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Thursday, February 23, 2012

Public Libraries Vs Nordstroms

I had a patron come up to the desk and ask where the fax machine was, I told her that the library doesn't provide fax services.  She turned her nose up and said, "Well, they used to."  No, they never have. 

It's not the first time the lack of fax services got patrons all pissy.  Back when I was working the circ desk a patron asked the same thing, I told her that we don't have any public faxes and told her there was a Kinko's down the road that did.  She looks past me into the backroom and points at the 1980's behemoth of a fax machine and asks me, "What's that?"  I love playing I-Spy!  I-Spy a patron who's going to start an argument over a fax.  I told her it was "the staff-only fax machine."  Then she looked at my government ID for my title, she then asks if my supervisor was available.  Of course he was, he's always hiding in his office so I was more than happy to get him.  He came out and it took a total of 5 minutes of repeating what I already told her before she left.

So back to the current patron, I told her that the closest fax service was 2 streets down, literally 5 minutes away.  She gets all huffy and says she would "never get caught walking in there."  She said that she would go to Nordstrom's instead, "they'll do whatever I tell them to."  That's fine, drive 15 minutes further and waste more time.  I'm fairly certain that when Nordstrom's or public libraries conduct SWOT analyses, neither pops up on each others' radar.  I heard their name brought up so many times in lectures when it came to exemplary customer service.  I'm pretty sure that this is the same patron who asked me to borrow a pair of scissors and never brought them back...

4 comments:

  1. Maybe instead of the two of you arguing with her for 5+ minutes, one of you could have just taken the lousy 30 seconds & sent the fax on its way as a courtesy? Or even done it for a small fee?

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    1. When it comes to dealing with patrons, the rule of "Give somebody an inch and they'll take a mile" applies. If the County wanted patrons to have the ability to FAX, then they would have provided it. If I did it for this patron would I have to for everyone then? Or just the ones that make a big fuss?

      Trust me, I am more than willing to help a patron out, as far as courtesy goes, people don't understand "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar." Man, I'm on a roll with these idioms.

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  2. I had someone tell me we sucked once because we don't have a public fax machine. Gotta love people.

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    1. Patron interactions can be "special."

      One of my friends had a patron "tug" on her hair when she wouldn't extend her internet time when there were 8 people in the queue.

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