(no subject)

[darchildre]

And then, a patron yelled at my coworker and me for not saying hello to him when he walked in the door.

Which, okay, I hadn't, because I had been talking to another patron. I do usually try to greet everyone or at least give them a nod, but some people do get missed. But he told us we were rude for not greeting him, and then told us that he thought it was because he wasn't white. Because, yeah, everyone else in the library was white and we're both lily-pale, and we had said something to everybody else who came in.

We apologized, of course, but that kind of thing doesn't really help. He said he was never going to come back here again and now I just feel horrible. I keep thinking about how I just inadvertently ruined this guy's day. It's not something I did out of malice - I didn't mean to make him feel bad - but he does now, and I know if it were me, it would screw up my whole day. And there's nothing I can do to fix it.

So now we are both of us sad and that totally sucks.

Comments

[tricksters_queen]

::hugs:: I sincerely doubt that his bad day is your fault...I suspect he was having a bad day to begin with, and therefore noticed that no one had greeted him (as in, looking for things that are going wrong...my husband has a wonderful habit of doing this from time to time, and small things will kill him when he's in a bad mood), and wound up taking it out on you. ::more hugs:: Also, it sounds like he has a chip on his shoulder, and that is most certainly not your fault. You, specifically, would have been rude to the customer you were working with if you had stopped in the middle of what you were doing anyway.

Uhm, long way of saying "don't let this ruin your day!" and also, "You are loved!" :)

[silveradept]

That's unfortunate. Although there are some people who really are looking for an excuse to feel put upon, but you can usually tell them from others.

[james]

You didn't ruin his day. Chances are he was going to get mad about something, because some people just look for things to get pissed off about and if it isn't one thing you do, it's another.

Like some people are only happy if they're arguing -- there is no way to win.