Really? That's What You Are Opening With?

When you work with the public you get a lot of comments, as you can imagine.  Not all of them are nice.  I've been cursed out.  I thought a woman was going to deck me once she was so worked up when I told her she owed $1.  Yeah, $1.

My point is that you never know what is going to happen during a transaction.  You might ask someone how they are doing, and they will literally tell you exactly how well they are not doing. I'll never forget the time I had a woman start crying and telling me she had just had to put her dog to sleep.

You get the idea.  The response you get can be kind of a crapshoot.

Normally when a patron approaches the desk I like to start with, "Hello.  Can I help you?"  or something to that effect.  Nice, friendly, and you should get  a somewhat predictable answer:

1) Hello.  I need to _______.  (renew my book, pick up a hold, request a movie, etc.)

2) *pissed and angry*  I've got a problem with my account.

3) I forgot my card and need to use the internet.

That narrows it down, quite a bit, but everyone generally falls into one of those categories.  You can generally tell the ticked off patrons long before they tell you they are mad at you/the library/the world.

So, when I greeted a patron this afternoon, I was not expecting to get in reply, "Oh, so you do have arms."

Seriously?  Where the hell did that come from?

Me: Hello!  Can I help you?
Patron: Oh, so you do have arms.

What do you say to that?

-- Yup.  Thanks for noticing!
--I was born with them.
--So do you.  What is your point?
--What planet are you from?
--What are you smoking?
--You should probably not be driving right now, sir.

I chose to ignore the comment, check the patron out, and get him out of the building as fast as humanly possible...you know, using my two arms.

So bizarre.  You can't make this stuff up, I swear.

Words With Friends

Do you play Words With Friends?  So addicting! 

I have a few problems with what words are and aren't allowed.  It rarely seems to work out in my favor.

One of my friends that I often play seems to know magical words that it will accept.  Gox?  That's apparently gaseous oxygen.  WWF totally let him play that.  Me?  I tried to play the word 'slut', and it wouldn't take it.  Come on, man!  Everyone knows what a slut is, and it isn't even that bad a word.  It's not like I was calling someone a name, or implying that your game was a slut in some way.  I would have gotten a lot of points for that.  Not fair.

Same friend, different game, played the word 'rexes'.  Everyone knows 'rex' means king in Latin.  Okay, maybe not everybody, but I would assume most people do.  You have to read Oedipus Rex in high school.  I thought this worked basically the same way as Scrabble, and foreign words weren't allowed?  Apparently having many kings in Latin is just fine and dandy.  I tried to play the word 'uno'.  Denied!  Latin is cool, but not Spanish? 

You know what word it will count?   It let me play the word 'shitty'.  Crazy, right?  I figured I would give it a shot and get denied once again, but it worked!    It can get you a lot of points if you play it in the right place.  Helpful hint from me to you.

I keep having one issue lately.  I tend to play a lot of WWF on Facebook.  If you play on Facebook, you know you are going to get a pop-up ad after each move before you can take your turn in the next game.   (I'm assuming that you have multiple games going at the same time.)  When you finish making all of your moves in all of the games you are playing, and after you get the pop-up ad you can close, it pops up another box to try to get you to start a game with another friend.  This screws me up all of the time.  I never remember it is going to happen, and if you aren't very careful to hit the close button, you will accidentally start a game with someone.  I've done this 3 times now.  I'm not even sure the people actually play the game.  I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to those people, since I immediately resign the game.  I hope Facebook isn't notifying you every time I make this boo-boo.  To all of my friends who have a name starting with the letter A, I apologize in advance.  This pop-up "start a new game" box seems to be listed alphabetically, so there is a very good chance I will accidentally start a game with you if I have not already done.  My bad.  I promise to pay more attention from now on.