Um, what?

One thing I've learnt from 20 years of working in public libraries is that most people are nice. The vast majority of them aren't out to be difficult or rude, they don't want to be unreasonable or argumentative. On the whole, the general public are polite and decent. It makes me happy to know this, and it makes it easier to deal with the very few that aren’t so nice. Most of the time. Some days it’s not so easy to deal with. Those days seem to be made up of that man who stands at the photocopier clicking his fingers when he needs help, without even looking up or an "excuse me", like I'm at his beck and call. Or the person who answers their phone in the middle of an enquiry and expects me, and the people waiting impatiently behind them, to just hang about until they're done. Then there's the guy who doesn't seem to get why it's really not appropriate to look at porn on the library computers. And on very rare occasions there are people like the man who bailed me up for ten minutes with a story that he seemed to think was particularly witty and interesting, but was actually just dull and stupid. I listened politely and laughed when he thought I should because it seemed like the right thing to do. Unfortunately this must have led him to believe I was some kind of kindred spirit, because he then went on to make an appallingly racist comment, obviously expecting me to agree with him. I am not a confrontational person, especially at work, but I do have an excellent cold hard bitch glare that I bring out on rare occasions when I really want to make my feelings known. He visibly flinched, so I assume it was a particularly good one. Then he wandered off without even ending the conversation, leaving me to alternate between anger at his ignorance and horror that he seemed to think I was also a racist. It's hard not to be offended by that. Those are the days I need to be reminded that people are basically nice, which they are. Mostly.