I almost made a huge work mistake and I’m so embarrassed- anyone ever done this before?
I only started working in libraries about 4-6 ish months ago so I’m still relatively new and in a very small branch.
Last week a customer assaulted one of my coworkers (threw something at her) and received a 2 year ban as this wasn’t his first instance of throwing things at staff and had several previous bans. I happened to be on shift during this incident but was not the target and while I saw the customer I didn’t retain his features well as I hadn’t seen him before.
Today I customer came in and I thought it was the banned person. They both have short dark hair, wider faces, clean shaven, and are about 5’6 with similar builds. I was kind of frosty with this customer and started printing the notice of ban letter when my coworker said the customers name and hello. I hadn’t asked him to leave or anything, just that I might not be able to help him at the moment.
I feel so bad. I totally mixed them up and was rude in letting them know we may not have computers available for them. I hadn’t said anything specific as I knew the banned customer can get aggressive and was trying to stall as best I could until someone was on desk with me as backup. But it wasn’t him. Has anyone done this before? What was the resolution? I feel terrible that I was rude