He’d rock a lot more (I find him a bit strident about religion, and internet atheists get up my nose) if he didn’t keep saying stupid things like “Jewish lobby”.
I can separate the emotional from the logical. It doesn’t mean I don’t get upset. I was traveling overseas on work and forgot my tickets at home. I didn’t find this out until I got up to the clerk. She looked me up in the system and saw that I was traveling that day and did have a ticket. No problem, right? Just print out the ticket again. Nope, can’t do that. How did she know that someone wouldn’t use my old ticket by cashing it in for money? Uh, how about the fact that you’ve issued boarding passes for the ticket and it isn’t valid anymore? Nope. You can’t travel without the tickets. I had to cross the city back to my house to get my tickets and then get back to the airport before the plane left. I was not impressed. So, I get back up to the counter to get my boarding passes with a different clerk. This guy proceeded to ream me out for arriving at the airport so late for my plane. I looked at him and said, “Just print the boarding pass, please”. Luckily, in Canada it is hard to get a handgun and you can’t bring it on a plane as if I’d had one, I might have used it then and there. If I had missed the plane I could have lost my job. But it was my fault for not ensuring that my tickets were where they were supposed to be in my travel pouch even though it was well within the power of the clerk to reissue the ticket and they were playing power games with me.
Now on the other hand, I went two weeks ago to the airport to check in my parents on a flight I had booked for them with Aeroplan miles. I’m at the highest level in the flight club, so I got them passes for the lounge and used the executive check-in so they could bypass the cattle class lineup. The clerk started to give me a rough time because as I wasn’t flying I shouldn’t be using that line. Uh, no. I’ll use this damn line because I am at the highest flight level and used the points I accumulated to book these tickets. If you want to kick me out of this line then we’ll see just how long I can stand here calling in an assortment of managers until you give my parents their boarding passes as you should be doing rather than correcting a valuable customer for such a minor item.
Afterwords, the passenger just behind us in line at the counter caught me at the security line and said he couldn’t believe that the clerk had said such a thing, either. It’s not just the customer who can be a problem. Half the time, it is the clerk. Sometimes you question them and get what you want because what they are telling you to do isn’t policy, but just a bullshit power game they are playing with you.
The policies in place should be in how to deal with people having a screaming meltdown, not limiting resources currently not being utilized for those who want to use them. If I’m saying anything it is this. By creating a blanket policy it hinders reasonable people along with those who are unreasonable. Create a policy that allows the clerks to give the boot to the unreasonable.
It’s not a matter of whether or not you want into this “tony group”. I quoted back a part of your cite which explained why it was not an ad populum argument to suggest that if virtually everyone in this thread thinks you’re being an obstinate ass, then maybe you are being an obstinate ass.
If your lack of understanding of logical fallacies and how to read matches up with your understanding of law, then your appeal is going to be an epic failure. I can’t wait for the inevitable pit thread about how you know more about law than the judge.
Then what the hell is everyone so undone about, seeing as how my limit is three times, (if that)?
I would be wrong to argue because arguing is inappropriate and unhelpful. Which is why I didn’t.
Quote me doing that. Oh. You can’t? I guess that makes you very much mistaken or perhaps you are simply a liar. Which is fine, evidently that contributes to your general enjoyment of your process, I just don’t want any confusion about it.
Really? Who will be doing the suing? I guess it will be the clerk? Because I’ve never filed a lawsuit in my life so you can’t be talking about me. Or would that be more of the imaginary stuff you create to up your entertainment level?
Are you of the opinion that there is no Jewish lobby? Seriously?
One those things I’m not on board for is abandoing perfectly good terminology simply because some people have used it in connection with unpleasant things.
But in any case, I’m not a Dawkins groupie, I just know that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed everything of his I’ve ever seen or read.
There’s no monolithic Jewish lobby boogeyman like Dawkins implies. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a major lobby of groups who constantly support Israel (or parts of Israeli society) despite the many stupid things that Israel does.
I’m perfectly aware of what you were attempting to do, which was sell the idea that what’s occurred in this thread qualified under the exception of “social convention, such as etiquette or polite manners”. It was an admirable try, but it failed because of course it’s ridiculous on its face.
Should I read into this that you actually hope my appeal fails? And if so, is openly wishing upon someone who has done you no harm whatsoever a failure that will have devastating consequences for their actual life another shining example of your exemplary grasp of how to successfully and admirably interact with with others appropriately?
Denial. It ain’t just a river in Egypt. 
Stoid, all I can do at this point is respectfully decline to further enable your hallucination. You’ll probably consider this a "victory’, but whatever.
One more thing, I’d like to address this. Do I want your appeal to fail? No, I don’t really care. Do I expect that it will. Definately. The lack of reading comprehension you’ve shown in this thread will be the least of your worries.
Are you giving her information – or advice on that?
You mean like “you can use our free computers for 2 hours a day”? The goal of the library is not to have the computers be occupied from the moment the door opens until they turn off the lights. If that were the goal they would have no time limits on the computers at all. (And they’d let you play WoW!) There have been many possible reasons for why the library would set a 2 hour time limit on the computers, but none of them satisfy Stoid (who still hasn’t told us why she’s a bitch) and so the thread continues to spiral around the gravity well that is her ego.
I’m sorry that you were given the runaround by the people at the airport. My suspicion is that the reason the clerk wouldn’t reprint your boarding pass had nothing whatsoever to do with the reason you were given. The real reason is likely something along the lines of “This is the policy I’m paid to enforce. If I print you a new boarding pass and I’m being audited I’ll be fired. They don’t care if I give you a bullshit excuse, though, and for all I know you might be bat-shit crazy like that Stoid woman. Thank you, come again!” Or maybe that really is the reason, it’s not like anything else that they do at airports makes any sense.
You might want to double-check the meaning of the word “respectfully”.
One last attempt to explain why the post fragments I’ve quoted are actually diametrically opposed.
It’s not wrong to ask for the purpose of the policy. If the clerk doesn’t give you the purpose, though, it’s either because the clerk doesn’t know it, or the clerk doesn’t want to get into a discussion or an argument about it.
If the clerk doesn’t know the reason, continually asking in various ways isn’t going to make any difference … the reason will not be forthcoming from the clerk. Blood from a turnip, and all that.
If the clerk DOES know the reason, and gives it out, one of two things will happen:
- The patron will go away, satisfied.
- The patron will “argue if it makes no sense” (to them).
The following statement is based solely on my experience, and is not meant to be all-inclusive, so take it for what it’s worth: Many more people who ask “why is this the policy” are going to fall into the second camp than the first.
If the clerk spends 10 minutes arguing with a patron who doesn’t/won’t/can’t understand the policy, the clerk can’t then deal with the majority of patrons (and the work they create) who are there for some other purpose. So the clerk has a built-in incentive not to give the reason for the policy – doing so can negatively impact the clerk’s ability to serve the largest number of patrons possible.
In other words, the clerk can attempt to give good customer service to a single patron, who is likely not going to be happy regardless of the outcome, or the clerk can attempt to dismiss the patron as quickly as possible, in order to serve other patrons the clerk can actually help.
I absolutely believe that this is true, no question.
So, as what will probably be a parting post, I would like to say again to all and sundry: this thread was not about the library policy itself. Nor was it a demand for the real answer about why the library or any other policy. It was a rant about how irritating I find it to have people respond to the question of why by simply restating the policy itself, a la:
Q. Why do you limit each patron to two hours?
A: So that they will only use the computers for two hours.
Q: Yes, I understood it when you said it. I’m asking what it is such a policy is designed to do.
A: Limit everyone to two hours.
etc.
That was, and remains, the target of my complaint. So, in response to what Sauron has said, I say, as I did in the OP itself and in several other posts since, even “I have no clue” would be better than restating the policy, even if it’s a lie to avoid an argument. Because, despite baseless assertions to the contrary, I’m not at all unreasonable or crazy and if someone tells me they don’t know the answer to my question, that pretty much ends the discussion.
Well actually that should be the goal. To get as many people as possible to use the available resources. The more resources utilized means that, as an organization, they can ask for a bigger budget to buy more resources. And the cycle continues. Denying access to underutilized resources is sending the wrong message. If a computer sits idle, or a book, or a magazine, or what have you, because of an arbitrary policy then that resource isn’t being fully utilized. Understandably, you want as many different people as possible using your resources, so you make policies that allow them access so that one person doesn’t hog all the resources. But if only one person wants to use the resource then, as long as others still can gain access, then they should be allowed to use it.
If that’s the goal they shouldn’t have time limits at all. Let the homeless guys browse porn all day.
Yeah, setting a non-variable time limit introduces some inefficiencies. So does arguing with Stoid for 45 minutes because you want her to GTFOff your computer already. Sometimes you’ve got to choose between the lesser of two weevils.
And, of course, there is no way for the other person to know this this particular person will be completely, 100% satisfied with this one magic answer. Someone who is getting all bitchy (perhaps not in this case, but is, by her own account, in others) because the staff hasn’t read her mind and given her an answer that all the other cranks out there who are questioning policies would jump on in a heartbeat. How is the person to know this?
Hence, as countless posters have pointed out, the staff is between a rock and a hard place, and endlessly repeating the policy is one way out.
The OP says she’s tired and I can see why. When one is forced to depend on others’ behaviors to contain your emotions, it’s got to be getting old.
“Lack of planning on YOUR part does NOT constitute an emergency on MY part,” in other words.
My point being is that they did have the capability to cancel the old ticket, re-issue and reprint the a new ticket, they just chose to not do so. It doesn’t surprise me that they are on the point of bankruptcy every couple of years. Sure you can side with the person behind the desk all you want, as in how hard it is for him having to deal with difficult customers, the shit he has to put up with on a regular basis, but for every bad customer there are usually many more who just expect him to do his job and help them. It isn’t always the customer who causes the problems and I know this is a horrible concept, but it is the customer who ultimately drives whether that person has a job or not. Radical concept, I know.