Miss Information is not okay about this
The library has, as all libraries do, an assortment of eccentric regulars. Some are lovable; some are not."The One with the Hair" is a regular from the not lovable category. Her interests include rambling conspiracy theories and making racist statements. She did something or other in the computer lab and was asked to leave. This caused her to scream and carry on for a while, charmingly suggesting people "go back where they came from". It was quite a ruckus. Later when Miss Information was in the staff room people kept asking what it was about because although it's a huge library, people could hear the shouting as far up as the fifth floor.
Miss Information was merely a witness. She was also a witness later when a man approached the librarian in charge of the whole mess. He had a complaint about the eviction of the woman. Miss Information was curious. Was he going to support the woman's right to be disruptive? No. The man was totally on the library's side about throwing her out but he had issues with the way it was done. Specifically he was annoyed about the use of the word "okay" by the people making her leave.
Um. Okay. Err...What?
Well it seems that the library and security staff had approached the woman to ask her to leave and when the woman responded by saying something offensive, the librarian had said "Okay, you have to go now."
Telling the woman "okay" after she'd said something horrible was an outright endorsement of her statements. The librarian should not have said okay because it was not okay.
Right. Okay then. So when someone who is delusional spouts off about something, the library is now supposed to, what? Present a compelling argument against their crazy theory? Hold a formal debate to consider the merits of their opinion?
Miss Information reminds herself to not be in charge of anything ever.
1 Comments:
Dear crazy patrons with rather slight grasps of the vast variety in language use, please see the wikipedia entry on 'discourse marker' and note that it includes the word 'okay.' In such a context, it does not, in fact, mean the okay you thought it mean. *headdesk*
I had a words-mean-more-than-you-think-they-do patron earlier this week. Even a clue-by-four wouldn't help.
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