The Story: It was just another usual morning of opening the library. We open at 9 am, so that's when most of the shifts start with the exception of a few 8:45 people who are there first to open the important things. Part of the reference department's daily routine is to receive the newspapers for the day, stamp them, and put them out in the public periodical area. Usually, this happens by 9:30. The book drop would come in around 9:10, 9:15 and that's where the newspapers are. The circulation staff usually unloads the book drop stuff and then sends up the newspapers when they can.
On this particular day, it was about 9:15, 9:20 when a man stormed up to the reference desk and began screaming "WHERE ARE THE NEWSPAPERS?! IT'S ALMOST 9:30 AM. THIS IS RIDICULOUS. EVERY OTHER LIBRARY HAS THE PAPERS OUT AT 9 AM!!!!". I had happened to have the newspapers ready and stamped but was waiting for my co-worker to be off the phone with a patron so I could leave the desk. We tried to calm him down, but he did not want to hear it. I held out all of the newspapers to him. I was making it rain news all over this guy, and he just did not care. He kept screaming and yelling and finally just stormed out of the library. It was so terrible that other patrons in the library apologized to us FOR him. What kind of life do you live where you go ballistic over newspapers at a library?
The Lesson: Put the papers out at 9am, damnit, or else there will be hell to pay from that one guy. But really...the lesson here is that you can't please everyone and most likely, there was more going on with him than the damn newspapers so try to shrug it off!
No comments:
Post a Comment