What to do if mildly inconvenienced

The printing went down in our library this morning. I could give you a nuanced explanation of what happened so that what was once three working public printers became zero working public printers, but from the safety of clerkmanifesto I'd prefer to simply say: our computer services department sucks.

It was incumbent upon me to explain this to the people arriving at my library so I wrote a large, colorful sign on our six foot tall A-frame whiteboard. It said:

"We're sorry, but all printing is currently unavailable in the library. Except that which you can do with a pen."

I managed to refrain from adding "The computer services staff has gone into hiding." Even though this was true. We suddenly couldn't find them anywhere.

This is just as well because the patrons did not take the inability to print gracefully. One woman said that she would not leave the library until she could print her document. This was a curious threat as it was only about noon, we were scheduled to be open for another nine hours, and we like it when people are in the library. It's kind of the point. Of course, I have had other dissatisfied patrons threaten to never come to our library again! We like that too, we don't particularly need people in the library, especially difficult ones. So you can see how we're in a win win situation here.

One woman, it remains unclear whether it was the same one as the barnacle approach lady above, was so upset that she couldn't print that she called 911. That's a true story. The police never showed up so I guess they decided it was a more minor emergency. I guess they did something though because our printers seem to be working again, at least one of them, barely. I'm not sure because I haven't been out in the library for awhile. I've been in the  back work area, here, typing this. I hope you've enjoyed it. But if you haven't, just call 911. That should sort this out.