• Who are they?

Who are these difficult people? Not their names, but rather some of the adjectives that describe them:
Hostile: Angry.
Know-it-alls: Two kinds really. There’s the real ones, actual smart people who “just want to help” and the difficult bogus know-it-alls.
Whiners or Complainers: Don’t really want anything – just want to complain.
Royalty: Entitlement.
Emotional Vampires: suck the life right out of you.

In dealing with each of these, we are gaining experience. Gail and Pam quoted Aldous Huxley: “Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.” Sharing our stories when we have these experiences helps us to come up with what we say in difficult situations.

• What was it really about?

Gail and Pam acted out a scene where a patron who felt more comfortable not using the self-checkout, and who wasn’t able to immediately produce her library card. The situation wound up being more about a rude librarian and the desire for power and control. Many situations can be boiled down to these two elements. Who’s got it, who wants it, and who’s willing to give it up? One path to good customer service is to work to decrease your power while increasing your control of the situation.

Three things to keep in mind: what you think, what you say, and how you behave.

It is useless to argue with someone who is angry.  In every conversation there needs to be an adult. You’ll never win an argument with a difficult person. They are far more experienced at being difficult. Because you work with the public – you are a target.

• What do they want?

What do all people want? They want:

1. To be heard.
2. Understanding & Empathy.
3. Fairness.
4. They want you to fix it.
5. Power.

Everybody who works in the library has tremendous amounts of power. You can give them what they want – or not. Smile, or not. When you give these customers these other things — you give them the illusion that they have some of that power back.

• What do you want?

When there’s somebody difficult in front of you – what do you want? It’s easy to say you want them to go away. You should want to arrive at a common understanding and do so in an agreeable productive manner. What is it that keeps you from them? This is where you must ask yourself “what are the buts in your head?” e.g. “I would do that but…” “I would waive that fine but…” and some examples to the second half of that statement: “I’ve done it for her before.” “You smell funny.” “It’s not part of my job.” “You can do it yourself.” “If I do it for them, I have to do it for everybody.”

In order for you to do what you need to do in a productive manner – we need to get the buts out of our heads.

• What do you do and how do you do it?

This portion of the session dealt with particular strategies for dealing with stressful situations.

Two phrases that will fix or avert plenty of your difficult situations:

1. I’m sorry that happened.
2. I can take care of that of you.

Hear them out. Listen. REALLY listen. Don’t cut someone off, or you risk them starting over. The story doesn’t get any better the second time around. Zip your lip and zip your emotions. We have TWO ears and ONE mouth, we should use them proportionately.

At the start of the session, q-tips were passed out to the attendees. At this point it was explained that QTIP was an acronym for “Quit Taking It Personally.” We all need to know our hot buttons. These are the things that people say that instantly shut us down. If you aren’t aware of your hot buttons, you should check with your family and loved ones, as they know how to push your buttons best.

A lot of situations can be helped if we make sure that we tell people the rest of the story. When a parent asks a staff member to watch their child, that staff member should go from simply “We don’t allow unsupervised children in the building”  to the more complete “This is a public building and thus anyone can come in to the building. For the safety of your child, they should stay with you. We just don’t have enough people to look after her.”

Stop and take a breathe. Carry a pen. If things start to get hectic and you can feel your buttons being pushed, drop the pen. This will give you a moment to collect your thoughts and slow the situation down.

Remember that the vast majority of the people at your library are appreciative that you are there, tickled to death that you are there. We tend to remember the 2-3% – they are memorable – but please remember that the vast majority are in your corner, love the fact that you are there and love the services that you offer.

After a quick packing and breakfast I attended the first of my last final prgramming sessions, “How to Deal with Difficult Patrons.” Good program, and sadly one I think more and more of us have need of. I work in a big, downtown library and there is no avoiding the fact that dealing with difficult patrons is pretty much a daily task. I liked this program for two reasons: it gave very good advice and it also outlined how you can go about teaching this to your own staff (through the online info the presenters are providing). I will definitely be dong some downloading when I get back to work tomorrow (and yes, tomorrow…no rest for the conferenced).

My final session was “From Hype to Help,” and dealt with ways of helping your organization collaborate using technology. While mostly an overview with a couple of specific samples thrown in, it did present some ideas and places to check out online that I will definitely have to investigate. I enjoyed the presenters enthusiasm and honesty. Using technology to address “communication” issues requires a lot of staff “buy-in” and that is never easy to create.

The final event of PLA was the Closing Session featuring Paula Poundstone. I knew the name, but I don’t think I had ever seen her perform and now I feel kind of bad about that. She is damn funny. I enjoy comedy quite a bit, in all it’s forms and fashions, but I have a soft spot for those comedians who think on their feet and can turn chance statements from the audience into running gags. Paula Poundstone did that and more, and I doubt I will ever look at “Public” Libraries quite the same (sorry, you had to be there).

And so it ends, my first but hopefully not my last PLA. Two years from now I’m going to face a major delimna. Do I try and encourage others in my system to attend so that they can have the experince I had this week? Or do I keep it quiet about it so there might be money left to send me again? Damn…I wonder if any of them are reading this blog?

And speaking of readers, thanks to PLA for letting me do this and thanks to you few who actually read them. I can only hope that some small part of what I experienced I was able to communicate and that two years from now, some of you who have never attended will be in Portland (with me if luck prevails) and will be blogging away about your own experiences. Sure, there are some downsides, but overall it is a fantastic opportunity and well worth the effort.

I keep coming back to one of the first comments that appeared on one my messages. Recharged? Yes I feel recharged. And why? Because being here at PLA helps give me the big picture. I am part of the world of Public Librarians, and they are all facing the same problems I am and there are those, much smarter than me, who are figuring out solutions. The least I can do is take that knowledge back with me to my system, and spread the word.

Thank you!

And before I forget, than you Minneapolis! I had a great time in this fantastic city. Cold? You betch ya! And I wouldn’t have had it any other way.