I can help you at *MY* desk

[camjuniper]

Okay, more of a wtf, but after the dozenth person of the day, I get a little fed up.

Our library has a circulation desk right when you walk in the door (and there is only one entrance--all other doors are emergency exits only). We've got an 'upper' and 'lower' desk, forming a sort of 'r' shape. When I end up on the lower desk (usually working on book order or website updates) and the other circ person is away from the desk (shelving, helping a patron, etc.), why, oh, why can't people just come to my desk!

Even after asking if I can help them (from my desk!) and checking their items in or out at my desk, they persist in standing at the upper desk and wait for me to bop back and forth to them.

I often just cheerfully say, "I can help you over here!" But sometimes that gets me catbut face. Have I inconvenienced you so horribly, honored patron?


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Related suck & true/false quiz!

You've selected your movies from the shelves in front of the circulation desk. When you turn around you see that the person on the upper desk is on the phone. The person on the lower desk is not on the phone or helping anyone else. The best choice is the upper desk: true or false?

[jedikuonji]

C.

Wait, that was multiple choice right?

[BrenDAnn]

False, and I feel your pain. We have two registers. Most of the time when both are running, I have to all but take a cattle prod to people to get them to come to my register so I can help them. Go figure!

[morgana]

Even after asking if I can help them (from my desk!) and checking their items in or out at my desk, they persist in standing at the upper desk and wait for me to bop back and forth to them.

I often just cheerfully say, "I can help you over here!" But sometimes that gets me catbut face. Have I inconvenienced you so horribly, honored patron?

Would you get in trouble for just ignoring them if they won't come to you? I'd be awfully tempted to turn it into a learning moment for them . . .

[bainsidhe]

My local library has a desk in a big arc. One side is clearly marked for checking out books, yet that side is rarely manned. I can't win. Either I walk to the opposite side where the employee is and am walked back over to check out, or I wait patiently under the sign and am told to go to the other side where the employee is.

[Food Lady]

False, and I feel your pain. We have two registers. Most of the time when both are running, I have to all but take a cattle prod to people to get them to come to my register so I can help them. Go figure!

Did that all night tonight, even when I was standing at my register. They insist on standing nowhere near a register sometimes.

[blas]

When I worked at the gas station (it was a small store, only one register), there was a display or some kind of stand that people always thought was an extra register. I can't tell you the amount of times people would line up there. Despite me ringing people up 5 feet away.

[houdini]

Have I inconvenienced you so horribly, honored patron?

You made them walk five steps, you wicked person! Oh the horror!

[XCashier]

False, and I feel your pain. We have two registers. Most of the time when both are running, I have to all but take a cattle prod to people to get them to come to my register so I can help them. Go figure!

We have a similar setup. It's a long counter, with one register and connected card machine at each end. I'll be at register A (and I'm not easy to miss!), they'll insist on putting their stuff down at register B, and vice versa.

What is even stupider is that when I ring them up at one register, they go to the other register's card machine and swipe their credit/debit card! Um, hello? Do you really think our company is so stupid that we'll set up the machines to be the furthest from the register they are connected to?!

[mdog]

One of my co-workers a long time ago had a customer stand at the wrong register and she had to move back and forth to get the items rung in. But not only did the customer not get the hint and ended trying to swipe the debit card through the wrong machine, but when CW told SC that her debit machine was over here, the SC demanded that CW make it so that it would work with the machine way over there anyway, where SC was still standing.

[RealUnimportant]

We have 2 counters, side by side, but the second counter you can't see if there's anyone serving unless you walk up to it... Well, if you don't count the fact that the huge metal rollerblind is up when it's in service & down when it isn't, no exceptions. That window can go virtually ignored while the other one has a queue out the door, and it doesn't matter how much we try to wave people across!