Phone Misuse

A woman approached my desk and I could tell right away that she was hard of hearing. Aside from her audio assault, she required me to nearly scream back at her when I responded. These encounters drive me nuts because I hate to shout in a quiet and empty library.

She roared, “I HAVE A CALL ON MY CALLER ID FROM THE LIBRARY, BUT I’M NOT SURE WHY ANYONE CALLED ME. THE GIRL AT THE OTHER DESK SAID I DON’T HAVE ANY HOLDS IN. DO YOU KNOW WHY THEY CALLED ME?”

I answered, “We don’t usually—“

She pushed, “WHAT?!?”

I tried again, “WE DON’T USUALLY CALL PATRONS FROM THIS DESK UNLESS YOU’RE EXPECTING US TO CALL YOU WITH AN ANSWER TO A QUESTION. WERE YOU EXPECTING A CALL FROM US?”

She yelled, “I ORDERED A BOOK, BUT THEY SAY IT’S NOT IN YET. I DON’T KNOW WHY ANYONE WOULD CALL ME.”

I said, “Was there a message?”

She hollered, “WHAT?!?”

“WAS THERE A MESSAGE?”

“YES. BUT I DIDN’T CHECK IT. DO YOU THINK I SHOULD CHECK IT?”

No, ma’am, I really think it’s probably quite smart that you saw the Caller ID register a call from the library, so you got into your car, drove over, and began bellowing at every staff member you encountered about this mystery call, because there’s no better way of getting to the bottom of a Caller ID call than confronting the 50 people who might have placed that call from the public library in your neighborhood. And really, since we all don’t work at the same time, you should probably hang around and scream at each person from each shift, for at least the next few days, if not weeks, until you’ve loudly interviewed all the staff and get to the bottom of this. Voice mail exists for people who aren’t into thorough investigating like you, ma’am. Someone with as much attention to detail as yourself should be rewarded with a live and very vociferous conversation about the very same thing they already left on your voice mail. Why should you listen to a message when you can interrogate the library staff and totally disturb the entire building? Please, do us all a favor and just deactivate the voice mail so that we may have the pleasure of these intelligent and practical encounters. Please.

Once the screaming lady checked her voice mail and found out that the message was regarding something she ordered that we were unable to obtain for her, she smiled and loudly announced she had her answer and could leave now.

Bummer. I was starting to hope I’d have to yell at her all afternoon and pretend not to be irritated with her inability to use her head.

Then I was greeted with one of my least favorite patrons, Bertha. Bertha is one of those women who is sizable as well as malicious, which makes her quite intimidating and difficult to get rid of. Last week she infuriated a coworkers who is probably one of the most unflappable of our staff, all because Bertha saw her helping another patron, walked right up to her, interrupted her, and asked her to find something for her. She was in the middle of speaking, and Bertha touched her and started talking over her, to stop her so she’d answer her question instead. Well, it didn’t work, and she told Bertha to wait until she was done. Bertha was so offended that she wasn’t helped immediately, that she stood next to her with her arms crossed over he chest, sighing and shifting her weight impatiently. Bertha is not someone who takes no for an answer.

My first encounter with Bertha almost resulted in having to call the police because she would not accept that her card had fines on it and wasn’t usable until she cleared up her bills. She had her two very sizable and malicious sons with her, and the three of them were leaning on my desk, yelling at me, calling me names, telling me I was too stupid to be of any use to anyone. She was asked to leave and she had a few choice words to shout as she walked out, too.

I’m no fan of hers.

So, when she approached my desk today, I knew I was probably going to need backup.

Bertha said, “Honey, I need a phone. Where can I use a phone?”

I recommended the pay phone in the lobby, but Bertha swore she hadn’t a penny to use it. Then I suggested she make a collect phone call.

She got animated and said, “Look, I don’t have a cell phone or any money to call anyone, but I just got this email from someone about a job, and I need to call about this job so I can work! Okay? Do you understand how important this is? I can’t be calling a future boss collect! Who would hire me?”

I told her I understood, but that the telephone at my desk was strictly for library staff to use, and only in an emergency could someone else use it.

Bertha insisted, “This is an emergency! I need a job!”

I apologized and said that it was actually a personal call, not an emergency, and I couldn’t let people use my phone for their personal calls. I asked if she had a friend, family member, neighbor, or anyone who had a phone she could use, and she insisted that she had to make this phone call right that minute or risk losing this job opportunity.

This is when the battle in my head began.

Would I deny this phone use to anyone else, or is it because it’s Bertha that I’m so staunchly opposed to letting her use it?

Would it do me more good to let her use the phone and go away than to deny it and fight with her, possibly having to bring in someone else who might just let her use the phone and make me look like a vulvahead?

Am I overstepping myself and trying to teach her some kind of lesson about her expectations of limitless services offered by the library and its staff?

Would someone else let her use the phone for this reason?

When I broke it down, I figured there was SOMEONE on staff who would likely agree to let her make the phone call, so it might as well be me. And that’s what did it, surprisingly: the refusal to be overridden by someone who is a spineless pushover. So, dummy that I am, I let myself be the biggest pushover because I didn’t want to be the biggest bitch.

I sternly cautioned, “I’m going to let you do it this time, and only this time, and the call must be very brief. Don’t expect anyone else on staff to ever do anything like this for you, either, because I guarantee it won’t happen.”

She thanked me and I dialed her number.

Then I sat there and listened to a 3-minute job interview over the phone, which involved Bertha telling this man on the phone, who she repeatedly called “Honey”, “Sweetie” and “Dear,” what a wonderful worker she is. She talked up all her extensive office experience and people skills, which caused me to have to turn my back quickly so as not to laugh loudly enough for her interviewer to hear. She didn’t even set up a real interview with the man. It seemed she had overreacted to the email and called right away to thank him for responding to her. He must have said he’d contact her to set up an interview, and she assured him that the phone number she provided belonged to her nephew, but that he would relay any message to her quickly. She thanked him and called him a pet name again.

As she was ending the phone call, she said, “I really look forward to hearing from you. I think it would be so wonderful to work at O’Hare Airport and I hope you call soon.”

Yeah, she’s exactly the type of person we need at O’Hare. The unfriendly skies are about to get unfriendlier, I fear. Between the craziness of all the reports of family members who PICK UP or DROP OFF a traveler to be required to have all of their proper immigration papers on them just for stepping into the airport itself, and ridiculous rules about nail clippers and three ounces of fluid, with constant flashing signs about the terrorism alert levels being high, why the hell not hire Bertha to work there too? It’s not like traveling by plane is a pleasant experience anyway. Why not just require passengers to hack off an appendage so that they are duly miserable during their flight? Break a rib, voluntarily sodomize yourself with a rolled up newspaper, or deal with Bertha in some capacity on your way to your destination – it’s all the same. Bertha could actually cut out some body fluid cleanup by just inflicting herself on people, and then more people would hate to fly. That sounds like a fabulous idea. That’s what the airlines are trying to do, right? Yeah, Bertha will fit right in.

In a year, Chicago will be the Leader of Staycations.