Not Going To Happen 'Cause I'm Not Harry Potter (Impossible Patron Requests)

[Carotte]

That's another thing- I'm always amazed by students emailing me in the middle of the night, or on weekends, wanting a response before the next working day. Just because you're up at 1 am doesn't mean I am!

when I was in school (for a master degree) that was what the staff and teachers used to do. Tell us about a 'field trip' or assignment/thing to bring less than 24h (I should say 8h!) in advance... The best was sending the info (time/location) of say the museum visit at 10am for the afternoon. You know, when students have been in class since 9am and unless they have a smartphone or a laptop and use them in class there's no way they'll know about it untill the end of the day...  (and when you weren't even sure there was a visit or where). 

[darling]

That's another thing- I'm always amazed by students emailing me in the middle of the night, or on weekends, wanting a response before the next working day. Just because you're up at 1 am doesn't mean I am!

Yep, I get that a lot. Bonus points if they email you on a Sunday, during a snowstorm, wanting you to come to campus to fix something, then freak out when you don't!

[mmswm]

That's another thing- I'm always amazed by students emailing me in the middle of the night, or on weekends, wanting a response before the next working day. Just because you're up at 1 am doesn't mean I am!

Yep, I get that a lot. Bonus points if they email you on a Sunday, during a snowstorm, wanting you to come to campus to fix something, then freak out when you don't!

Bonus points also awarded when they freak out because you refuse to meet them in the dorm lobby during a hurricane, when they really should have been in the designated storm shelters and the police have issued a no travel advisory and are getting really cranky with non-emergency-vehicle traffic on the roads.

[Yarnspinner]

And again, let me just go break out my Elder Wand.....

"I need to print out a plane ticket for myself from my wife's email, but I don't know her email or what her password is."

[jstlstrnslb]

I work for my county's school library service - a large library whose only clients are the local schools.

At the end of every school term, we run a topic request service, where teachers will email us requests for a box of books to support the subjects they will be teaching during the next term. We probably get around a thousand requests a time.

Typically, 'topic boxes' contain about 20 or so books on any particular aspect of the national curriculum, such as various aspects of history (WW2, Egyptians, Romans, etc), though some of the things requested can get pretty... unusual, and there are one or two that could well qualify here.

Today, however, one of my colleagues found this gem at the end of what had been a perfectly reasonable request;
"... and that book with the title we forgot"

[kherbert05]

I work for my county's school library service - a large library whose only clients are the local schools.

At the end of every school term, we run a topic request service, where teachers will email us requests for a box of books to support the subjects they will be teaching during the next term. We probably get around a thousand requests a time.

Typically, 'topic boxes' contain about 20 or so books on any particular aspect of the national curriculum, such as various aspects of history (WW2, Egyptians, Romans, etc), though some of the things requested can get pretty... unusual, and there are one or two that could well qualify here.

Today, however, one of my colleagues found this gem at the end of what had been a perfectly reasonable request;
"... and that book with the title we forgot"

I would assume that the list was drawn up by a group of teachers. The note at the bottom was for them to try and find the title of the book and they forgot about it being there when they sent the list in.

[Frog24]

My favorite impossible request -

Them: 'Hi, I need you to walk me through task on the computer.'
Me: 'Okay, do ____ and tell me what you see on the screen'
Them: 'Oh, I'm not at my computer/home/etc....'
Me: :::headdesk:::

LOL!  Yes, I used to have that client too, when I worked phone support.

Me: Hi, Company Name, Frog speaking.
Client: Hi, Frog, this is client.... my computer's not working again. I can't get into my database.
(I knew the client by her voice, and knew this would be good.)
Me: Okay, let's walk through this.  Are you at the computer now?
(With this client I knew to ALWAYS ask this question)
Client: No, I'm in the bath tub. But here's the problem. (She explains the problem.)  And it didn't do any of that before my electrician worked on my computer.
Me: You let your electrician work on your computer?!!
Client: Yes, he saw the movie "Pay it Forward" and now troubleshoots my computer for me for free.
Me: *face palm*  *headdesk*

[Katana_Geldar]

Had a SS student trying to convince me to make an exception for her, because she had homework, and let her take a closed reserve textbook home. Some of them still think they can take them to class, and I have to watch them as they walk away as the alarm doesn't always go off.

[nutraxfornerves]

From Customers Suck Hot Quiz, Pop Shot!

The OP has no language issues that I can see, but I can't vouch for subsequent posts.

Argabarga, the poster, works for a garage/towing company. A search for posts by him will yield a treasure trove of SS, brain hurts, and just plain not firing on all cylinders.

[Amara]

I only occasionally visit there but whenever I do I look specifically for Argabarga's posts. He's a very good writer--and always has the greatest stories. If he ever publishes a book I'll buy it!

The follow-up comments are pretty tame, word wise, and they are certainly hilarious. I particularly loved this one:

The repair is really simple. Three steps.

1. Remove Gas cap
2. Replace car
3. Reinstall Gas cap

The last step is optional.

[Katana_Geldar]

Had a student ask me yesterday if I would help her smuggle closed reserve books to class. She wanted to know if she could take a closed reserve boom with her if she hid it in her bag.

I outright refused and still they why she asked me first. Why?

[MissRose]

I had a customer call for support on his line for internet that was recently fixed.  He said "Can you guarantee it will not EVER go down again?", I said "I Cannot".

[Snooks]

I had a customer call for support on his line for internet that was recently fixed.  He said "Can you guarantee it will not EVER go down again?", I said "I Cannot".

I hope you advised him to download it all just incase it went down again.

[PeterM]

Not so much an impossible request, just a difficult patron. A woman complained to my coworker that the R rated movie she checked out turned out to have material in it that was inappropriate for her young daughter. It's not that we checked the movie out to the daughter without the mother's knowledge - though we would've done that if she'd brought it up - but that the movie the mother willingly checked out, which was clearly labeled as rated R and which had the usual description of why it received that rating, had content inappropriate for children. My coworker explained, as politely as possible, that that's why it was rated R.

Same coworker, same day, had a guy come in to explain that the reason he couldn't return two books we were charging him for was that he'd been in jail. Okay, we actually get that a lot. Now that he was out, though, he still couldn't return the books because they were at his grandmother's house and she had a restraining order against him for the same unnamed offense that had sent him to jail. He was sure he'd get it all cleared up in a jiffy, but in the meantime could we call his grandmother and ask her to return the books for him, since he wasn't allowed to contact her? No, we could not.

Same coworker, gods bless her, a few days ago helped a patron make an appointment for a help session I run to learn how to use our Library2Go service to download library e-books and audiobooks on her new Kindle. That part went fine, but then the patron asked to be shown the area where we keep the e-books. My coworker asked for clarification and the conversation went around and around for several minutes, but the gist of it was the patron essentially wanted to see the e-book shelves, the physical place where we kept all the e-books for the entire state. As a gentleman on a forum I used to frequent would say, that's not even wrong.

[Yarnspinner]

Peter M., my head is hurting and my heart hurts for your coworker.

For the last few days we have had a visitor to our library for whom the word "No" is not only not a complete sentence, it is one that has to be repeated over and over by different people each and every day.

He appeared on Tuesday with his backpack, reached out and shook my hand before I could decide if I wanted to or not, told me his name followed by an epic story about how he has hiked here on a walking tour and was staying with his grandmother (I think that was it; I know that his grandmother came into the epic tale at some point) and the upshot was that his laptop had stopped working and would we be so good as to give him a private space and the tools we use to fix OUR computers so he could fix HIS???

I sympathized and told him I could give him space, but that our computer tools were the personal property of the guy who struggles to keep our computers working and no way was I handing over someone's personal property to a total stranger, grand ma or no.  "But, but, I NEED to fix my laptop."  "And I understand that.  But we do NOT keep tools at the main desk.  They belong to our computer techie and they are HIS personal property and he isn't about to lend them out."  Lather rinse repeat until he went away.

He was back today trying to convince another coworker who only works weekends to supply him with the tools.  I stood next to her and said "Sir, we went over this two days ago and I understand this was discussed yesterday as well.  We are NOT giving you someone's personal property to fix your computer."  My coworker suggested he go to one of the computer/electronics stores and buy a cheap set and he left looking unhappy. 

It's bad enough that so many people suffer from the notion that we are a free stationery store ("Give me an envelope...a folder...tape....staples...that black pen.....stamps.....") but now, apparently, we are also a DIY computer shop.