Miss Information

Miss Information is annoyed by a hanger on

Miss Information once spent a lot of time in a Christchurch, New Zealand Starbucks without realizing that it had closed. The store hours weren’t posted and the counter person never actually said they were closing, because obviously then Miss Information would have left. Reasonable people leave when a place closes.

The Starbucks had closed because it was closing time but sometimes a place needs to close for another reason—flood, fire, sarin gas leak. All good reasons to evacuate and sensible people would go away, at least until the hazmat team clears out. Miss Information’s library rarely closes to the public. It has remained open during times of no heat, times of too much heat and a really neat flood…The library briefly closed when some joker set fire to the toilet paper dispenser in the men’s washroom but only long enough to determine the smoke wasn’t toxic. Anyway, staying open during chaos is the library’s only claim to fame and the staff lords it over more feeble branches who close for a stiff breeze. Closing is a last resort—which happened on Saturday.

It was a power failure. The library remained open for an hour or so but when the emergency lighting faltered and parts of the library were plunged into darkness, the decision was made to evacuate. Most people distressed over the inability to surf the net left peacefully. One man, the man in the yellow coat, refused to leave. He didn’t understand why the library was closing. Miss Information tried to reason with him, the library was getting cold and the washrooms were unusable. It’s ok, the man replied. He had a coat. Also, he had gone to the washroom before he left home. This was a little too much detail for Miss Information so she turned it over to one of the senior staff librarians. She confirmed that the library was indeed closed and the man should exit. The man didn’t feel that this applied to him because he only wanted to read the newspaper. The librarian in charge got involved. The man wanted to know why he should have to leave—the encroaching darkness, the falling temperature, the many hazards, and the library asking him to leave not being enough of a reason. Eventually he demanded an audience with the manager. Miss Information suspects that her fellow staff members, not being fellows, did not have that masculine authority Yellow Coat Guy was looking for. Sadly, the duty manager was also a woman. She had a seemingly endless phone conversation with the guy who repeated the phrase “but it isn’t logical” about 1000 times. After about 20 minutes of this, the man slowly made his way to the exit, vowing to write letters of complaint to, well, everyone.

So, Miss Information has a new appreciation for that Starbucks employee who let her stay in the store even though it was closed. While acknowledging that much better coffee is readily available almost anywhere in New Zealand, she urges those in the vicinity of Cathedral Square to drop in and visit the Starbucks there. You don’t have to have the coffee.

posted by Miss Information @ 4:30 PM