Customer Service: Someone is Always Watching

David Lee King posted an interesting article on his blog yesterday about our patrons in our online environments. Specifically, Mr. King provided three twitter posts from librarians complaining about patrons.

It reminds me a little of that part in Ocean’s Eleven where Andy Garcia points to the cameras in the casino to tell Julia Roberts that “someone is always watching.” Librarians (and we aren’t the only ones – one can easily find rant blogs by waitresses, airline attendants, etc.) create virtual smoking lounges on the internet for kvetching about patrons, managers, co-workers, board members, etc. We post our angst for one another in commiseration. And, because we leave out names and characteristics (and our own names and places of business), we assume that we are under the radar – of supervisors, of patrons, of co-workers who might rat us out to get better desk hours.

David Lee King posted an interesting article on his blog yesterday about our patrons in our online environments. Specifically, Mr. King provided three twitter posts from librarians complaining about patrons.

It reminds me a little of that part in Ocean’s Eleven where Andy Garcia points to the cameras in the casino to tell Julia Roberts that “someone is always watching.” Librarians (and we aren’t the only ones – one can easily find rant blogs by waitresses, airline attendants, etc.) create virtual smoking lounges on the internet for kvetching about patrons, managers, co-workers, board members, etc. We post our angst for one another in commiseration. And, because we leave out names and characteristics (and our own names and places of business), we assume that we are under the radar – of supervisors, of patrons, of co-workers who might rat us out to get better desk hours.

Perhaps this is old news. We need only read stories like this one about Sally Stern-Hamilton to know that our pseudonyms are not as clever as we think. But, even if we are clever, is it still ok? I’m far less comfortable patronizing a business that I know complains openly about its customers. Is it as acceptable for a library, like other businesses and organizations, to complain (albeit anonymously) about its customers, or should we be held to a different standard because of the services that we offer, or even how we are funded? Should we keep our comments off of the World Wide Gossip Column?