Tuesday, February 05, 2008

A man walks into a library...

The exterior door of the staff workroom opened and a man we'd never seen before walked in. It sort of surprised us, because generally the only folks who enter the building via the staff workroom exterior door are the staff.

He stepped into the room, looked around at the desks, piles of book donations, processing supplies and general clutter, then walked across the room to the interior door behind the circ-desk that led to the library proper. Ms. D and I stared at him.

"Oh, uh... I must have come in the wrong door," the man said.

Ms. D and I agreed that he had and wondered how this man could have confused the door he had entered--a small door at the end of our delivery drive that's barely visible from the parking lot--with the large and obvious double doored main entrance out front. We helpfully pointed to the real entrance for him.

The man looked a little embarrassed. "This is my first time in here," he said. He then quickly walked away from us, stepping around the corner toward the nonfiction stacks and our video shelves, atop which we have our giant display of tax forms. Half a minute later he returned.
"Um... do you all have tax forms?"
"Yeah," I said, pointing back in the direction from which he had come. "Just around the corner there on top of the videos."
"There's a giant sign that says `Tax Forms,' " Ms. D added. The man dropped his gaze, embarrassed once again at his own complete lack of observation skills.
Eventually, forms in hand, he departed via the correct door.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Doh!

Pointing out the giant sign might have been a bit much on the guys first visit. I usually wait until the third visit to point this stuff out. :-)

Anonymous said...

I'm surprised you don't lock your staff door. Is there always someone back there to watch your stuff?

Gardenbuzzy said...

That's kind of scary, that just anybody can walk in the door to your staff room. That would make me REAL nervous.

Juice S. Aaron said...

Ya gotta remember... we're small town America. We barely lock the front doors of our homes. This guy was just a dumbass.

However, we do tend to lock the staff room door after dark.


An employee of a small town "liberry" chronicles his quest to remain sane while dealing with patrons who could star in a short-lived David Lynch television series.