As grumpy as the rest of us

Grey, wet & miserable. As good a description of me as the environment. It's often assumed that working in a library couldn't possibly be stressful. Of course it can: staff on the counter or enquiry desk dealing with the public are subject to pretty much the same stresses as any other front-line staff. Most people see libraries as A Good Thing, thank Heaven, so most interactions are neutral or positive but the public being the public, you never know which time things will kick off. It's years since I worked at the front line (that was advice work) but every so often I have to deal with the public, usually because of a problem or a complaint. This time it was because someone in the car parking section of the council put their 'phone through to the reference library where I was sat setting up a PC.

"Hello, Helminthdale Library."

"Is that parking?"

"No, sorry, it's the library."

"It is parking, that's who I've rung."

"I promise you, I'm sitting in the reference library."

The guy on the line wouldn't have it that I wasn't sitting in an office a mile away and didn't want to know when I found a direct number for him that couldn't be diverted to 'phones in the library. Quite rudely (him, not me).

I can still do the patter but I don't have the patience that I used to have and am still profoundly irritated by this idiot.