Patron leaves their books out, neatly stacked on the desk in front of me with their barcodes facing up.
Me: Thank you*!
Patron: I once had your job, 45-50 years ago.
Me: I’ll bet that was annoying and tedious.
Patron: I had to stamp each item individually, write down the due dates…
Me: I’ll bet keeping track of overdues was terrible. I mean, you had this ledger, right?
Patron: It was a whole department, and they were two years behind schedule sending notices to patrons.
Me: Understaffed or under-competent?
Patron: It was just the sheer volume. No staff, no matter how many or how good they were, could keep up with that many late and lost items.
Me: Wow.
Patron: You are very lucky.
*Note to reader: I don’t actually love this. I have a system for scanning, and while this is a sweet and kind gesture, it actually makes it harder, not easier for me.