It Was Worth It
When I was in high school, I worked in the children’s room of my local library. The library had an amnesty month every year. People could return overdue books for one month with no fines or fees. Of course, on the last day of amnesty month, the library was packed.
People were coming in and returning bags and boxes full of books. It was an absolute mess. I was scanning books when the phone rang. A woman called and asked if I could renew her books over the phone. If the library wasn’t crowded, I would’ve been able to.
However, the library was packed, and people just kept dumping books on the counter, so I didn’t have time to renew her books over the phone. At the time, the computer system wasn’t capable of renewing a bunch of books all at once.
Therefore, if you didn’t have the physical book, you had to manually enter each book’s title, author, or ISBN number. I told the woman that I just didn’t have time to return her books over the phone.
She started yelling about how it was amnesty month, how she couldn’t afford to pay her fines, and how I had to renew the books for her because she couldn’t come in.
I was getting frustrated but tried to remain calm and polite. She kept yelling and cursing at me and finally said, “If you don’t renew my books, I’m never coming back! You’ll lose a valued customer!”
To which I replied in the most epic way possible: “You’re not a paying customer. The library is free. If you want your books renewed, you have to come in yourself.” And then I hung up. Later, I got yelled at by my supervisor, but it was worth it.