Unfiltered Story #238347

I’m working the information desk when this happens. A customer with a scruffy beard, cane and hoodie comes up to me.

Homeless Gandalf here positively reeks of stale cigarette ashes. Seriously, it is the worst!

Me: Yes sir, can I help you?

Customer: I need a book of civil law.

Me: Okay. (I start looking at what we have. I pull up a range of different records covering civil law, but nothing with THAT particular set of words in the title. By this point, the customer has started listening to loud rap music over his headphones.)

Me: Sir?

Customer: *Doesn’t respond*

Me: Uh, sir?

Customer: *takes his headphones out* What?!

Me: *Taken aback* Uh, what kind of civil law do you need?

Customer: I just need a book of civil law!

Me: Okay. Can you come with me please? (I get up from my desk, intending to show him to our law section. But he doesn’t follow.)

Me: Sir? Can you please come with me?

Customer: *sucks his teeth angrily and finally stomps after me* (I think he seriously expected me to bring the books back for him as if I were his servant!)

(Anyway, I show him to our section on law, which is about 50 feet from my desk. This covers common topics like divorce, bankruptcy, self-representation, custody, etc.)

Me: I’m afraid we don’t have much for civil law, specifically, but we do have a large section of common law topics. And here is a book I think you would find useful. (I give him a law encyclopedia.)

Customer: F***ing b**ch! Forces me to walk all this way, doesn’t even have the thing I’m looking for! *stomps away*

Me: Yeah, you’re welcome!

Customer: Don’t you f***ing tell me I’m welcome; you couldn’t even answer a simple question!

(I might have led him to our online repository of state law had he not gone out of his way to be so rude. If you wanna know why librarians are often portrayed as dour, now you have some small idea. Seriously? Talk to us like human beings, remember to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, and make your needs clear at the outset! )