There is this one elderly patron who is a weekly regular to my old branch. As she walks down the VERY long circ desk to the large prints, she always makes a point to greet whoever is working the circ desk and ask if they are a volunteer or paid staff. She does it every visit, she has asked me several times and when I tell her that I am a paid employee she just nods and smiles in reply. When she comes up to check out she avoids the self checkout machines like the plague. She thinks that by using them we will all lose our jobs, bless her sweet heart!
When it comes to library volunteers I love all of them (except the one that stole from my cubicle). If it wasn't for their hard work we would have drowned in a sea of book returns several SRP's ago. Unfortunately you encounter the rare regular patron who avoids library staff and only wants to interact with a computer. They despise budget cuts when they are made to the collections and would prefer they were cuts to staffing. I have been told several times by patrons that they think an all-volunteer library is the answer to the budget woes. Really? Well, why don't I see you donating some of your time for the solution you fully believe in???
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