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themusecalliopeSo, I worked three hours on the reference desk today.
During two of thse hours I had really long bizarre telephone reference questions.
The first one...well, I know the guy's voice, so I should have known what to expect.
I won't share his name with y'all, but we later discovered that you can make "Guinea Pig" out of the letters of his name.
So, I answer the call and it takes me about five minutes to figure out what this guy was trying to say.
Let me point out that though he has a very strong accent, this is not the problem.
It turns out that there is a Vallejo section in the white pages of the Fairfield, Vacaville, Suisun City, and Dixon phone book.
He wanted to know why.
I explained that sometimes the phone people like to be helpful and include outlying areas in a phone book that may not have these areas listed on the cover.
He didn't like that I used the word "sometimes."
I told him that his inquiry might be better handled if he called the phone people.
He told me he didn't want to make things that complicated.
So, I finally managed to get our copy of the phone book he had indicated.
Was our copy the November 2004 edition?
Yes, I said it was. I looked in the white pages section, and discovered that there was not only a section there for Vallejo, but also one for Benicia.
I told him about this, and also that the Sacramento phone book often did a similar thing with its outlying areas.
He said that he didn't see Benicia in his book.
So I told him where to find it again. Again, I pointed out that as I had no control over the creation of phone books, he might want to call the phone people.
He found the benecia section. Then he started yelling at me about how the sections should be in alphabetical order. It was very important! Alphabetical order!
It was at about this point that I informed him that there was no reason to raise his voice to me. I wished him a good day and slammed down the phone.
Apparently, I'm in charge of all things. I had no idea!
I really should have expected this as soon as I realized who I was talking to.
This is the same person that called a couple of years ago to complain that there was no search function on the website for the Library...Of the UNIVERSITY of HONG KONG!
At that point, I explained to him that websites were written by many different people, and there were no rules for what you had to include.
Argh.
The next time was on the desk I got a phone call from a woman very interested in French words, as she is apparently writing a song.
Well, as it happens, I have a French degree. SO, I start helping her. Not only doesn't she know what any of the words she's asking me about mean, but she can't spell them either.
I had to explain the whole "If you add an accent it can make the word mean something else" thing.
I spent 20 minutes looking up words for this woman. Luckily *she* was nice, because I had to put her on hold a couple of times to help other people. (there were only 2 of us on the desk, and she didn't seem interested in calling back later when I was off the desk.) I just hope that the song makes sense when she's done...cause she also wanted to spell amore. Yeah. one italian word. go figure.
Well, at least I'm on page 11 of my NaNoWriMo entry. I should go vacume now.
During two of thse hours I had really long bizarre telephone reference questions.
The first one...well, I know the guy's voice, so I should have known what to expect.
I won't share his name with y'all, but we later discovered that you can make "Guinea Pig" out of the letters of his name.
So, I answer the call and it takes me about five minutes to figure out what this guy was trying to say.
Let me point out that though he has a very strong accent, this is not the problem.
It turns out that there is a Vallejo section in the white pages of the Fairfield, Vacaville, Suisun City, and Dixon phone book.
He wanted to know why.
I explained that sometimes the phone people like to be helpful and include outlying areas in a phone book that may not have these areas listed on the cover.
He didn't like that I used the word "sometimes."
I told him that his inquiry might be better handled if he called the phone people.
He told me he didn't want to make things that complicated.
So, I finally managed to get our copy of the phone book he had indicated.
Was our copy the November 2004 edition?
Yes, I said it was. I looked in the white pages section, and discovered that there was not only a section there for Vallejo, but also one for Benicia.
I told him about this, and also that the Sacramento phone book often did a similar thing with its outlying areas.
He said that he didn't see Benicia in his book.
So I told him where to find it again. Again, I pointed out that as I had no control over the creation of phone books, he might want to call the phone people.
He found the benecia section. Then he started yelling at me about how the sections should be in alphabetical order. It was very important! Alphabetical order!
It was at about this point that I informed him that there was no reason to raise his voice to me. I wished him a good day and slammed down the phone.
Apparently, I'm in charge of all things. I had no idea!
I really should have expected this as soon as I realized who I was talking to.
This is the same person that called a couple of years ago to complain that there was no search function on the website for the Library...Of the UNIVERSITY of HONG KONG!
At that point, I explained to him that websites were written by many different people, and there were no rules for what you had to include.
Argh.
The next time was on the desk I got a phone call from a woman very interested in French words, as she is apparently writing a song.
Well, as it happens, I have a French degree. SO, I start helping her. Not only doesn't she know what any of the words she's asking me about mean, but she can't spell them either.
I had to explain the whole "If you add an accent it can make the word mean something else" thing.
I spent 20 minutes looking up words for this woman. Luckily *she* was nice, because I had to put her on hold a couple of times to help other people. (there were only 2 of us on the desk, and she didn't seem interested in calling back later when I was off the desk.) I just hope that the song makes sense when she's done...cause she also wanted to spell amore. Yeah. one italian word. go figure.
Well, at least I'm on page 11 of my NaNoWriMo entry. I should go vacume now.
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no subject
Date: 2004-11-20 10:27 pm (UTC)As to the words in French--offer the word peche to her--as in peach, to sin, or to fish depending upon accent placement.
Actually...
Date: 2004-11-20 10:59 pm (UTC):)