Someone needs glasses
When a student joins a course, they buy a book from the office, as we normally have in stock (if we don't, we order it and usually have it the next week). A new student came into my class this evening and didn't have one. She then asked for the ISBN number so she could buy one, so I told her that she could buy it in the office. She said that Incompetent Secretary had told her that we were out of them. However, I had seen a few in the office earlier today, so I went to the office, showed IC where it was (it was in plain sight), sent the student back and she bought it.