Tiny Little Librarian

... musings of a too-short girl in the high-stacks world of librarianship

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I'm surprised she didn't want us to use it on her, too

posted Sunday, 6 January 2008

We have a crusty old bag who comes in multiple times a week and is NEVER happy with anything. Seeing her approach the desk causes us all to cringe. She would keep the sour-lemon expression on her face if you presented her with the crown jewels of England. Or she has a smirk like she thinks she's smarter than you/correct in her ridiculousness.

She also refuses to accept your answer if it isn't precisely what she wants to hear/you don't leap into immediate action to "rectify" the "problem." The problem is actually just her. You'll give her the answer, she won't agree and will repeat herself, you'll give her the same answer, she'll repeat herself, possibly adding another complaint or question, you'll repeat the answer... The other day I finally had to tell her (after at least 4 or 5 repetitions) that I had given her the only answer I had and if she wanted more, here was the manager's card. I had to do that another 3 times and finally I just turned back to my computer to indicate that was it.

Well, this past week we were down to one bathroom, the children's one, and it was causing us so much trouble.  We had to hand out the key to people instead of letting the guard take care of it, like normal. I'd had a crackhead in there the night before, people were interrupting reference interviews to either demand the key or thrust the nasty thing back at us. Juliet and I were very tired of it and the only thing that kept us from closing the last bathroom entirely was that we knew that would result in the interruptions escalating to screaming hysteria rather than just being annoying.

Anyway, Crusty Bag was fine with having to give ID for the key (which shocked me) but when she came back, she was positive that the toilet paper was damp. She repeated this to Juliet 3 times, because Juliet wouldn't run at top speed to the bathroom. Finally her "I heard you, we'll deal with it." got the bag to go back to the Internet. I would've left it there, since I didn't believe her, but Juliet got up and went to the bathroom to check because she didn't want other people complaining. And, of course, nothin'. Not wet, not damp, just fine and 10 minutes of our lives wasted on it.