Dealing with the Clueless

Dealing with the Clueless might just become an on-going feature of this blog.  Who knows?  At any rate, here's the latest story from the reference desk:

Sitting at the SCC reference desk, librarians get a panoramic view of the lobby as well as the circulation desk and many other interesting library sites.  (Okay, maybe not all that interesting!)  At any rate, we can see the elevators which are integral to this story.

So I'm sitting at the ref desk about 6:45 p.m. on a quiet night when there's not much noise and everything seems to be humming along rather well.

Approaching the elevators are two women who are talking up a storm--quietly, however.  They get into the elevator.  The doors close.  A few seconds later, the elevator dings, the doors open, and the women get out of the elevator, still talking.  They look around, turn, and re-enter the elevator.  A few seconds later, the elevator dings, the doors open, and the women step out again.  They look around and return to the elevator.  The process occurs one more time.

This time they walk over to the reference desk.

"The elevator's broken," one of them announces.
I walk with them to the elevator to see for myself.  Along the way, they are explaining what happened.

"We get in and press 2, but the elevator doesn't go anywhere," the woman says, a little annoyance in her tone.

"Well, this is the second floor," I explain.  (It's difficult not to laugh at this point.)

They look at each other.

"No, we want the other second floor," the woman explains patiently.

Now the SCC library is many things; some may even say that on an etherial level since it contains so many books written by so many people during so many time periods, that are more than three floors of thoughts and ideas.  But physically--unless someone has been holding back on me--there are only three floors (unless one is British and counts the first floor as the ground floor, floor 2 as floor 1, and floor 3 as floor 2--all of which occurred to me).

But it turns out the "other" second floor the women wanted was actually the first floor.  Go figure.

Clueless.