g33k and chic: Hope Waning for Mankind

I mentioned in a previous post about a book in which I ravenously devoured while waiting for my wash to finish at the laundromat : The Customer is Not Always Right. It is a project which began low-scale and, like Post Secret, soon found its founders swimming in stories of woe and awe at the sheer stupidity of our fellow humans who roam this planet.

Mind you, this is a rather generalization of many people - not everyone is truly "stupid," per se, but if you have every had the fortune ~~or misfortune~~ of working in fast food, restaurant industry, retail, or simply with the general public, you may have experienced similar encounters which made you shake your head or made you step back for a moment in order to process if reality was playing out in front of you and not some sort of ill-conceived prank.

Case in point {and I ferociously texted this into my Notes app last night before succumbing to a lovely, near-delusional state right before conking out}:

*Patron approaches library desk with small stack of books*
me: Hello, how may I help you? Are you checking these books in?
Patron: No. *pauses* These were all due yesterday.
me: okay...so you are checking them in?
Patron, impatient: No. These were due yesterday.
me, confused: So you are returning them?
Patron, frustrated: Yes, they're late.

When working with customer service, it's important to try to assist in the most amicable way possible, yet when dealing with such idiocy, it's difficult to hold one's tongue in cheek.

While library books are not life-threatening, unless thrown at people, it certainly impedes upon efficiency when someone proves to be unpleasant and does not understand basic procedure for book borrowing.

What makes up for this {aside from the funny tales to share at parties} are the lovely patrons who come in with a smile, ready to tackle on the next adventure with their eyes or hungry for knowledge - those are my favorites. As a fellow bibliophile, that sort of desire to expand one's vocabulary and sense of the world through reading is refreshing and brings back my hope in society when I see the subjects in which people are divulging, or the fact that they keep coming back for the wondrous literary tools available.

Call me a dork, call me a nerd, but don't call me illiterate or say I'm not a dreamer. While the morons continue to trickle in, the fact that they are reading diminishes that sense of annoyance just a tad, but only a tad.

You can see the world through a television screen, but opening a book can take you so much further....

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