Erin,

If no one can cover your shift, I should be able to on the 17th.
posted by Steve at Memorial at 10:57 AM

 
ciao-ciao ref friends!
okay, well, two of my dear friends from the great state of Iowa are coming to town this weekend to take me and my room mate to our sorority semiformal (unrelevant information, i know, but here comes the good part!) so, originally they were suppose to be leaving saturday, but they're staying through sunday, and i wanna' give them a tour of the town, if you will, so is anyone interested in working reference this Sunday from 1-5p.m.? It's usually pretty quiet, but sometimes at 3ish, that's when the "can you help me? i have no idea how to do this and it's due tomorrow..." crowd starts trickling in, just fyi...

lemme know if you're interested!
danke!
natalie :)
posted by Anonymous at 5:13 PM

 
Can anyone work for me on Monday Nov. 17th from 12-2? Let me know!
Thanks - Erin
posted by Anonymous at 8:41 PM

 
Hello everyone,

And welcome back from back/break.

If you feel at any time that you are being taken advantage of, please, gimmie a break. You're just paranoid. Forget about it and go back to sleep . . .

Er . . . uhm I mean:

Occasionally it is o.k. to print materials for people as long as it is not a regular thing and they know that this is a service we don't normally provide. But once people start abusing our generosity the best response is "I am really sorry, but this is a service we don't provide," and leave it at that. If they persist and even offer to pay, I still wouldn't print it for them except under unusual circumstances. In essence the cost is not the issue, but time is. Anyone that is standing in front of the reference desk without legitimate business may be inhibiting someone else from coming to the desk that does have legitimate business. And legitimate business does not include being someone's printer.

Of course all of this needs to be taken as a guideline, not a hard and fast rule. I trust each of your judgments. It sounds to me like both of you did the right thing and that in the future we shouldn't be printing materials for him.

For those that might not be familiar with the name, the patron in question is the one that has asked many of us to help him with his translations of a children's book he is working on. In my dealings with him, if you stay firm, he doesn't push it further.

O.k. now go back to sleep. . .
posted by Steve at Memorial at 10:53 AM