On Wednesday, the boys and I met a friend and her son at the local Regal Cinema to see the movie Minions. I am sure it is probably on Netflix or something but sometimes, during the summer, you do things to get out of the house. You see, up until this past Wednesday, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays during the summer mornings, movie watchers could get $1 tickets to watch previously released kids movies.
Last week, we saw Kung Fu Panda 3 and it went so much better than expected that we tried it again this week. On Wednesday, I paid $5 for movie tickets for five, since I treated my friend, and I felt really good about the experience of only paying $5 for five people to see a movie. Mr. Man stayed in his general seat area during the entire movie, Baby Nugget fell asleep on my lap for at least half of the movie, and I laughed out loud at the jokes that were written for adults.*
My friend and her son seemed to have a good time too and when the movie was over we all seemed like we were in a good mood.
My local Regal movie theater is located less than a mile from a public library that we sometimes frequent so I decided that my crew would head over there after the movie. It wasn’t quite lunchtime when the movie was over plus there was a book that I reserved that was ready to be picked up so it seemed like an easy stop.
At the library I picked up my book from the self-serve “hold shelf” then I took the boys to play in the children’s area for about fifteen minutes. While we were playing, I noticed that Baby Nugget was starting to smell ripe and that it was getting closer to lunch time. I told Mr. Man that it was time to leave and he told me that he wanted to pick out some books so he quickly picked out four books and brought them to me.
Usually, I bring the boys books home from my library when I am working because one of my library worker privileges is that I don’t have to pay overdue library book fines. I might be wearing my privilege, but I have become accustomed to not worrying if my books are overdue at the library that I work at and I have no such privileges at the library that we were visiting.
The particular library that we were visiting has some great advantages such as a great play area. However, one of its major disadvantages is that it seems to discourage customer and staff interaction by having six self-check out stations and only one, very small, check out desk. When they introduced this set-up last year, I had a newborn baby in a stroller who could potentially cry at any moment and a two year old who did not want to stand next to me in line to check out my books. I found it very stressful and stopped going to that library for a while because I couldn’t handle it.
I understand the system better now and Mr. Man, at age three and a half, is much better at staying by my side. Still I do not linger while I am checking out my books. I scan my card, type in my pass code and quickly scan my own books. My fear that my children won’t hang in there doesn’t leave me much time for exploring the menu on the check out terminal.
However, I did notice while checking out my books that I owed the library $5.00 in overdue fines. My fines did not bar me from checking out books that day and I wasn’t required to pay until my fine reached $10 so I decided to not pursue it at that moment. Instead, we headed straight for the bathroom and I changed the offending diaper.
Still, while I was changing Baby Nugget’s diaper, the $5 overdue charge nagged at me. I wondered if I was charged overdues for the book that I returned during the spring that I kept getting overdue e-mails about. It was a board book that I eventually found myself on the library shelf a week or two after I called the library and was promised a “shelf check”.
So I decided to go back into the library and ask the youngish man at the desk for help. I used my politest voice to ask if I could ask him if he could look at my account. It took me longer than I would have liked to find my library card since I buried my wallet back into the diaper bag after checking out my books and I felt sort of bad for the library worker that he had to wait for me.
His manor seemed professionally polite but I could also tell that he thought that I was interrupting him. But things I wasn’t really put off until he had my card in hand and I asked my question. I told him I was just curious about how I had accrued the $5 in fines. I told him about my situation the previous spring with the book I found on the shelf.
That is when he explained to me that he could answer my question but I should know that I could look at any of my account information on the self-serve terminals as well as by logging to the website. He made it seem like I should be helping myself instead of bothering him. Maybe I am being overly sensitive but this royally pissed me off. I was still nice to him, but I thought and still this is really bad customer service.
I dislike this customer service model that seems to be permeating stores where customers are encouraged to check themselves out and interact with the staff as little as possible. I think this trend discriminates against people with disabilities. While the library’s self-check out terminals are low enough that a person in a wheelchair could reach them, but not all disabled people are wheelchair bound. Some people are use walkers or canes and can’t steady themselves while checking out books. Some people are visually impaired. Some people can’t read text on computer screens or cannot see the colors on the self-serve terminal. Some people are learning disabled and cannot navigate the menu on the self-check out screen.
Having small children is not a disability but it feels like one sometimes. I often cart Baby Nugget around in a stroller and use wheelchair ramps and larger aisles in stores. There are some things that I do not attempt with my children in tow because it seems like it would be too aggravating to keep them from touching fragile things or right by my side. It is admittedly easier than it used to be for me since my children are one and half and three and half now but still I don’t usually make more than one or two stops when were are out because that is about all that I can handle.
It seems to me that a customer service employee explaining how people can help themselves before helping them disregards the idea that some people are being disenfranchised by a self-serve world.
As it turned out that my $5.00 overdue fee wasn’t from the book that I returned onetime but by other small fines accrued over time. I thanked the library worker, didn’t pay the $5 that I owed and went home.
It got me thinking though about the value of $5. I had just paid $5 to see a movie that I probably could have borrowed from the library for free or watched on Netflix, which we subscribe to. I felt great after leaving the movie theater. The $5 felt well spent.
Yet, I work for a library and value it’s services but still felt annoyed about my interaction. I try not to treat customers that way at my library. I also felt annoyed when I learned from the library worker that the overdue charge was $0.25 a day for children’s items. In my experience, and I have worked at seven different libraries, that seemed a little high. Libraries usually have a smaller fine, like $0.10 per day, since children’s books are shorter and people generally take out many more children’s items than adult items.
I mentally vowed that I would take out as few items as possible for that particular library since I was mad at them. I would instead only borrow items from them if I could not get them at the library that I work at. I thought that I would just explain to Mr. Man that he could not check out books the next time we were there. I would tell him that anything he wanted I would bring home for him the next time I went to work.
Later though, when we were reading his new library books, my mind changed again. He really liked the books and I felt really grateful that we had access to free libraries. I was also reminded of this when I was listening to the audiobook, that I am currently really digging, that I borrowed from the library that I work at. In the book, the main character was allowed to borrow books from a grownup in his English town because there were no free libraries in his area, only a few subscription libraries.
I feel so conflicted! I have so much appreciation for libraries and what they do but I am still annoyed about the way I was talked to by the library worker. It is probably the fifth time I had a weird staff interaction at that library that annoyed me to the point of stewing about it but at the same time I am ever so grateful that this library exists the way it does. I guess this is what love is. It is complicated and messy and imperfect.
I am still not going to pay them their fine money until I reach the $10 cutoff when I can’t borrow books until I pay. But I will pay it willingly then, without a fight, politely.
I think the one thing that I will take away from all of this though is the knowledge that customers do feel better about the money that they pay for services if you are nice to them. Be nice to customers and they will willingly give you their money and probably more of it too.
Perhaps libraries should increase their customer service training or capacity to provide customer service and charge for more services so that they can have few fundraisers. I know that this might go against the American Library Association Core values, which calls for equal access to all users. However, I have to feel that cutting costs by heavily encouraging customers to serve themselves and limiting face-to-face staff assistance also discourages equal access to persons with disabilities. It might be better to just charge for more things. If the library is nice enough to its customers people will pay willingly.
*[ A side note: I used to make fun of Minion memes on Facebook because I am a snob and thought it was the lowest form of humor, but I am beside myself now because I thought the Minion movie was pretty clever. The Minions themselves are kind of anti-heroes because their goal is to serve the evilest possible villain. Their nature is sort of childlike and they are pretty stupid but at the same time you want them to succeed. They also don’t really speak English but instead their own language so it is sort of like watching a movie in another language. I highly recommend it! Maybe I will become a Minion Movie Meme-er.]
Happy Friday
