(no subject)

[owlectomy]

I'm not going to begrudge any librarian for needing a place to complain and vent -- certainly I do it enough! -- but sometimes, when you complain about bad patrons, it crosses a line to thinking that somebody is worse than you because they don't speak standard formal English, or because they have some cognitive or emotional issues, or because they're poor, or because there are things they don't know.

People don't always realize how complaining about someone else's grammar/pronunciation is about class and race and dialect. THAT is the Linguistics 101 I wish everybody had to take.

It's frustrating dealing with someone who's arguing with you over a fine of less than a dollar, but what if there's absolutely no wiggle room in their budget? It can be frustrating dealing with people with different accents (I really have trouble hearing people when there's background noise -- I'm always asking people to talk louder, repeat themselves, even write things down), but it's frustrating for them, too.

I'm just saying, with all of what librarians have to deal with, you're going to get annoyed at people for saying "liberry"? For real?

Comments

[lordameth.livejournal.com]

That's customer service for you. Any job where you have to deal with the public, you're going to get frustrated, and you're going to get difficult customers - even if it's not their fault that they're difficult, even if it's not PC to think that they're difficult, it doesn't make the situation any less frustrating.

That's just how it is.

[takumashii.livejournal.com]

Considering that I've been in customer service for over three years now, for basically as long as I've been in the working world, are you under the impression that I'm not aware that frustration and difficult customers are part of the deal?

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Yeah, people are just making it MORE frustrating for themselves if they choose to constantly focus on minor, unalterable details such as dialect and accent and get all worked up over that. Genuinely frustrating customers are one thing; people who say "liberry" are another. If you can say to yourself "OK, he's not ignorant; he just comes from a different background than I do" or "OK, she may be arguing over this dollar because she's a tightfisted $#@ ... or it may be because that's literally her last dollar for groceries," it's probably going to make working the desk at least a little bit EASIER.

I wouldn't say "that's just how it is"--I'd say "it doesn't have to be that way" on absolutely every little thing (and I wouldn't dismiss it as "being PC" to try to think about customers' context once in a while, either).

Even if there are still going to be plenty of people who were plainly just sent there to annoy you. :P

(I haven't worked in a library, but my best friend does and I've worked in a couple different sides of a museum.)