I Faught The Law... And I Won!

Time: 5:59pm
Mood: Victorious!
Song of the moment: Hot Hot Heat - Goodbye, Goodbye

This morning, just before I stepped out of my house I received a letter from the uni saying that I owed them $30 in dues for some articles I had ordered through the interloaning libraries service. This, I found, was quite odd because I was told this service was free for graduate students. Not only that, I noticed that I had a balance carried over from a previous statement.. a statement I never got.

I got to school and the first thing I did was call the people that deal with this kind of stuff. I explained my story, and the lady told me she wasn't familiar with library policies and said she would transfer me to the appropriate person. I got transfered, I explained my story. I got transfered again, again AND again. So by this point, I've told my story to a total of 5 people and I was so mad I was in tears. The lady was going to transfer me to another person but heard that I was really upset and offered to talk to whoever she was transferring me to and get her to call me back (God bless this woman!).

An hour later I get a phone call from this lady. I again explain my situation and then we get into a heated arguement for 15-20 minutes. I explain to her that I was told by a librarian that this service was free for graduate students, that even though it said on the website a $5 charge would be laid I was to ignore this statement, and that I believed this charges should be waived because I was misinformed. She asked me "When you picked up your papers, didn't you notice "$5" was written on the front page of the article? Didn't you find that suspecious?" I said no because I was told to ignore that! Then she began to tell me about how librarians are trained and should know about this policy in which I replied that's not my problem. It's not my job to ensure that all librarians know what they're talking about. She told me all the library's policies were online but she kept missing the fact that I was told to ignore it! She said I was partially to blame because I didn't double check to see if the librarian was giving me the right information. What? As a grad student, I don't have time to read over policies and crap like that.. if I have a question about the library, I'm gonna talk to a librarian because it's their job, they should know a hell of a lot more than me about inter-library loaning. And doubting someone's knowledge about their job is a bit insult. Imagine if you told someone some information about your job and they turn back and ask you "Are you sure now? I don't beleive you, I'm going to get a second opinion". Anyway, so I said in charging me for this is pretty much saying I'm at fault. I told her it was illogical that I was going to be penalized because of inadequate training on their part. Finally, she agrees to talk to the head librarian and see if anything can be done about this matter.

I get a call near the end of the day, and I almost didn't recognize the voice because it was really preppy and chirpy. It was the same lady I was arguing with, but I just didn't recognize it because she actually sounded nice. She told me she talked to the head librarian, and they both realized that during the time I ordered the first set of articles, they had just hired new employees, so they might not have been trained properly. She told me she would revoke the $30 fine and reminded me next time to double check library policies. I'm definitely going to do that next time! I hung up the phone, raised my arms and said "I won!!" (My whole office was following this story after hearing me bicker with this lady... they all cheered when I declared victory!)

If you know you're right, fight til the end, because you can win :D