Night at the Library Part II: The Tale of the Cranky Professor

"The customer perceives service in his or her own terms" (Arch McGill) 

   Irritated customers are a fact of life when you work in retail, or any customer service environment. While we don’t have customers per se, (in the Library we call them patrons, as to reflect their status as supporting the library by using it) I still have to deal with many disgruntled people in my work. One of the many reasons for this is that people tend to get upset when they feel like they're getting the run around, or when they feel a policy is unfair. 

It sort of goes like this sometimes.

   In this case it was a professor who was expecting a book in from another library. Now these books are processed by other library staff and placed on a hold shelf, so as front desk staff we hope that they are there when patrons are notified that they are. Another issue is that sometimes patrons have first and last names that could pass as either, and it isn't always clear on the paperwork which is which, causing them to be misfiled on the shelf. 

   In this unfortunate situation, a student assistant had helped the professor during the initial encounter, at which point the book could not be found in the normal spot. Equally unfortunately that student was trying to get to our ID facility to open it for the evening, so they didn't look as hard as they could. When the professor came back waiving a printout of the email saying the book was in fact, ready for pickup, I was the one who handled the rest. 

   I discovered that the book had been mis-shelved under the first name instead of the last and retrieved it for the professor. Outraged over the inconvenience, he demanded to see the student who had helped him originally to reprimand him for his failure of service. I assured him that as the Evening Manager I would certainly explain the shortfall in our standards to the student assistant and make sure it never happened again. This did not placate the professor, who demanded to see the student assistant at all cost, which I was never going to let happen. 

    At this stage I would like to point out how ridiculous this situation was. With the possible exception of fast food, there is no service industry in which you would be the one pointing out to the service provider that they did something wrong. You might rage at a customer-service representative at the bank for something the bank did, but I would hope you would never expect to discipline a representative yourself if you discovered a mistake. If someone makes a mistake you speak to the supervisor or manager and let them deal with it, it is in my opinion completely unprofessional to expect to be able to provide your input on disciplining a service provider. You can always tell them off, but you should never expect to tell them how to do their job properly. Again I would hope. 

    The situation wasn’t made any easier by the fact that the professor had a yesman (yes-student?) who was helpfully adding comments like: ‘don’t make this any harder than it is man’ and ‘just go get the guy.’ Eventually the professor was placated by being offered to escalate the complaint ever further to the Manager of the Circulation Department, (i.e. my boss) and went on his way. 

    Situations like this are very infrequent. It basically represents the mother of all complaints, someone who feels that today is the day to get martyred on the platform of ‘unfair library policies’ and bluster against my ability to say “I’m sorry we can’t do that for you sir This isn’t to say that we don’t deal with irritated patrons every day, it’s just most of the time it’s just minor things like fine payments.

    At the library, the most common incident is with fines. Despite the fact that we are loaning material out free of charge, we have to use some sort of stick to enforce library policy regarding returns. As a coworker once said  regarding reserve books and our ability to prevent people from hoarding material close to exam time: 

“We do not have curved helmets and batons; we cannot break down people’s doors, go into their houses and get the books back.”

    Instead as a library we rely on fines, the age old stick of institutions. The fines at the library are pretty reasonable, on books there is a grace period of one week. So if you’re less than one week late, you don’t get fined, the catch is that if you’re eight days late you get all the fines slapped on at once. So rather than getting fined 25 cents a day for 7 days, on the eighth day you get fined two dollars and it increases by 25 cents a day afterwards.

In this case, we'd just shrug and tell you not to worry about it.

   A subset of fines for laptops, reserve materials and recalls don’t have this luxury and start fining right away. Particularly with laptops, people tend to get upset about incurred fines. This is primarily because every time someone signs out a laptop, they also have to sign off on a septillion point contract. In a perfect world, the first time they sign out a laptop, they have the contract read in full to them. Every subsequent time we give them a Coles notes version of what their signing. Unfortunately, patrons get wise to the fact that if they say no to ‘Have you ever signed out a laptop before’ they have to stand and listen to me yammer about their responsibilities in signing out a laptop for five minutes and have learned to just say they have. Subsequently when they get fined they claim ignorance, which shouldn’t be an excuse in this day and age of data compression but apparently still totally is in real life.

Especially in politics!

    What is so difficult about dealing with complaints is that you never really know what coming in. In his dissertation, Bard Tronvoll determines that only about half of complaints are generated from a bad customer service experience. Other complaints are generated by a series of ‘inconsequential’ experiences that have combined into a critical mass, or they evaluate their experience to be below their standard. So you never know if this one complaint about fines is going to be the straw that broke the camel’s back, or if the patron is going to come back because your explanation was below the expectation they were willing to tolerate (in terms of the Cranky Professor). (Tronvoll, 2008, p. 66)

    So essentially service providers are not just battling instances of bad customer service, but are also challenged by perceived levels of customer service. However this perception goes both ways. If you want to set yourself up as a bad customer by complaining all the time, it’s possible that you will reduce the options the service providers want to use to assist you to the bare minimum required by their obligations.  This boils down to be respectful to their service provider, especially when they are students with lots on their plates. 

    It’s not just teens and students that need respect when working, everyone who represents an organization in a front end role deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. Most of the time they can’t do very much to rectify any customer service complaint and generally they won’t get flustered. If anything it will just summon the supervisor or manager who is even better versed in the art of sticking to whatever the organizations policy is. If you feel you have grounds to complain, by all means do so, this isn’t a call to eliminate service satisfaction, just go through the proper channels rather than raging your face off at the nearest representative. 

Paper Referenced: Tronvoll B. (2008). Consumer Complaint Behaviour in Service.  Karlstad University Studies. Retrieved from www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:5576/FULLTEXT01

Moving in Moncton

“Voyage, Travel and Change of Place impart vigor” (Seneca)

     This weekend I made a trip up to Moncton to help my Dad move in to his new house. This might be a bit of a misnomer because he had movers and unpackers, so my role was relegated to helping move furniture around rooms for stylistic purposes as well as put things away in their designated spots. However, anyone with experience helping people move that even this ‘endgame’ stuff can still take a vast amount of time and energy, especially over a large house.

     The trip started Friday with a train trip down to Moncton, for only the 2^nd time in my life! The train is a lovely way to travel if you’re not in a hurry. It combines the luxury of the train with the speed of a bus and the price of an airplane ticket. I don’t understand what makes train tickets so expensive but I can’t imagine many people can afford to take it over long distances. They’re fairly affordable over the short haul, with prices comparable to the bus, unfortunately they have a much more restrictive schedule. It only runs a few times a week as compared to Maritime Buses three times a day. Why did I go by train then if it’s so terrible? Sometimes VIA rail has an awesome sale, this trip they had a sale that pushed the price down to $32 one way, which can’t be beat!

     The train had a bajillion cars, and surprisingly only the last two at the very end were coach cars, the rest being sleepers. I was confused by this until I realized that the train departing Halifax goes all the way to Montreal in a trip that takes twenty two and a half hours; I think I might want to be able to sleep in a bed some of that way as well.

It's like one of those optical illusions that just never ends.

     The train itself was nice, if a bit dated. I had a laugh when I thought that I had been mistakenly directed to first class. There was so much space, the seats were so large and the legroom so spacious I figured I must have been directed to the wrong section. I just waited as the conductor came around, figuring when he came to my seat he’d send me back to the right section with an admonishing glare. Instead he just checked my ticket, smiled and wished me a good day. As it turns out I was in what passed for coach on the train, it was very classy. 

     When I arrived at my Dad’s house everything had already been moved in but had been pushed to the centres of the room by the painters. I helped him reorganize the living room before some coworkers came to work on a presentation for later in the week. At that point we ordered chinese and called it a night in terms of moving stuff, pretty slack for a first night, a thought I would later regret.

Dad's house.

     We ordered from House of Lam, which I guess anyone from Moncton would already know about but I thought was amazing. These guys have been in business since 1973 and for good reason, the food was delicious! It was exactly what you could hope for in Canadian-Chinese cuisine. I know it’s not authentic (I had a friend in Toronto who took me to Chinatown every time I was up so I know the difference) but in terms of what is defined as ‘chinese’ food for most people it couldn’t have been any better. I got a combination plate with Chicken Balls (Sweet and Sour Chicken), Honey Garlic Ribs, Chicken Fried Rice and Chicken Chow Mien, all delicious! It was apparently a favourite of my Grandfathers and I hope it sticks around until the next time I find myself in Moncton.

     The next day the unpackers arrived and did their thing, which is basically just unpacking boxes and assembling furniture (although we later found out, that doesn’t included just purchased IKEA furniture!). Dad and I figured out how he wanted the kitchen. At that point my Mom showed up for a surprise visit (my parents are amicably divorced) so we went for lunch.

     On our way to lunch we stopped over at the Moncton market and got some eggs and samosas. It’s a bit of a price shock going from Oakville where samosas can be had for 45 cents to Moncton where the going rate is two for $5, but if you want your fix on that tasty Indian treat you’ve got to pay in Atlantic Canada. I also thought it was funny that the market was so busy at 12:45, I thought the crowds would thin out earlier than that, although it was clear the vendors were getting ready to throw in the towel at 1pm regardless of the crowds.

     For lunch we went to the Homestead to meet with my aunt and cousin. It is a restaurant in Riverview that feels like it is as old as time itself. I had gone there at least once a vacation when my family used to come down to Moncton and cottage in Shediac every summer when we lived in Toronto. I hadn’t been there in many years but it was still very popular, underlined by a 10 minute wait to get in. The homestead has an interesting business model in that everything is super cheap but everything costs extra. If you want a burger you get just a burger with relish, mustard, onion and ketchup. You want cheese? Extra, you want lettuce? Extra? You want fries? You better believe that’s extra. Everything is very reasonably priced there, and you can usually get a full meal for about $10-15. I got a Bacon Cheeseburger with a side of homefries (basically just fried diced potato).

     After that exceptional lunch, we headed back over to Dad’s. With a quick goodbye Mom was on her way back to her sister (my aunts) house, Dad and I made a trip over to the Mecca of wholesaling: Costco. After we returned home dad and I continued to arrange the house before his partner arrived from all the way in Oakville, ON (He was electing to drive his own car down, rather than ship it). Once he arrived we had a delicious home cooked meal of Lentil Sheppard’s Pie and an evening of relaxation. That is, Terry (Dad’s partner) and I relaxed and watched TV while Dad organized the main bedroom upstairs. We all swore up and down that Sunday would be a true day of rest.

     If that was the case, it turned out to be the most restless day of rest ever. After realizing we had forgotten a few things at Costco on Saturday. As well, it had vigorously started snowing and Terry and Dad agreed that they should hire a plow service. Finally, we had promised to pick up an old table from my Aunt Janet once we realized Dad’s old kitchen table wouldn’t cut it in his cavernous new kitchen and living room.

     In what can only be described in the most hectic four hours in recent history we managed to get the payment over to the plow guy to get the driveway plowed that same day. We got to Costco to pick up the things and realized Terry had also asked for a new desk, without realizing that said desk cost four hundred pounds in two boxes, after loading all that into the van we even made it over to my Aunts house to pick up the table without a minute to spare (we were trying to make a bus that got me back to Halifax).

     While it only took Dad and I to get the desk into the van, it took all three of us to get it out of the van again, through some sort of heavy package magic. By the time we got it to the 2^nd floor we were all ready to collapse in a heap of exhaustion. Instead to threw a room full of books onto a bookshelf and called it a day.

     Finally, proving Dad is a culinary master, he managed to throw rice, tofu and brown beans together with a salad and make it into an appetizing meal. I do enjoy tofu so it wasn’t even that, it was just the fact that it was so few ingredients and it still came out to a delicious supper. I guess it’s a prime example of Occam’s razor, the simplest solution is the right one. We were all hungry, Dad took delicious ingredients and threw them into a big pot and it came out awesome.

     Finally, I managed to make it down to the bus station at the Via Rail Terminal in Moncton a whole ten minutes early. Only to have it 30 minutes delayed anyway for a slow bus connection. As said in perils of planning, sometimes it doesn’t matter how well you plan. The new bus service, Maritime Bus is pretty good. It’s not any cheaper than Acadian Lines, but the busses seem nicer, possibility because Maritime Busses parent company: Trius Tours, manages Tours of PEI and other maritime locals, so their buses are generally used to ferry customers in comfort.

Biking Year Round in Canada, an all-weather experience

"Get a Bicycle, you will not regret it. If you live." (Mark Twain)

     This post is inspired by the weather I encountered on my bike into work this afternoon. I was misled by the Canadian Weather Service which had downgraded the weather forecast from rain to just fog. Don’t get me wrong, there was still a wind warning which makes life miserable for cyclists, but when it’s just wind it’s not too bad. Instead I got treated to what can only be described as cycling through a shower (not rain shower, an actual getting clean in the bathroom shower) going full blast as gusts of wind did their best to knock me over.

It is a great idea in theory, you just have to get in touch with your inner duck

     In light of this, this blog entry is going to be shining a light on how I go about cycling in all weather conditions. People at work and in my life often ask me if I have some sort of special craziness that motivates me to bike year round. The answer is much simpler, I bike because I can.
    
     In the fall of 2010 I was biking to get to work, and pondering how I would commute once the snow rolled in. No longer being a full time student I no longer had access to a bus pass, and monthly bus passes or ticket books were expensive. My bike was free (except for regularly scheduled maintenance) and as an additional plus ran on the most delicious form of fuel: food. However, I was one of the many who figured that winter was no time for cycling. With all that cold wind, snowy-slick roads and ice, how could the humble two wheel locomoted get around?

     At the time, I had a coworker who biked anywhere and everywhere in all seasons. She encouraged me to take up the idea of winter cycling. I did some web research to see what the recommendations were for coping with biking in the winter, what kind of gear I’d need and what have you. I also mined the experiences my coworker had biking in the cold temperatures. I was lucky then and now to live in Halifax, which is blessed by having relatively mild snow accumulation. What tends to happen is it will snow, pile up, and then it will warm up again and it will all melt again. Showcased by the weather this week, where two days of rain has wiped out almost all of the snow on the ground.

      What I found out is that biking in the winter is incredibly liberating. Biking through the one season that frowns on cycling gives you the freedom of being able to bike whenever you want, and to wherever stamina can take you. No longer is there a season where a cyclist has to retire their bike to the garage and await the spring thaw to get going again. It proves that if careful, a bike can provide transportation 365 days a year. Just like driving there are days that cycling would not be advisable, but it isn’t impossible. It’s all about confidence.

     So how do I go about hauling myself around by bike in the winter? Relying on the power of my legs and the mechanics of a bicycles single chain gear shift transmission to get around? It can be broken up into three properties: equipment, knowledge and confidence. Knowledge and confidence are more important, but equipment certainly makes it easier.

Equipment

1.       Cold Weather Clothing: Depending on how cold it is I have a variety of layers. I always wear a sweat wicking (meaning it draws sweat away from your body) T-shirt no matter what. If it’s warmer than -15C then I usually just wear a breathable, water proof jacket over that. Colder temps bring out a breathable thermal sweater under the jacket. The idea is that winter is wet, or cold, or both. You want stuff that resists water from the outside and lets water from the inside get away from your skin. Otherwise you’re going to end up cold and clammy and potentially sick in the long run. Even if it’s cold, you still work up a sweat.

It's all camera angle, I do not have a freakishly disfigured arm that I need special tailored jackets for

 Next comes thermal, breathable pants, similar to long johns but more stretchy since your legs do most of the work for cycling. Over that I have a pair of water and wind proof cycling pants, similar to snow pants. What makes them special is that they have reinforced seems at the knees and seat to resist tearing while your legs act as the engine of your bike. 

It's like the wardrobe of Batman, but for bikes, BIKEMAN!

 To top it all off are a pair of winter biking gloves and a balaclava. The gloves are different from regular ones in that the pinky and ring finger share a sleeve, since they don’t help much for biking, and also keeps your hand warmer. The gloves are key since the cold air running over your bare hands is going to make them very uncomfortable very quickly, and could lead to frostbite over a long ride. The balaclava is just comfortable and helps retain heat on cold rides.

A picture in any other context may be waaay creepier

2.       Fenders: Sporting fenders over tires was a feature of bikes during the 40’s – 60’s for a reason, they’re really useful. If you’ve ever ridden a fenderless bike during the rain, snow, through a muddy area, you know that crap from the road kicks up off your tires and onto you. This makes your clothes dirty and when it is snowing or raining can lead to you getting really wet. A fender act as a barrier and redirects the stuff on the road back towards to road through tapered edges. The added weight is definitely worth the benefit of not getting covered in gunk on your rides.

Not compatible with electric guitars

3.       Winter Tires: This gets me the most laughs. In the winter I have studded winter tires put on, not unlike what you would do for a car. They have a higher rolling resistance (It takes more energy to get them going and keeping them spinning) and the rubber works better at colder temperatures just like their vehicular counterparts. Just like with a car, I have them put on because the work. They provide more grip and traction, especially when going over snow. This is supremely important because with only two tires anytime you lose traction you’re likely going to fishtail, and when that happens you’re one step away from falling off your vehicle without the benefit of a roll cage. I find they also add to your confidence (more on that later) and saves wear and tear (since I have two sets of tires).

Studded for your pleasure of not getting flung off your bike when you hit an ice patch

4.       Cleaning supplies and lubricant: All that salt on the road does a number on the chain which provides the power for the back wheel (and by extension, your whole bike). Exposure to the cold weather makes the metal brittle and more prone to breakage. Cleaning the chain regularly allows for clearing of the salt built up and hopefully will get more life out of your chain. Adding special winter lubricant keeps the chain and free wheel spinning and helps resist the effects of corrosion on your drivetrain.

This bike is a happy bike

5.       ALL THE LIGHTS: The winter months also feature shorter days. Due to this, unless you work some coveted shift of 8:45am – 4:15pm you’re going to be biking in the dark. This on its own can be very dangerous as you’re less able to see obstacles on the road. Throw cars into the mix and you have a bad situation, especially since no matter what you’re going to take more damage in a collision. The solution to this is to just pack as many lights onto your bike as possible. I personally have a front and rear deflector, side wheel and pedal deflectors and three sets of forward facing LED lights and two rear facings LED lights. Even if I have to blind the other drivers I’m going to make sure they see me.

Watch out! I've got enough lumens here to blind a small child temporarily!

Knowledge

     The idea of knowing what to do and when to do it is very important when cycling. If you’re going 30km/h downhill and you hit a patch of snow you need to know what to do. Similarly, if it has just snowed and the roads aren’t cleared, you should have a route charted out of roads that are likely to be mostly clear but not congested. In Halifax that doesn’t leave you many options, but Robie works best if you’re in the core, since it’s a very narrow road for parts so cars are unlikely to be going quickly.

     As well, knowing what to wear out of your inventory of equipment is important too. You want to be warm while you’re biking, but that means that you shouldn’t already be warm when you put all your gear on before you head out, as it will mean you’ll be too warm during. This involves a little of trial and error since if you live in a heated unit (which hopefully everyone does) you will always be warm when you put any winter gear on. Eventually you can establish a temperature guide that dictates when certain additional pieces of warm gear come on, which will hopefully establish an extreme cold point where you just have to stop biking.  

      In this respect, biking is quite a bit like driving. You build a knowledge base of the dos and don’ts of winter cycling. You don’t bike as fast as you would normally in inclement weather. Sometimes it’s just too cold to get outside; you have to look after your vehicle in the winter months, that sort of thing. Over time you build a greater level which helps your confidence.

     The internet is a great help building your knowledge base. There are many people out there who have already been doing this for long stretches and have imparted their wisdom through the digital depository. In many articles one can find out what to wear, how to operate a bike in the cold, and other more exotic techniques like blowing your nose on the move, which I have never mastered. Once you go through all that, the only thing left is confidence.

Confidence

     There isn’t much to write here. Basically once you’ve been out there long enough you develop confidence in your skills. You can read the road conditions, knowing that dense, packed in snow is better than loose tufts of snow, knowing when to start braking and what gear to be in to start up again after an intersection. The only warning would be not to get overconfident, my first winter I thought I was the master and then got into two accidents with cars, so that knocked me down a peg. Be cautious, take your time and you’ll be a master in no time!

So I qualify as a Hardcore Newbie, and it's only taken me 3 years of sustained biking!