MrsCobraBubbles
Life's too short to wear pants all the time
- Joined
- Jul 24, 2013
As a librarian, one of the most annoying customer service issues was helping people find a book with only the most basic or completely obscure clues like, "The cover was red and I think there was a picture of a girl on it", or "the story had something to do with a clock and I think one of the characters was a dog"--finally figured out that one was The Phantom Tollbooth, I'm pretty proud of myself for that.
Then I had problems with trying to help people without actually doing whatever task for them. These people usually refused to let me teach them how to use the computer or a certain database. Older people would come in and say they needed to use the computer to pay a bill or do something else sensitive but they had no clue how to do it and wanted me to just do it. Public librarians are tasked with helping people access information, we can't do your taxes for you! One older gentleman was going to give me all of his sensitive financial information and got really mad at me when I said he couldn't do that. It was scary that he was willing to just give out that information.
Then there were the patrons who were mentally unstable, there were many of these as a public library is a warm, safe place with couches in quiet corners, public restrooms, and free coffee and snacks. One of our regular patrons was schizophrenic and he went off his meds pretty regularly, would be evicted from his apartment or halfway house and then spend all day in the library; he once tried to physically attack me because I wouldn't create a children's program about baseball.
Then I had problems with trying to help people without actually doing whatever task for them. These people usually refused to let me teach them how to use the computer or a certain database. Older people would come in and say they needed to use the computer to pay a bill or do something else sensitive but they had no clue how to do it and wanted me to just do it. Public librarians are tasked with helping people access information, we can't do your taxes for you! One older gentleman was going to give me all of his sensitive financial information and got really mad at me when I said he couldn't do that. It was scary that he was willing to just give out that information.
Then there were the patrons who were mentally unstable, there were many of these as a public library is a warm, safe place with couches in quiet corners, public restrooms, and free coffee and snacks. One of our regular patrons was schizophrenic and he went off his meds pretty regularly, would be evicted from his apartment or halfway house and then spend all day in the library; he once tried to physically attack me because I wouldn't create a children's program about baseball.