![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Feb. 5th, 2013 04:41 pmAnd then, I had a patron come in who told me that she had lost some books and wanted to pay for them. So I pulled up her account, told her the total, and let her see the screen because she wanted to know the titles.
Now, this is a lady that we think has some mental problems - possibly some issues of dementia. And at first she was willing to pay for the books, and then she told me that her husband had checked out one of them but that she'd never heard of the other. And then, a moment later, she'd never heard of any of them. Because she was mumbling a little and not very clear, I'd been sort of repeating what she says back to her, in order to make sure that I was understanding what she wanted.
Possibly she took that amiss? Because then she started to get angry and tell me I was being sarcastic at her. So of course I apologized and said that it was in no way my intention to sound sarcastic, at which point she said, "No, you're being sarcastic and you're going to stop that right now."
It was weirdly scary. I mean, not physically scary but "You're angry at me and I can't figure out what I've done wrong" kind of scary. I know I'm kind of a sarcastic person but never when I'm in customer service mode. I do tend to retreat into greater formality when I'm flustered and I know I called her "ma'am" several times, which I guess could be read as sarcasm? I was being wholly sincere though.
Anyway. Her fines are too high for me to be able to waive all of them if that turns out to be necessary, so I gave her my manager's phone number. And after she left, I went into the bathroom for a moment and spent some time breathing. Tomorrow I am going on vacation for a week, so hopefully she will no longer be my problem.
Eurgh.
Now, this is a lady that we think has some mental problems - possibly some issues of dementia. And at first she was willing to pay for the books, and then she told me that her husband had checked out one of them but that she'd never heard of the other. And then, a moment later, she'd never heard of any of them. Because she was mumbling a little and not very clear, I'd been sort of repeating what she says back to her, in order to make sure that I was understanding what she wanted.
Possibly she took that amiss? Because then she started to get angry and tell me I was being sarcastic at her. So of course I apologized and said that it was in no way my intention to sound sarcastic, at which point she said, "No, you're being sarcastic and you're going to stop that right now."
It was weirdly scary. I mean, not physically scary but "You're angry at me and I can't figure out what I've done wrong" kind of scary. I know I'm kind of a sarcastic person but never when I'm in customer service mode. I do tend to retreat into greater formality when I'm flustered and I know I called her "ma'am" several times, which I guess could be read as sarcasm? I was being wholly sincere though.
Anyway. Her fines are too high for me to be able to waive all of them if that turns out to be necessary, so I gave her my manager's phone number. And after she left, I went into the bathroom for a moment and spent some time breathing. Tomorrow I am going on vacation for a week, so hopefully she will no longer be my problem.
Eurgh.
