What I really wanted to say...

Sir, for the most part I am a helpful human being. And on a day like this when it is so slow, I would love to help you find all the material you want. It's not an unwillingness on my part to get the materials you need, it's other people who make rules that sound good at the time, but in reality don't work, which stop me.

THEY say if I go into "shelving" , I'm disturbing the clerks and pages.

THEY say if I go into "shelving" , I'm interupting the flow of business by not being at the desk (even though you and I both know there's nobody here.)

THEY say if I go into "shelving" even for an exception, I'm setting a bad example for all the other times we are unable to get away from the desk.

Truthfully I don't mind going to look for your materials; but you see there are certain others who minded it very much. Certain others who were too lazy to get off their butts to help a customer, certain others who lack common sense to know when it was appropriate to be away from the desk. So to be quite honest it's their fault; because they whined about how they had to go look for materials that weren't just right on the shelf where they were suppose to be, so they changed the rules and now THEY say if I go into shelving it's actually bad customer service.

So I here I sit at the reference desk trying to explain why I can't go into "shelving" when I really want to say ...it's HIS fault.