As a police officer by day and librarian wannabe by night, I realized that while I don't spend much time working on my reference interview, I spend more than enough time "interviewing" the counties convicted felons and other mishaps. Let me just say, I've pulled out a few hairs over the inane, repetitive and mind-numbing questions I have to answer day after day. Let me put this into perspective for you so you don't think I'm the most anti-friendly cop out there. I work in a work-release center, where inmates are granted permission to go to work, school, appointments and job interviews. I'm basically a county-paid information center for inmates trying to make it on the outside, inside.
We have a process where all questions, regarding anything they have to ask, are written on request slips and collected three times daily, once on each shift. While this is a good method in theory, as it allows the deputies to answer the questions at their leisure and get back to the inmates when finished, attempting to get people to follow these rules, who can't follow rules on the outside is another story altogether.
And so, these past months I have become an interviewer not an interrogator, fielding for information from people who don't want to give it in order to help them with bus schedules, work schedules, appointments, huber law, criminal law and so on. It is tiring and tedious and I wish I were helping with books instead of bus routes, but such is life.
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