a woman walks into the library. she approaches the desk and says, "the book is called love on trial."there's no "i'm looking for a book" or "hi, i was hoping you could help me find this book"
we are living in a society people. let's try to be polite.
anyway, we do not have the book but they do have it at the central library which is very very close to us. but no, she gaffaws at the idea of going to central. as though it is terribly far away. as if she might have to travel to, oh i don't know, some far off distant place like brooklyn. wait a tic, i do that every day. anyway, i find another library that has it and she says she will go there. then i check and i see that the book hasn't circulated since 2006. so i tell her that it is very possible that the book isn't really there since it hasn't gone out in 2 years. then she says that one time someone once told her that and then .... get this ... when she went to the library the book WAS there. yeah, i say. i have no idea if the book is really there or not. i'm just saying that it might not. you should probably call. so then i begin to write down the number for her and she asks me if i could call for her. no prob. we do that all the time.
so as i am dialing the number she says, "i just don't know why on earth anyone would want to work in a library."
what kind of thing is that to say to a librarian? especially a librarian helping you get the book you want? and this library is actually very nice. it's no hell's library (where bits of the ceiling fall on you OR you get asthma from the air vents that have never been cleaned OR several employees get ringworm and no one does anything about it). it is clean and new and modern and before 3 pm it's very quiet and peaceful. no crazies or homeless psychos. we do have a resident crack addict but she's actually very pleasant. anyway, point being, this is a fine place to be. so i say to her ... "well i did make my career out of this. you know, spending $40,000 on a master degree and all. so i kind of like it." seriously, who says that to a person? so after i said that she kind of backpedalled and said oh yeah studying library science blah blah blah.
people need to get some manners.
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3 comments:
I hear ya about the rude comments. Just the other night I got, "God, I'd never want to work in a library it's got to be so boring." All I could say back was "actually not, we get to deal with people like you all day convincing them how important we are to the community."
And then there is the polar opposite:
"It is so nice and quiet in here, I would love to work here."
or
"I need a job like yours because I just love books!"
They're trying to be nice but...not quite. :)
wrg - excellent use of turning a snarky comment around! good for you!
anonymous - i know what you mean ... sometimes it annoys me when people think the library is so peaceful. if they only knew what we went through!
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