The Library Survey
I live in a small suburb. My village of about 17,000 souls is surrounded by larger suburbs, each with about three times our population. We have a better than adequate library, but our village library board lusts to keep up with the Joneses of the larger suburbs whether we can afford it or not.
Tonight the library held a survey about future upgrades and I got one of the phone calls. It left me with a tension headache.
The first issue in the survey was an attempt to get hold of the youngest male in the house. I didn't qualify. Then she asked for the oldest female so I could take the survey.
At no time did the young woman attempt to determine if she was talking to the person who paid the real estate taxes so that annoyed me from the get-go.
The very next question on their list was an attempt to determine my race. Now this town has a population of about 17,000 people and about 16,900 of those people are middle class--almost all with some higher education and within a narrow range of incomes. The village population includes a number of races--but all middle class Americans and many library users. Why they need to know my skin color to make meaningful sense of my comments baffles me. It doesn't matter how many colors the town comes in when it is in fact boringly homogeneous culturally. So much for the post-racial society.
Then, finally, the young lady wanted to know my income and the categories she offered started with such a high number that I, retired as I am, fell under the initial amount. That shocked her. I don't know why. The number she offered first was way over the national median and yet she assumed that everyone she spoke to would be over that amount. She--or her professor who constructed the survey for the library board--thought she was talking to people in a rich suburb (like the bigger towns around us).
Next she demanded that I say whether I was satisfied or dissatisfied with a long list of library departments whether I'd used them or not. There was no option available to cover "how would I know" or "frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" although one of those would have been my preferred answer to most of the departments on the list.
Then I had to rate my approval or disapproval of all the different options for upgrades to the library, all of which cost money and none of which was necessary. Clearly the library board thinks the library should become a town community center although even the bigger suburbs around us don't have anything as fancy as what they have in mind.
At last I was permitted to provide my comments which basically reduced to a suggestion that they stop looking for ways to waste money while about half the streets in the village have foreclosed homes.
Suddenly I saw what the Tea Party really stands for. I don't know if I'd really join them, but I made a point to make my last answer to her last question, "You betcha!"
Tonight the library held a survey about future upgrades and I got one of the phone calls. It left me with a tension headache.
The first issue in the survey was an attempt to get hold of the youngest male in the house. I didn't qualify. Then she asked for the oldest female so I could take the survey.
At no time did the young woman attempt to determine if she was talking to the person who paid the real estate taxes so that annoyed me from the get-go.
The very next question on their list was an attempt to determine my race. Now this town has a population of about 17,000 people and about 16,900 of those people are middle class--almost all with some higher education and within a narrow range of incomes. The village population includes a number of races--but all middle class Americans and many library users. Why they need to know my skin color to make meaningful sense of my comments baffles me. It doesn't matter how many colors the town comes in when it is in fact boringly homogeneous culturally. So much for the post-racial society.
Then, finally, the young lady wanted to know my income and the categories she offered started with such a high number that I, retired as I am, fell under the initial amount. That shocked her. I don't know why. The number she offered first was way over the national median and yet she assumed that everyone she spoke to would be over that amount. She--or her professor who constructed the survey for the library board--thought she was talking to people in a rich suburb (like the bigger towns around us).
Next she demanded that I say whether I was satisfied or dissatisfied with a long list of library departments whether I'd used them or not. There was no option available to cover "how would I know" or "frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" although one of those would have been my preferred answer to most of the departments on the list.
Then I had to rate my approval or disapproval of all the different options for upgrades to the library, all of which cost money and none of which was necessary. Clearly the library board thinks the library should become a town community center although even the bigger suburbs around us don't have anything as fancy as what they have in mind.
At last I was permitted to provide my comments which basically reduced to a suggestion that they stop looking for ways to waste money while about half the streets in the village have foreclosed homes.
Suddenly I saw what the Tea Party really stands for. I don't know if I'd really join them, but I made a point to make my last answer to her last question, "You betcha!"
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