wherein Liz has an interesting morning

[edenfalling]

I was at Not the IRS this morning (9am-1pm) basically to catch walk-in clients. I got two.

The first I sat down, asked a couple questions, and said, "You need to see Office Uncle. He's the guy who specializes in handling people in your particular tax situation. Let me schedule you an appointment with him." So that was quick and painless.

(The situation, btw, is "graduate student in the US on a non-resident visa". We get a lot of that in Ithaca, because Cornell. Some of them are very simple, but once you add in any complicating detail, things can get very messy very fast. Hence Office Uncle's specialization.)

The second client, on the other hand, was a TRIP. She brought in six W2 forms, and as I typed them up, proceeded to tell me, in a very loud voice, how she'd quit every single one of those jobs because either they made her work with underage alcoholic drug addicts, they refused to let her organize appropriate safety procedures, or both. (I have, shall we say, my own opinions about why she can't hold a job.) She also told me a number of confused stories about her parents and the zero population movement, how she should have been a twin but wasn't because [train roars past], how she got a stress fracture in a large bone but she would say no more because [train roars past], how we were both people and the computer isn't a person and isn't that remarkable, and so on.

I am actually pretty good at navigating that sort of conversation for short periods, particularly in a structured encounter -- which a tax prep interview is -- so we ended with her thinking I'm the bees' knees and very happy to return next year. But wow, that sure was something.

She's going on my list of most notable client encounters, right up there with some of my old smoke shop customers. Still not as out there as the man who told me he'd cured his girlfriend's diabetes by giving her a diet of foods balanced from all seven continents, and wanted a coffee blend similarly balanced, but I don't think anyone's ever going to top that level of disconnect from reality. (Coffee doesn't even grow in Europe! The climate is all wrong! *headdesk*)

-----

I think I will now take a short nap (just half an hour or so) before moving on through my to-do list for the day. :)

Comments

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

Europe doesn't have the right climate? Antarctica's is even worse!

Reminds me of the lady who called our library asking for maps of the Underground Railroad, under the impression that it was an actual railroad. She also thought that her Uncle Nikola was actually Nikola Tesla, who apparently didn't actually die before she was born but went into hiding in her family's back yard shed. She was also under the impression that the Philadelphia Experiment was a true story, they just claimed it was fiction because otherwise no one would believe it. And the reason the bodies of the crew merged with the ship was that they had made their transit via technology, rather than by becoming enlightened. This is also, apparently, the reason that Jesus took three days to return from the dead and how he was able to appear and disappear before his followers.

The lady in question claimed she was in California, and I suspect she had dabbled in some of the native plantlife a few times too many... ;)

[edenfalling]

I just smiled and nodded and was all, "This Columbian coffee is from South America. The Kona is from Hawaii which is part of the US. This is 'French blend' so that's European. (The name refers to the roasting, not the bean source. *headdesk*). This is 'Java blend' so that's Asia. And this coffee (I forget which) is originally from Ethiopia so that's Africa. (All coffee is originally from Ethiopia. *double headdesk*) I'm sorry, there is no coffee from Antarctica."

Judging by the state of his knuckles, he'd been punching bricks. I wasn't exactly going to start an argument, particularly not when I could otherwise get a nice $10 or so out of him.

Mostly I felt very sorry for his girlfriend, who stood by, silent and swaying back and forth, though the entire transaction.

...

Your phone call sounds like an Experience, for sure!

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

It was definitely an Experience. It took me about an hour to get her off the phone, and I think I sprained my eyeballs rolling them so hard.

I'm just glad I didn't have to deal with her in person, unlike the time I had to have a face-off with three very irritated cops regarding patron privacy and why librarians can't just hand over patron records - and it has nothing to do with HIPAA, because we have our own mention in the state statutes, thank you very much. That was interesting, and extremely stressful.

[edenfalling]

Yikes! I had to deal with cops and actual HIPAA privacy regulations once or twice when I worked at the health garage, and that was stressful enough when I knew the cops had our alleged clients' best interests in mind.

(And I think it's much easier to deal with people like that over the phone, because you can roll your eyes and make incredulous faces at your coworkers, which for obvious reasons are not viable reactions in an in-person encounter. *wry*)

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

Oh, that was a trip. My old boss had this bad habit of turning her phone off when she left work for the evening, and not turning it back on until whatever hour of the morning she deigned to start heading towards work again. So here I am, first thing in the morning, and two cops come in wanting to know who owned this keychain (with library card attached) that they found at a robbery scene. I can't give them that - it's a violation of library policy and professional ethics to give anyone access to patron information without a warrant or express permission from the patron. So they call their lieutenant, and I call ex-Boss.

Their lieutenant shows up, and starts growling at me about how he could haul me over to the police station right down the street, obstructing an investigation, and how libraries aren't covered by HIPAA. I keep telling him I can't give him that information without authorization from ex-Boss, and I'm trying to call her. He can see I'm trying to call her, because I'm doing this on my cell right in front of him. And she's not f*cking answering, as usual, because heavens forbid she get her ass out of bed before 10 am, and it's only 9 am. And she is the ONLY one who has authority to give out any information, period. The buck stops with her, and a lowly little reference librarian isn't going to override that without getting my butt fired, and I know it. So I'm like "I'm not getting fired for violating library policy and professional ethics, just so you can find somebody who is not a clear and present danger, let me call my boss again" at least a dozen times. Finally got desperate enough to call our then-Assistant Director, because I know she's in town and can get her butt here quick to back me up... because my coworker at the time was utterly oblivious and just proceeding with doing her usual morning routine while I'm arguing with cops. -_-;;;

Then-AD answers her phone (hallelujah, someone actually answered the phone!) and tells me under no circumstances to give them that information, ex-Boss is the only one who can authorize that, and that she will be there as soon as she can. (Yay, backup! Just have to hold out until she gets herself dressed and to the library.)

So while I'm waiting for then-AD to get here, I finally get an answer from ex-Boss, at which point I hand the phone over to the lieutenant and he steps into our lobby where there's some pretense of privacy with a glass door between him and me. He and ex-Boss go a couple rounds, and then they come to a compromise where I am allowed to call the patron and tell him that his keychain has been found and he can pick it up at the police station.

I still feel some amusement in the knowledge that my prissy-ass ex-Boss probably did the fastest get-ready-for-work routine of her life trying to get there after she hung up with me, because she did not have a high opinion of me.

In the end, then-AD showed up, with ex-Boss surprisingly not far behind, and I went back in the staff area and shook for a bit because that lieutenant was an ass, but an intimidating one who was considerably bigger than me, and if he and his subordinates had really wanted to take me in there's not a damn thing I could have done to stop them. And the lieutenant and his minions got sent away with their tails tucked between their legs and a copy of the relevant statutes of the Georgia Code to deliver to their Chief, who also got what I'm pretty sure was a thoroughly blistering call from ex-Boss regarding intimidation tactics, making threats against her employees to try to get them to violate state law, and the lack of training that had their lieutenant thinking that HIPAA is the only privacy law.

And I got a story to tell all the n00bs for the rest of my career, plus kudos from ex-Boss and then-AD and the rest of the staff.

But what still irritates me is, after all that nonsense, the jerks called over to the library in the town just down the road. Whoever answered the phone did exactly what they were supposed to (send the call to the director) and the freaking director gives them that information! Over the PHONE! The kid the keychain belonged to (whose keychain was stolen, he was a good kid) could have sued her ass, personally, over that, and their entire library system, because Neighbor Boss was in clear violation of state law giving that information to anyone, much less some random person on the phone who claimed to be a cop. I won't say that that's why she's not working there any more, but I wouldn't be surprised if it played a part.

[edenfalling]

Oh WOW, that is an EXPERIENCE. O_o

And if that didn't play a part in Neighbor Boss's next job review, I would be extremely disappointed.

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

Neighbor Boss was apparently on a power trip, was horrible to her staff, and had pissed off the board anyway, but I don't know that anyone ever told them about that incident. (Although ex-Boss was acquainted with a Neighbor Library board member or two... and so does then-AD, now-Boss. And both of them were pissed that Neighbor Boss had given away our patron's information over the damn phone.)

[branchandroot]

Oh wow; yeah, that /does/ remind me of some of your smoke shop stories. [entertained]

[edenfalling]

Working client/customer-facing jobs can be draining, but it sure does provide an endless variety of human weirdness. :)

[rosaxx50]

You sure get some interesting customers! And talking to people who just seize ahold of a conversation is... something. I hope you had a good rest.

[edenfalling]

I did indeed have a good nap, and a productive evening. :)