March 22, 2017

I slept in this morning, took a shower, watched Power Rangers, ate lunch, and then went to work.

Not too long after getting to work I had my first real angry patron interaction at the library. She wasn't actually mad at me but I'm still counting it. According to her, in the past two days she has had four bad interactions with the new girl in the tech center. To be fair to the new girl, these were her first two days in the tech center and she had the pleasure of dealing with this lovely patron.

The patron was sent up to me by Circulation and she wanted to complain. I showed her our opinion form that she could fill out, which she didn't seem very interested in. When she asked if there was anything I could do, I said I could listen to her and pass the information along to admin, or she could talk to admin but she would need to wait until they got back from lunch.

She eventually launched into her grievances. According to her the new girl didn't know how to help her when she wanted to change her Word document to single-space, couldn't help her with something involving her email, couldn't help her with her flash drive, and something else. She was also very annoyed that the new girl always seemed to be typing something and didn't pay enough attention to what was going on around her. The Word thing is a little concerning but the patron admitted that she wasn't very tech literate herself, so I can only take her description of the situation with a grain of salt. Part of me thinks she may have been unable to properly explain her own problem in the first place, which probably confused the new girl, and the patron probably thinks they were easy problems to fix now that she has seen how they were fixed. If that makes sense. Also, you can tell the patron just really doesn't like the new girl when she brought up the typing. In a tech center filled with computers. Each with their own keyboard. It reminded me of the meme about hating someone so much that everything about them annoys you, leading to “Look at that bitch over there, eating those crackers like she owns the place.” The patron has definitely reached the cracker level.

About halfway through the interaction my fellow librarian came over and added in her take on the situation, probably further defusing things. I was dealing with it fine (I think) because I kind of like when people get angry and behave poorly in public, but it is always good to have backup. The best part about the interaction was when the patron brought up the fact that she is a taxpayer and pays our salaries. I refrained from asking her for a raise. I had heard that people would throw around the taxpayer thing but I always kind of thought it was a myth. But nope. Turns out it actually happens.

During the conversation I reiterated that it was only the new girl's second day and that the patron was welcome to use the computers on the second floor where we would be able to help her. At least then when she got upset we would actually know both sides. In the end, she really just wanted to vent her frustration, which I have also heard is a typical angry patron thing. They don't really want to do anything about the situation but they do want to blow off some steam, by yelling at a stranger just doing their job.

Afterward the other librarian and I talked to the assistant director about it because our boss is gone the rest of the week. Later on the head of IT talked to the assistant director and then came over to talk to me. He had apparently helped out with one of the issue yesterday. He said he was familiar with the patron and that she had come in with a chip on her shoulder yesterday, pretty much just waiting for anything to go wrong so she could complain. There are just those people in the world.

Throughout the day we had several interesting reference questions and interactions with patrons. It was like a full moon or something. It was kind of crazy.

Thankfully things calmed down a little tonight. I only had to wake up one sleeper. I was also able to finally start the personalized reading list that I have attempted to start several times this week, and I started my new weeding list. I made it to page three or four and pulled fifty books. Fifty-one if you count the one I checked out because I can't help myself.

When I got home I ate some more of the homemade bread my sister made me and watched YouTube videos to unwind. And now I am writing this. Next, I will be recording my audio journal and then going to bed. I'm pretty excited about that last part.

Tomorrow I was originally supposed to work a slightly weird schedule, going in at 10:00AM and getting off at 5:30PM, because I work the weekend and have to make up for working nine and a half hours on Saturday. Then we got a call from one of our coworkers who is supposed to work at 5:30PM tomorrow but he is currently in Colorado and doesn't think he'll be able to come to work until 7:00PM. So now I'm going in at 11:30AM and working until 7:00PM. Not really a big deal but it did mean I had to move Chipotle night to Friday. Life goes on.