I hate people who just want to cause problems

[depechemodefan]

I got a guy on the phone. OF course he's a trouble maker; looking at his record, you see notes about how he claims he turned in items, he disputes fines. One note was about his first time using the self-check out, so a fine was discounted. Um, self check-out is for checking out, nothing to do with when soemthing gets checked in.

And his record says "check out only 5 dvds on one card". Why does he have more than one card? You can't have more than 1 card. Maybe he uses his wife's card?

So he has 15 items on hold (fifteen is the limit). 3 to pick up. I tell him he has 3 to pick up. He wants to know about the other holds; why have they not been filled? Note, I can't tell when they were placed on hold. I explained one was Hugo, he was 44 out of 188 holds. Since he had 11 other holds, I can't look at each one at this time. He wanted to know about one, which he said he placed on hold a month ago. I have to go into the catalog to look at it. It shows there are 2 copies, one was at our library, one at another branch. The one at the other branch was returned 8/16/12. Now if he placed a hold on it a month ago (8/12/12), the hold would have caught when the item was returned. Obviously he placed it after it was returned. So I explain that to him (but didn't mention the branch) and he said, "well, another branch had it returned 8/16. Shouldn't they get the hold filled?" So asshole already knows about what items are due, what items were checked in recently. I tell them I will place them as "missing" so that someone will look for them again. If they are found, his holds will be filled. If they are not found, then the item will be missing so he can cancel the hold and try to get other items. He didn't want them to be placed missing. I should have said, "ok, I won't" and place them on missing, but I dicided to explain it again to him. He started to nat on about not placing them on missing, and i told him I had to go to another call.

Asshole called circ, who told him to talk to the chief. The circ people then transfered him to ref. again and I got him again. He said he wanted to talk to the Chief (he refered her by name). First, I didn't want him to talk to the chief since I thought he was full of shit and the Chief's time is valuable. So I tried to find the person in charge of Telephone Reference but she is busy. So I call the Chief, let her know what happened, then transferred the call.

Sometime latter (maybe 20 min. latter), Chief called me to chew me out. She said I gave bad customer service, that if I didn't have time I should have just told the man I would call back after I looked for the items. I shouldn't have placed the items on missing if I didnt' look for them. Considering the holds were not filled, I would say the item was missing. Then I find out he placed 3 items on hold this morning. Of course they weren't filled, if they were done this morning. Why did he say it placed them on hold a month ago?

So I was upset. The chief was angry. You would think a good manager would calm down first but not her. She is also the manager who let a guy stay after he call me a "Bitch" after I caught him looknig at porn. She said she would talk to me about that but she didnt'. Now she says she will talk to me latter about this. I was so upset about this I left. Luckily one of my cws in the room with me is the one that is always sympathetic and was ok about me leaving. The other cw is not a sympathetic person but she is always leaving the room anyway to get rubber bands or other things to work on, leaving people alone so she really can't say anything about me leaving.

I'm crying over this. If the Chief just had calmed down before calling me (in fact I was in middle of a call and when I told her that she said, "that doesn't matter, I'm talking to you now," so it's ok to give bad customer service while I'm being beaten down?) I wouldn't be upset.

[Kristev]

Just plain horrible.

[depechemodefan]

Thanks Kristev.

After I calmed down, I did look for the "month old" dvds, and found 3. The ones that he put on hold the day before or on Wed. should be on the title list (support staff goes around with the list of holds to fill-they look for the items for 3 days. IF they don't find them, they don't place the items on the missing list because no one thinks that that would make our jobs easier ) There was a book "dealing with depression..." which would be on another floor that I didn't have time to get to. I more inclined to think the book is for his wife, since I haven't seen many depressed assholes.

I've been thinking to quit for these past months (really years). A cw recently told me I should find a job first then quit. But this broke the camel's back. What I did wasn't fine, though at the time it was a valid opition. I place it on the missing list, they get looked for, and if not found then since it's missing, he can place other items on hold and no one else will place a hold on the missing items, since obviously, they are missing.

But yes,I should have told the man I would look for them. Calling him with the results I think is too much. He will either get the items, and should get a clue that if he didnt' get the items, and they are marked missing, then he won't get the items. But thinking about it more, it would make more work for the cw who gets him when he calls back asking about the items he didn't get.

Anyway, I don't think there is a manager's handbook that says "have a conversation with your employees when you are angry." The Chief should have calmed down before talking to me. Even when complaints come from crazy people, the management takes them seriously. I've been thrown under the bus a lot and I'm sick about it.

The other day my supervisor was telling me, "there are crazy people. Some of our unstable patrons are Viet Nam vets, and they know how to kill. Don't provoke them. I'm not trying to make you afraid..." Lot of the people who do kill are not Viet Nam Vets. The crazy people who would hit us or kill us don't need us to provoke them. They might be paranoid, they might have a voice in their head telling them "those kids are in danger, save them," and start beating up a customer or librarian. NO, I don't think every crazy person would do that. But if the librarians are so afraid of stuff like this, either ban the crazy people or do something about your fears. But if you are telling me "there are crazy people who will do damage to you," make is sound like you arn't protecting me, you are just hoping that nothing happens.

So after my vacation (end of Sept, going to Wash. dc, whoo-hoo!) I'm going to take more vacation and then give 2 weeks notice. Though I think the Chief right now is either going to sign me up for some customer service classes or going to suspend me for a day. Don't care, I have enough money to take care of my self for 2 years if I don't find a job right away.

[PepperElf]

What a bitch. And I know quite a few viet nam vets who would be very offended by her bias.

if this is a public library, i wonder what the county reps would say if they found out she was speaking derogatorily of older veterans, stereotyping them all as insane... not to mention that her comments are rather insulting to those who are legitimately troubled.