Customer Service

I am one of those odd people who don't mind going to the DMV because--contrary to popular reputation--the employees at my local are friendly and helpful. I still have to wait in line to be told which line to wait in so I can wait in line, but I can handle bureaucracy if it’s polite.

So when a colleague asked if I’d mind picking up the Library's order of Rules of the Road booklets on my way into work, I was more than happy to oblige. It was, after all, just across town.  How hard could it be?

This particular DMV crew must not have gotten the "we're nice here" memo. I interacted with three people in my ten-minute visit and the best thing I can say about all three interactions is that they only lasted a couple of minutes apiece. By the time I received what I came for my face was flushed, my hands were shaking, and I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. A little oversensitive? Who, me?

I find that to be terribly sad. Not the fact that I, a grown woman, allowed the DMV to intimidate me (though I did give myself a stern talking-to in the car), but that there are people who work in an industry that has such a poor customer service reputation. How lucky am I? I get to work in a well-loved industry. Libraries have their own reputation. And it's a very favorable one. 

Librarians are friendly, knowledgeable, interested in their patrons, and (usually) more than willing to go out of their way to chase down that title, research that question, or make a copy of that article. People are eager to go to libraries. They spend hours here. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been late getting to lunch because one more patron has sought me out to say hello. And I don’t mind, because that means I’m doing my job. I am a friendly, approachable librarian.

There is a difference between customer service and good customer service. Anyone can be taught customer service. Answer the phone. Put a book on hold. Help someone print a document. Explain how to download an audiobook. Learning the mechanics of serving the public--whatever industry you’re in--is easy. It’s attitude that matters. Did I get what I came for at the DMV? Yes. Was it a pleasant experience? No.

So what is good customer service? Service with a smile. It’s all in the delivery. There is a world of difference between a flat “that book is checked out” and “I’m sorry our copy is checked out, but I can add you to the waiting list.” Or “Unfortunately, we don’t have the capacity for public FAXing here. Let me print you a list of nearby places that do” versus “You can’t FAX here.” All four of those statements are true, and all four are customer service. But not all four are good customer service.

I think I would rather be told “I’m sorry, we don’t have/can’t offer (whatever)” by a polite employee with a Plan B (i.e. putting my name on a waiting list or sending me elsewhere) than get exactly what I came for from a rude employee.

That might just be me, but I know one thing for sure. If I ever provide just “customer service” to my patrons, I hope someone calls me on it.

Honorary Cat

I know I’ve written about the joys of home ownership before, particularly when it involves small and unwanted furry rodents before. Today I’m going to introduce you to Fieval, Wallenda, and Tucker--three of the cutest and stupidest mice I have ever run across. This all happened within about 72 hours or so.

I caught Fieval in the downstairs bathroom while I was getting ready for work. When I stumbled into the shower, I noticed Snafu and Fubar both camped out on the floor. Which is weird, but I figured they were just cats being cats. So I did my shower stuff, got out, got dressed, and made myself breakfast. Cats still hadn’t budged. Wouldn’t pay any attention to me, or their breakfast. Lazy little buggers.

The last thing I do before I leave for the day is scoop the catbox. So I pulled the box toward me to be able to reach it better…and a fat brown mouse dashed out from behind the box and froze. So did I. So did the cats. I slammed the door shut, locking all four of us inside. After some calculating, swearing, and a lot of frantic scufflings that resulted in one very unhappy mouse trapped under a handy bucket…I called my boss and informed her of the situation. Probably the weirdest “I’m gonna be late” reason she’s had in quite a while. Definitely the weirdest I’ve ever given. I retrieved my trusty “catch and release” trap from the basement and convinced the smallest idiot in the room to crawl in. My plan was to release the little dummy in a nearby wooded area and then head off to work. Fieval, it turned out, didn’t want to leave. Just sat there huddled in the trap. I ended up having to leave the open trap in my yard. He was gone when I got home.

A day or so later I was once again getting ready for work, when I heard a ruckus in the parlor. I walked in, and found Fubar frantically trying to climb the floor-length lace curtains. I looked up…and there was Wallenda, balanced on the curtain rod and--I’m sure--laughing his ass off at the stupid cat. Snafu, it should be noted, was politely supervising from the settee. All four of us took stock of the situation, and then I went to get the Mouse Removal Bucket. Wallenda, it turned out, had other ideas. That little shit gave us a run for our money.

He ran across the curtain rod. He ran down the curtain. He ran over my hand (I screeched). He ran back up the curtain. He took a flying leap of desperation over my head and landed behind the space heater. I had a brief bout of hysterics until I realized he hadn’t jumped on my head (if that’d happened I would have called in "dead" to work and had a nervous breakdown). Ran out from behind the space heater. Ran into my purse. Ran out of my purse. Ran into the dining room. Ran up the dining room curtain. Ran across the curtain rod. Fell off and landed in the bucket. The four of us needed to catch our collective breath. I didn’t even bother with the trap this time. Left Wallenda to cool his little paws while I finished getting ready. Then I took the bucket to the woods and dumped him out. Last I saw, he was under a log.

Tucker came along not twelve hours later. I went to bed at midnight and was just dropping off when I heard a commotion from downstairs. After being unable to convince myself that it was just normal cat play I went down to see. Both boys were crouched under the china cabinet with a very familiar look on their furry little faces. In a fantastically stupid move, I stuck my face under the cabinet and shone a flashlight. Tucker and I were almost nose-to-nose. He squeaked and ran. I squeaked and stomped. One brief scramble later, and Tucker was safely in the bucket. I scolded him roundly as I shoved my feet into shoes and pulled on my coat. Told him exactly what I thought of mice who kept the whole household up past their bedtimes. Then I went across the street to the football field and rather rudely plopped the little fur wad out onto the grass.

It turns out that not only am I not afraid of mice, but I’m also a better mouser than my cats. Which should make me an honorary cat. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to drink a bowl of cream and curl up in a sunbeam.

Happy National Poetry Month!

I wrote my very first poem when I was in fifth grade. Inspired by Harold the Dog’s appreciation for his backyard in James and Deborah Howe’s wonderful Bunnicula, I dashed off an (in retrospect) incredibly trite little piece that compared all the stuff one finds outdoors to different-colored jewels. What can I say? I was ten. At least I got an “A” in class.

My 5th grade teacher introduced us to poetry every chance she got. When it was time for practicing our penmanship, she wrote short poems on the blackboard for us to copy. To my knowledge, that was the first time I’d been exposed to poetry beyond the odd tidbit my mother would recite, and I loved it. 

(Shout out to “There Was a Little Turtle”...the first poem my mom memorized. She was five, and made sure everyone she came across on the way home from school that day knew the poem, too!)

After copying, we’d talk about the poems. How did they make us feel? What did we think the author was trying to say? Did s/he succeed? At the end of the year, we each bound all those copies into books. I think I still have mine somewhere.

Somewhere along the way, though, poetry became a chore. Whenever the inevitable “Poetry Unit” popped up in high school, I’d groan just as loudly as my classmates. We’d have to read a poem, analyze every bit of beauty out of it, and then go on to the next. It robbed us of the chance to relax and simply enjoy the music of poetry without worrying about symbolism and metaphor and rhyme scheme. I learned a lot of “poetry understanding” but almost no “poetry appreciation.”

Things got worse when we had to write poetry. Write a sonnet. Use iambic pentameter and the proper rhyme scheme. Write a haiku. Count your syllables. Write a villanelle. Watch your stanzas. Write a sestina. Choose your six words with care.

(Okay, I actually enjoyed the challenge of a sestina. Not that I admitted it to my teacher.)

College wasn’t much better. In my “American Authors” class we each had to memorize a poem and recite it to the rest of the class. Up until then, I’d managed to escape such a task. There’d been memorization before, of course (hello, Sonnet 116), but this was the first time I was expected to spit it back out. I went back to the dorm and whined about the assignment to pretty much anyone who’d listen. And then I recited my chosen poem to anyone who would listen.

(Little did I know that both the sonnet and my eventual memorization of Robert Frost’s Acquainted with the Night would stick with me and become party tricks. I once won a chocolate bar at work for being able to recite a poem at the drop of a hat.)

Yeah, poetry and I were not friends…until I started at the library. We used to run an annual poetry contest, and my English Major background pretty much ensured I got to be one of the judges. For the first time in decades I got to read poetry without analyzing it to death. And some of those entries were really good. I looked forward to it every year…right up until one of the participants started repeatedly hounding staff in an effort to find out who the judges were so they could ask us what comprised a “winning poem.” I suspect their ulterior motive was to design a poem that would win. This person is one of the reasons we no longer have a poetry contest.

I could go on and on about poetry. It’s never too late to learn to enjoy it, even if you’ve only been taught to pick it apart rather than actually like it. 

For years at the library, at the first fall of snow,

I’d write a poem to my coworker, just to let her know.

I don’t remember when it started

But she entered my game whole-hearted

We’ve exchanged doggerel verses for years

Sometimes laughing ourselves to tears

She retired probably ten years ago

But we still exchange poems, even so.