You know how in most relationships you get to the point where the irritating things your partner does go from being cute to just irritating?
That's the point I think I'm getting to with the library.
We have so many customers and volunteers who are just as sweet and cute as they can be. But eventually, their little quirks start to drive you mad.
For example, this very dear old lady came to the library one time and got B., our librarian, to help her with the internet. He sat with her for an hour looking things up for her. She was so grateful and we all felt very happy that we could help her. Unfortunately, we set a dangerous precedent. Now, she feels entitled to this kind of service. She wants to sit behind the reference desk and have B. do all of her internet searching for her every time she comes in. Even if there is a line of people waiting for his help at the desk. Now, she certainly needs help and we are happy to do it but this causes quite a problem when you only have two and a half librarians to cover 48 hours worth of open library time in a given week.
We also have a volunteer who is very sweet and very dedicated. She has been volunteering for years and she never misses a shift. HOWEVER...she will only work with adult fiction books. She will not do returns with children's items or media items. Also, she has to have one certain cart and if we have stuff on it, we have to stop and unload it and move the items to another cart just so she can have that one particular cart. Also, she wants to have plenty of time to go through our booksale books before anyone else sees them and then go through our cash drawers to find state quarters that she is missing. I sometimes wonder how much time a volunteer actually saves us if she is so high maintenance.
I can think of many examples like these. People that we genuinely like but whose little quirks are starting to make us crazy!
Speaking of crazy, the Phantom of the Library came back in today to go through the whole irritating spiel with me again. I am so sick of talking about the Charles Dance t.v. version of Phantom with these people. You would think it was the most important thing in the world that they see this movie. If I have to deal with them much more, I may be the one to run mad through the basement of the library! I think we may eventually just take up a collection and buy them the stupid video just so we don't have to hear about it anymore! Damn you Charles Dance and your t.v. Phantom version!
(if you haven't read my tale of woe about the Phantom yet...follow the link below)
http://deweydiaries.blogspot.com/2005/02/phantom-of-library.html
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4 comments:
Librarian Abuse! What a riot!
No wonder my own local librarians can look so p*ssy when I ask for the headphones and they must get up from the desk, put on their slippers, and grant my request . . . and I once thought about volunteering . . .
love the site--will return
You know, I used to wonder why people at the motor vehicles place were so rude and unpleasant all the time. Now I know. Don't take your librarians' attitude personally. They are probably just feeling downtrodden from a day of stupid questions and tedious people.
We had a lady that came into our shop and we had spent quite a long time showing her how to make a copy of her photographs. Then she would come in again and feign that she didn't know how to do it. One morning she came in before we were set up and I told her that I couldn't help her with it until the rest of the machines were up and running. I never saw her after that.
Then there's the other spectrum where people assume it's too hard to use (god forbid they try it out first). The dang thing TALKS you through the process!
I suspect that some people just crave attention. Sigh....
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