Manners, please

I just had an experience at Moxa that I had to share with you. The person in front of me in line was really quite unbelievably rude! It wasn't that she was hostile, or angry or overly demanding. She just didn't add any of the niceties of polite conversation that even my two-year-old has mastered.

She approached the "Moxa Guy" (those of you who buy coffee at Moxa know who I'm talking about--the black haired guy who is always there, who owns it, I think) and said, "I'll have a large coffee with milk." Then she said, "and I'll have a chocolate croissant." When Moxa Guy brought her croissant on a plate, she said, "oh, no, that's to go."

The whole time I was thinking, "could I PLEASE have a large coffee? May I PLEASE also have a croissant? SORRY, I should have asked for that to go. THANK YOU." It was all I could do not to correct her (see above comment about being the mother of a two-year-old).

What was truly amazing was that Moxa Guy was totally unflappable! He just took it in stride, knowing that it wasn't his job to teach this woman manners. His job was to fix her coffee and croissant, and while I'm sure he finds it a whole lot more fulfilling and pleasant to do so for people who are friendly and polite, he treated her with the same high service standards that he treats the polite people with.

Here's the kicker: when this woman opened her wallet to pay, I noticed she had a Friends of Bobst card. I'm not making this up. It drove home the point that while we occasionally get inappropriate or hostile users, it's much more common that we simply get impolite ones. And, just like Moxa Guy, it's not our job to teach them manners. It's our job to assist them with their library use...even if their mothers didn't teach them to say please and thank you when they were two.