Library Fun
So, we had a bit of excitement at the library this week.
The day before yesterday, just as I was getting ready to leave, one of the librarians came in saying that there was a Jeep in the parking lot that was smoking. A few minutes later, when I got outside, it was not just smoking, but some of the hoses had caught fire and fallen underneath. Somebody had called the fire department, and they came to put it out- they sprayed it with the big hose, then broke a window to pop the hood. There was still a black mark on the parking lot the next day.
Then, yesterday, when I was on the front desk, a woman called to complain that she'd gotten an overdue notice for a book she returned. This happens very often, actually- there's something wrong with our check-in computer, so it's very easy for books to physically come back into the library without being in the computer system. Usually, we just write down the name and barcode of the book, go look for it, and if we find it, we take it off the person's record. I do this at least once everytime I'm on. Except that this woman was completely rude- she swore that she had given the book to "the girl at the desk" because it needed mending, and that if we couldn't find the book in the library, she should not have to replace it because of the "errors of our employees". I told her that, yes, it was unfair, but that if we couldn't find the book, we had to conclude that it had not been returned. Finally, she demanded to speak to the "manager", so I transferred the call to our reference librarian. The book had been returned- our librarian found it- but there was absolutely no reason for her to be rude about it. All the other patrons seem to understand our policies.
Mostly, the library patrons are very nice, but there's always a few that need to make life difficult.
Current Mood:
[No Image- what's up with the "insert image" thing in Russian?]
Frustrated
The day before yesterday, just as I was getting ready to leave, one of the librarians came in saying that there was a Jeep in the parking lot that was smoking. A few minutes later, when I got outside, it was not just smoking, but some of the hoses had caught fire and fallen underneath. Somebody had called the fire department, and they came to put it out- they sprayed it with the big hose, then broke a window to pop the hood. There was still a black mark on the parking lot the next day.
Then, yesterday, when I was on the front desk, a woman called to complain that she'd gotten an overdue notice for a book she returned. This happens very often, actually- there's something wrong with our check-in computer, so it's very easy for books to physically come back into the library without being in the computer system. Usually, we just write down the name and barcode of the book, go look for it, and if we find it, we take it off the person's record. I do this at least once everytime I'm on. Except that this woman was completely rude- she swore that she had given the book to "the girl at the desk" because it needed mending, and that if we couldn't find the book in the library, she should not have to replace it because of the "errors of our employees". I told her that, yes, it was unfair, but that if we couldn't find the book, we had to conclude that it had not been returned. Finally, she demanded to speak to the "manager", so I transferred the call to our reference librarian. The book had been returned- our librarian found it- but there was absolutely no reason for her to be rude about it. All the other patrons seem to understand our policies.
Mostly, the library patrons are very nice, but there's always a few that need to make life difficult.
Current Mood:
[No Image- what's up with the "insert image" thing in Russian?]
Frustrated