One-Armed Paperhanger

Busy, busy week at the library. I don't know if it's the weather or what, but there's been one heck of a lot of disgruntled people: why???? Same policies....same hours (although we were closed on Easter)....it doesn't make sense. I had a lady on the phone today at the window who's in here ALL the time: wouldn't you think she'd be civil? She certainly wasn't, even though what she needed (items renewed that would be due in a few days) wasn't an emergency in any sense of the word. I really don't get it. I think we go out of our way to be friendly and polite (even as we're telling people things they don't want to hear) so why the attitude? Do we have too many policies for customers to easily remember? Is it that there are so many libraries close by, each with its own set of rules, that leads to confusion? That we don't limit the number of items checked out (except dvds) which enables people to rack up big fines all too easily? Here's something that happened tonight: a woman came up to the returns part of the counter, where I could see her out of the corner of my eye as I made a family account for the customers I was helping. I answered the phone three times during that transaction. My colleague was also making cards (individuals, in this case, for a family) and a third colleague stepped out of the workroom to help with the long line of customers that was accumulating. After sighing and drumming her fingers on the counter, the woman waiting breaks into what I'm doing for the people in front of me and tells me- doesn't ask- that she needs Meeting Room A opened. I see a page come out of the back with his cart, barked his name despite his distance from me, and asked him to please open the room for the lady, whom, when I turned to say, "Bryant will be right with you!" glared at me as though being expected to wait- as everyone else was doing- was intolerable. Well, it's a library, not the express line at the grocery store, for pete's sake.