No Spank You

My coworker and I are public librarians, and we get our share of weird calls to the reference desk asking for all sorts of information. My coworker, a young woman, answers the phone one day and I only hear her end of the conversation. She’s also a pretty new hire.

Coworker: “Yes, sir, I should be able to help you find articles on that topic. If you like, I can print them and you can come to [Branch] to pick them up.” *Pause* “Excuse me, could you repeat that?” *Pauses, then her eyes widen* “No, sir, that is not something I can do. Is there anything else I can help you with today? All right, have a nice day.” *Hangs up*

Me: “What was that about?”

Coworker: *Looking slightly frazzled* “He wanted me to look up articles on adult spanking and read them out loud to him!“

She takes a short break to calm down, and we are able to laugh about it because, unfortunately, there’s not much you can do in these situations besides turning them into a funny story for later.

Me: “Welcome to thing 274 they didn’t tell you about being a librarian!”