At the appointed hour I headed out to the front desk of my library. There are two computers, the high one and the low one. I take the one freely available, which is the high one, and I commence Internet browsing, oh! and helping people when it comes up.
Five minutes later my desk partner arrives. They politely ask if I prefer the seat I am at, or if I consider the schedule to designate seats. I do not consider the schedule to designate seats. I don't care what seat I'm at. I go to whatever seat is available.
My co-worker doesn't care what seat they're at either.
Since that's resolved I expound a little:
"I want to say there's no difference, but at the high seat all the people come to you, and at the low seat everyone ignores you and you have to flag people down to get them to you."
My co-worker surprisingly disagrees. "Not for me." She complains. "When I'm at the high computer everyone comes to me, and when I'm at the low computer everyone comes to me."
Then, for the following 55 minutes, I help every single person who comes to the front desk while she looks at her phone.
Face it, ecery normal person would prefer that you help them. The abnormal ones, too. Which has caused me to wonder if I even know anyone but you any more. Any retirements in the last three years?
ReplyDeleteWell that's nice, if occasionally a lot of work!
DeleteWe seem to be inbetween waves of retirement so I suspect there are a fair few people you would know still hanging around these various institutional back hallways.