A regular patron came in recently and said “How am I today?” The clerk at the desk replied “I don’t know, how are you?” The patron then said “Works every time!”

He wanted her to ask him how he was doing. This is entirely backwards, and very needy. It is a sign of a need of external validation, at a minimum.

I heard this exchange from the back room and thought it over in case he decided to use this line on me. Luckily, he did the very next day.

When he said “How am I today?”, I replied “Only you would know that.”

This stumped him. He mumbled something about how I was supposed to ask him how he was doing. I pointed out that the normal way of doing things was for him to ask me how I am doing, and then after I answer, I would ask him how he was doing.

I told him a story of when I worked in retail. After many years of various retail jobs, I got tired one day of constantly asking people how they were doing and them not asking me. This is normal in retail. You are treated like a machine, a non-person. You are a means to an end. You aren’t really there to them.

That day I started answering for them. After I asked, and they replied, I waited a bit and when (not if) they didn’t ask me, I would say “And I’m fine too, thank you!” This confused them. Some would say “But I didn’t ask you.” I said “Yes, that’s the point.”

I explained to this patron that it is rude to not ask the other person how they are doing, and to only care about yourself. It creates an air of higher and lower.

So then, I asked him how he was doing and he said he was OK.

Pause.

Then he said “Notice I didn’t ask you how you were doing.”

Yes. I noticed. Now I know that he doesn’t do this out of ignorance, but willful neglect of basic courtesy.

This explains a lot about him. It shows how terribly broken he is. I wonder how he was raised. I wonder what would twist someone into being intentionally rude. This isn’t thoughtlessness. This is on purpose.

Now, there are certain people who get too familiar, too close. They assume they are my friends when they don’t even know my last name. Certain people insist on telling me what books I should read, not even knowing what I like to read. Some people even went so far as to insist that I had to have children when I got married, not understanding the family history that I’ve lived through.

Plenty of people are too personal at the library, but then some are too impersonal.

This is why the self-check was such a great thing. People didn’t have to come to us. They didn’t have to treat us like ATMs. If something wasn’t working right, they only had themselves to blame.

This is always an interesting job. If you are a people-watcher, it is the best job ever.