A Sunday refgrunt.
Long complicated thing of trying to figure out why a confused patron can’t get onto a computer. Eventually turns out that her brother is already logged on using her account.
I ordered a book a long time ago through interlibrary loan and I don’t see it on my account.
Okay, what is the name of it?
You don’t want to know.
Um, it’s my job, sir.
It’s in German.
Computer science?
Anything in particular you are looking for? A specific language or anything?
SQL.
Okay!
As I am walking back to the desk after getting a drink of water, I go by our RFID sorter, which has a window for patrons to return materials.
Man sticking his head in the window: Excuse me! Excuse me!
Me: Yes, can I help you?
I think I might have just put a book in there that isn’t a library book.
That’s all right, I can check for you. What book is it?
Man (much more quietly): …it’s a potty book.
This one?
Yes.
Don’t worry, this one is ours.
All the DVDs you have about Glacier National Park.
How do you print in color?
Super-anxious woman: HOW DO I PRINT!?!?!? Can you do it for me?!
Do you want me to show you how to print more than one document at a time?
Why isn’t the printer working?
It doesn’t take five-dollar bills.
I heard you have e-magazines. Can you help me sign up for those? This lady is chatty and pretty quick on the uptake so even though I have to work with her for ages it’s not so bad. While we’re waiting for her ipad app to download she shows me a picture she took on her phone of a pickup truck with spikes on its wheels and we commiserate about how they are practically at window-level if you drive a tiny sedan like both of us do. By the time she leaves I have told her that I don’t even have a phone that gets internet. She says “I thought everyone your age had one of those! You’re antique!”
Local State U branch told me that I can borrow books from them if I get a Tex-Share card from you. Can I do that?
(type type type)
Well, not here, since you don’t have a library card with us.
Do you have books about horseshoes? Not the shoes, the game.
Same anxious woman from before (she is especially hard to deal with because she has a thick accent, talks quickly, and is unfamiliar with the idea of phrasing something in a different way when the first way didn’t work): You help me with the computer? It say no require! No time!
Sorry?
No require! You help me! Hurry! Only two minutes!
Um, let me come and look at it with you, ma’am.
(She hurries over to her computer and points at it urgently. It has three minutes left on it.)
Okay, what do you need help with?
It say no require! (Totally incomprehensible description of the problem)
Sorry, I don’t understand what you are asking me to do.
No require!
Okay, do you want more time?
Yes!!!
Dr. Seuss books.
ha ha ha. no require indeed. But my favorite is the guy who doesn't want to tell you the German title of his ILL book.
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