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Aug. 19th, 2013 10:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darchildreAnd 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.
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.
