Friday at 5:00 (or, "The Man")

It was Friday at 5:00 - closing time. As I've explained numerous times to our patrons, most public libraries simply don't have the funding that would enable them to remain open late on the weekends and our building, like most others in the state, closes at 5:00 on Fridays.

Admittedly, the rush to leave the building on the part of the staff (both librarians and paraprofessionals) is almost tangible; it can certainly be felt by our patrons. Nevertheless, we don't shut our doors before 5:00. Sometimes this means stifling our desire for freedom from work while a lingering patron checks out a book or pays for printouts, but we always abide by our policy. Still, unlike retail stores, where employees remain to complete business after the last customer has left, we tend to follow our last patron out the door.

At just after 5:00 this past Friday, I had gotten into my car when I was approached by a man carrying DVDs and videos. He was so close to my car that I had to roll down the window in order to talk to him.

"Excuse me," he said. "Do you work here?"

"Yes, sir," I replied.

"Well, it's not 5:00 yet."

I checked the clock inside my car. "It's just after 5:00."

"I was bringing back all these DVDs and videos. I don't want to get charged for them!"

"I'm sorry, sir," I responded firmly. "They had to have been returned before 5:00 in order for you to avoid fines. I can't reopen the building."

The man's tone, which had been filled with anger before, became even more aggressive. "Well, who can I talk to about this? I was here before 5:00!"

I thought for a moment. "You can speak to someone on Monday." (It was after 5:00 on Friday, I was not working on the weekend, and in my own preoccupation with the upcoming two days off, I didn't think to tell him that he could come in the next day!)

"What about tomorrow?" he growled.

I nodded eagerly. "Yes, you can certainly come in tomorrow."

At that point the man, thankfully pacified, turned away. Fortunately, a colleague of mine, who had witnessed the entire interaction, mentioned to the man that she was working the next day. She told him to bring his materials to her in the morning, and she would waive his fines.

It was not my best customer service moment, and I thought about the interaction as I drove home. I was brief, bordering on hostile, and unsympathetic. And though my workday was over, I was still, at the moment, representing the library to the man who wanted to enter the building. Ouch.

And yet, as I've told several staff members, the public library is the only setting in which a user would feel entitled to approach an employee who is already in her car to argue about a particular policy. How many customers would approach a store manager or clerk after the store has closed for the day? This patron's gall, above all, is what angered me and caused me to lose the customer service skills that I have developed over the course of so many years. Nor is it the first time that I've had a "conversation" with a patron after hours.

We need to have respect for our patrons, but our patrons also need to have respect for us and for the library's policies. Unfortunately, too many people fail to recognize that and believe that, because they are taxpayers, they have certain entitlements - that established policies and procedures don't apply to them. This man should have paid his fines, but we are often willing to waive fines (particularly if they are low) in order to avoid ostracizing a patron. That I accept and agree with. But he should have simply waited until Saturday to explain his situation to the staff, rather than approach me as I was prepared to drive away from the building.