We were fully staffed yesterday, the first time in months. Even though half of the staff is new, its better than nothing and its great to blame things on the "new guy" [new GAL(s)].
It being Mother's Day also relieved the patron rush, still had a 1000+ door count though.
Only one "bad" patron interaction out of a hundred or so, not too bad.
A mom and her 10 year old son come up to the Circ desk to check out. The first card she hands me has a lost item fine of over $20. The item is from another branch, and they're closed so I can't do a shelf check. I recommend her to call during the week to have them clear it up. I ask if she has another library card we can use, that one is blocked too with 3 lost items totaling over $50. Both lost items were from over a year and a half ago. I was going to work with her and override the $20 block since I couldn't check the shelves for it, but she instantly started giving me attitude saying that they only have been to the library ONCE and everything has been returned. Following her logic, yes she has been to the library once to check the items out, and she never made a SECOND trip to return the items. So I go back and call my supervisor. She comes out and talks to her and tries to talk to her. The patron becomes even more irritated while her son is right next to her telling her, "It's okay mom." Mom replies, "No, it's not, it's ruining our day."
I got bored listening to her complain so I moved to a different station to assist the other non-disgruntled patrons. The problem patron and her son walked out without the books only to return 5 minutes later, she was looking for my supervisor who returned to the backroom so she walked up to another coworker and asked her to pass on the message to my supervisor, "Thanks for ruining my Mother's Day!" Ouch, really? You're going to take it there? And I suppose that if this happened a week earlier your message would have been different: "Thanks for ruining my Polish Flag Day!" To make matters worse, my supervisor just had her first baby last November, so this was HER first Mother's Day.
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