Unreasonable Expectations of Librarians

For how long do you help someone before you tell them you've done everything you can do for them and send them on their merry/annoyed little way? Usually I play it by ear and if the person has the right attitude, I help them a bit more. If they're demanding, rude, or curt with me, I make it a policy to do as little as possible for them.

Take this lady today. She wanted to find a comparative chart between "all the major diets," rating what has worked and what has not worked. I ended up spending 20 minutes with her getting all the weight watcher books in our catalogue for her, and eventually she suggested we look in Consumer Reports, where indeed, I found they'd rated the major fad diets back in June 2007. Sure enough, Weight Watchers was on there, and it did relatively well, all things considered. She was a bit demanding, but very polite and I didn't mind getting her what she asked for.

I usually find, however, that elderly people are less polite, expecting not only that I read their minds ("I don't remember the title, you know the one about the woman who lived in Maine, always solved crimes in her spare time?") but that I do it quickly and often.

Here's a little equation that will tell you the type of service (S) you're likely to get from me, the higher the number the better, based on your attitude (a), my available time (t), and the total customers (including you) who also need help (c).

S=(c/t)*a

So there it is. The total number of customers and my time, and your attitude, are all factors in the kind of service you will receive from me.