Swearing Patrons and Swinging Babies!

Angry patrons. How do YOU handle them?  We have a book at the Circulation Desk that we leave up there for us to read when we have a minute of down time. It's called, "Diffusing the Angry Patron".

Well, sometimes, in the heat of the moment, a flustered librarian will struggle to remember all that they've read!  For example....

A guy came in with a fine.  We have a policy that if there is a fine on the patron account of more than $1.00, they cannot use their card or the free internet without some sort of discussion and approval from one of the librarians.  I happened to be the librarian "on desk" at that time. His fine wasn't even that terrible. Honestly, I think his fine was under $50.00 or something.

We are pretty generous. We want people to come back. We understand that times are tough and things are forgotten in the busyness of life.  So, usually, we are happy to take ANY amount of payment from the patrons. NOT to totally CLEAR the fine away, but as a good faith gesture.  This way, we can say the patron made an effort to clear the fines, but didn't have enough on hand. I will start out by asking for half of the amount owed. After that, I simply say, "I don't want to take your last dime. What can you pay today?"  After I get some sort of payment from them, I will allow them to check out their items or utilize the internet if that is what they need.  I will, especially, work with the patron if they are doing any sort of employment search online. Afterall, times are TOUGH!

Anyway, this guy comes in one night and he is totally IRATE that he cannot use his card. I explain the fine. He's ticked and denies the fine. I ask if there is anything he can put down on the fine.  This is when he gets EXTREMELY rude.  He gets his wife/girlfriend involved. She comes up to the counter, polite at first, to ask what's wrong. I explain the fine. She denies the fine.  At this time, I explained that any adjustments on the fine need to come from the Director or the Assistant Director.  They want to speak to someone. That's fine with me!

So, now Bossman comes onto the scene. Angry patrons are handled very well by Bossman. However, they should NEVER swear or cop an attitude with Bossman. This guy did both. Bossman told him that behaviour was unacceptable.  Angry patrons didn't stop and then MOCKED Bossman. Oh good gaawd!

Police are called. Angry patron guy leaves with a baby in a car seat -- swinging his arms up into the air, all while holding on to that car seat!  I thought for sure that the baby was going to go FLIPPING OUT OF the carseat!

So, apparently, we are crazy, unreasonable and don't know what the hell! LOL

Yea.... okay. We can go with that.

Poop Guy

Pooper guy still cannot utilitze the library. Thank goodness!  However, he still resides in town and sees us from time to time.

I happened to see him at the gas station.  He was sitting outside in the nice evening air.  As I approached the door to pay for my gas, he noticed me.  He asked, "Are you a nurse?" I didn't understand him at first and said, "Pardon me?"  He then asked again, but this time in an exaggerated annoyed tone.  He repeats the question. I said I wasn't. To which he appeared angry with me for NOT being a nurse. What a weirdo.

I mentioned this to my co-workers. ..... hahahaa! You can just imagine. My favorite response from my lovely co-worker was: "He probably wanted to ask you to check his scrotum."

Oh gross. I think I threw up in my mouth a little bit.

Would a Ghostie Need to Use the Phone?

For two days in a row, we came in to work and found phones off the cradles.

Of course, we blamed the ghosties.

Would a Ghostie need to use the phone to make a phone call? A very LONG DISTANCE phone call? Who would they call?  Did they try to call a loved one?  Would they even know how to use a modern telephone!?

We don't really think it was a ghostie that used the phone. In all reality, it was a coworker! She left the phone off the cradle, put the phone on intercom/speaker and blasted her music through it after hours.

Ha HA!!! IT got your attention though, didn't it?! :)

A Soapy Mess.....

My co-worker had to use the employee restroom. This is her story really.....

She was sitting on the can - now bear with me - it really is kinda funny....

Anyway, she was sitting on the can and realized that the floor was wet. Not only was the floor wet, but it was puddling.  To which she was wondering if the sink plumbing or the toilet plumbing was leaking.  As she is sitting there pondering the situation, she realizes that she can hear liquid dripping.

So, she looks around - under the sink and behind her at the toilet plumbing.  Nothing.

Where the hell is that dripping coming from?  As she looks towards the sink again, she notices that the liquid soap dispenser is literally pouring out of the dispenser!

At least it wasn't poop!

So she finishes her business and tells me to call the DPW guys. I'm thinking that I can clean this up without calling a DPW guy! So, I get a mop and the mop bucket with clear, cold water......

A liquid soap dispenser holds approximately 1- 1/2 cups of liquid soap, but I tell you, when it's all over the floor of a 4x6' tiled bathroom floor, it may as well been 100 cups! Soak it up in the mop. Sure, no problem. It's made to FOAM, so now try to rinse the mop and squeeze out the soap without creating too much foam.

Yea. That works great.....

Three buckets of mop water later, the floor was still kinda foaming in tile grout.

That was fun.