No, We Don't Do That

This librarian won her bout of "no, we don't do that"; sadly, I caved and just did it rather than protract the conversation. My patron wanted to know "is there space on the gossipcrew"? The what? "Gosselcru." I told her wasn't sure what that was, and that we don't do research for patrons, but I would help her sign onto a computer -- and she needed to wait until I helped the patron with an a: drive problem.

Digression: Yes, our PCs still have floppy disk drives. I told her that most don't work any more "because they are outdated." "Well what am I supposed to use?!" Um, have you heard of CDs? No better yet, go buy a $10 flash drive and join this century. So, after I let her know that most don't work, and after I walked by her to pick up some of the mess in Children's and casually asked her "is that working okay?" she still had a freak out because she had typed an online application and couldn't use a: to attach her resume! It's broken! I went ahead and took her disk, copied the file onto my flash drive and we attached it to her application from there.

I took my time to make sure that it worked, and turned back to the mumbler. "Gospel cruise" turned out to be what she wanted to to find. She can't use a computer -- "just do it for me. I just need a printout." I googled it. Ma'm, there are over 1 million and a half matches for that: I can't do your research for you. "No, no! Just print it!" I put her off again and checked on a teen - twenty-something who I knew didn't need help; I tried to will the phone to ring. No luck; I had to go back to Mumbler. I started to read the top websites: One Love, Gosepel Fest Cruise, Black Cruise Week. . . . She wanted the first one, and she wanted the ports and room rates. "So I hafta call them to book it? Do I need a credit card?" I don't know, read it yourself I said thrusting the papers at her. I am not doing it for you. "I am not a travel agent," I actually snapped. I gave her her prints and took exact change from her; I did not take the "Thank you, baby" she left behind her.

I kept stewing over the incident, and only felt worse when it occurred to me that someone who can't work a PC, who may not have a credit card, and who wears holey sweats and some kind of shoestring hairband may actually not be in any position to pay the $900 - 2000 that remaining rooms are running.