do I hit?”
“The big green one.”
“This one?”
“No. The green one. The one that says start.”
I really think he’s just messing with me to take up as much of my time as he possibly can because I wouldn’t hit the fucking copy button for him. The girl at the desk just told him to read the instructions on the lid, though. That’s what I get for trying to provide customer service. Next time I’ll be like every other disgruntled library employee and just point.
