Saturday, October 06, 2012

Miss Information really can't help you with that.

Last evening Miss Information was at the Information Desk minding her own business when a young woman asked a question. It was going to be a stupid question the woman explained. Oh, good. Miss Information expects a question about books or library services or the subway or something.

Nope. The woman wanted to know about her hair--her own hair that is. Does the colour make her look old? Uh. What? Miss Information is completely unqualified to answer this. For one thing, her hair is really dirty. Really, really dirty. She had a sore shoulder earlier in the week and she doesn't want to re-injure it by doing any tricky shampooing. Also, there was stuff on tv.

Anyway, there are a couple of things that are complicating this interaction. First the woman is wearing a hoodie and refuses to take it off so Miss Information can get a good look at her hair. The three strands of hair that have escaped from under the hoodie look fine and that's what Miss Information tells her. Another problem is that she has no idea how old the woman is supposed to look. She's always been told that it's rude to ask a woman's age so she isn't going to.

She tells the woman the truth--that her hair looks fine. (Actually she probably would have said this even if the woman's hair was not fine because you know...) Unfortunately the woman has a follow-up. Is her hair keeping her from getting ahead at work?

Miss Information sighs. She has no idea. When the woman presses her, Miss Information points to her colleague who has pink hair this week and explains that hair colour isn't really a big concern in the library world. 

The woman shakes her head and goes away. Miss Information is sad the woman didn't ask about her shoes, which were completely wrong with her pants. (If she had asked, Miss Information would have said the shoes were fine, too, because she's really not here to comment on the customers' fashion choices.)

Later when sharing this story with colleagues, Miss Information discovered that the woman is a regular who has asked everyone either the hair question or whether her pants make her look fat.


1 Comments:

At 7:56 AM, Anonymous Soos said...

Yikes. Almost as bad as when they comment on yours or my hair.

 

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