Energy Resistance & Utopia
04.01.04 (4:19 pm) [edit]One of the many things that this branch is "host" to is the Energy Assistance program from our local energy monopoly - "WEenergies."
We only provide the meeting space for their weekly program and yet we end up dealing with all of the headaches and problems associated with them. :x First and foremost is the fact that they're only able to help the first 25 people who sign up to be seen that day. We're instructed by them to put out the sign-up sheet at 10:30AM when we open up on the day of the service. The actual program begins at 1:00PM. There are people outside the library waiting to sign-up on the sheet from almost the minute staff arrives in the morning at 8:30. :roll:
Today, the sign-up was full by approximately noon and from that point on, there was a steady stream of argumentative people demanding to be helped by the one person sent out by the utility for the program. When told that it was full for the day and given a list of alternative sites for the help, most of the people launched into tirades about how they couldn't go anywhere else and how dare we turn them away. They didn't want to listen to the fact that the only real involvement that we had in this was letting the program utilize our meeting room space and that none of us had anything to do with the program beyond putting out the sign-up sheet. :x
Quite a few of the people wouldn't take "no" for an answer and actually tried to "crash" the program by barging into the meeting room and demanding to talk to the utility person - so many in fact that she came out and told us not to let anyone else into the room unless they had signed up on the sheet that morning.
One man in particular got into an argument with the branch manager over the EA program. It seems that he goes to school until 2 pm and can't make it in to sign up for the program here and it's always full when arrives. Well who's fault is that? :twisted: Why should we bend over backwards for someone who is clearly incapable of making small changes in his life schedule for something that's clearly important to him? And especially because he thinks if he yells loud enough we'll somehow magically do something for him that we don't have any jurisdiction over? :roll:
When I saw this man come in (actually I heard him first before I saw him and recognized him by his voice from my past library assignment), I knew he was going to be a problem. He was a HUGE PAIN IN THE ASS at the other library and hasn't changed a bit. (I know I've blogged about him here in the distant past, but can't find it in my archives.)
The short version: This guy is an older Indian/Pakistani man with a very thick accent. He's supposedly studying to be a veterinarian. He used to come into my old branch and bully the retiring manager there into letting him take out medical reference books and then further bully her into letting him keep them for months at a time. She hated confrontations with him and would let him walk all over her - or send me out to deal with him while she cowered in her office. :roll: Once, he got upset at me because he couldn't understand a: our computers where not the same as the ones at his school and didn't have his veterinary test practice software on them and b: there was no way for us to get this software for him or install it on our computers. :roll: I also had previously gotten into it with him in my previous role as a circulation manager over fines on other books either checked out and returned late, or not at all. :x
Anyhow, today after the argument over the Energy Assistance, he reported that he lost a book he'd checked out from here and wanted to know the price he'd have to pay us for the replacement. I, unfortunately, got stuck helping him with this - yet again. :roll: The book he lost was out of print, or at least unavailable from our purchasing source, so I found a price listed for the same item in a record from one of the suburbs included in county library system. That price was $10.95, whereas the default price for a trade paperback if the system had generated a bill for the lost item would have been $20.00, so I was being extremely generous to him.
When I told him the price, he started up complaining and trying to get me to cut him a deal - he's a senior; the book wasn't any good; it was a little book (so how could it cost that much?); if he found it in the future could he get a refund? (yes, a partial one as I explained, setting him off on another tirade). It went on and on for about 5 more minutes as he tried to get concession after concession from me and tried to get me to trip up on what I was telling him so he could pounce on that and twist it. :evil:
When he finished and I wouldn't back down, he left and didn't end up paying for the item after all. :roll: Something I suspect he never intended to do in the first place. He was just testing the water so to speak; trying to find a weakness he could exploit to further bend or break the rules. Sigh . . . :roll:
Okay, two more final things for this long entry . . .
Just kicked out two of our regular problem kids for being caught throwing a plastic "egg" full of chewed bubblegum at each other in the library. The one kid denied doing it at all, but before being thrown out he asked the other librarian where he could go to wash his hands because they were sticky. :roll: Auditioning for "America's Dumbest Criminals" perhaps?
"Jeffrey Dahmer" just walked in. He's this crazy guy who looks like the notorious hometown necrophiliac serial killer and who stares disturbingly at our circulation aides and also stands for long stretches in front of a mirrored glass wall separating our work area from the public one, grooming himself in the reflection. We're really not sure he knows or not that he's completely visible to the staff in the back. :?
Okay, I think that's enough for one day. The moral of this story is that nowhere is paradise forever . . .