-Excellent
Mar 27, 2008
I'm going to go ahead and sound very librarian. You might be shocked to learn but there's a noise level issue in many libraries. In the one where I work, there's a significant issue with this recently, and it all can be attributed to one single person. I can't kick them out, there's no reasoning with them and worst off, the things that come out of their mouth would curdle the testicles off a mountain lion.That's right, I'm taking issue with a COWorker (caps for emphasis). She's gone crazy, and has been causing a major headache for the entire staff recently. The staff here ended up breathing a collective sigh of relief the moment she exited the building, and somehow, magically, the noise issue disappeared...
Mar 24, 2008
I read accounts of people in casinos, who, unwilling to give up their spot on a slot machine that they perceive to be on a winning streak, will actually defecate on themselves rather than leave the machine to use the restroom.
“Disgusting. And extreme.” You might say…..
But apparently the library has now reached levels of value equivalent to a Las Vegas Casino.
I am reminded of these incidents by the two patrons last week (two different patrons, on different days, in what were completely unrelated incidents) who urinated on themselves while sitting at library computers because they didn’t want to lose two minutes of their session time to get up and up and walk to the restroom.
The computers have an automated timing system. When you sign-in, a timer counts down your one hour until the time is up. If you want to get up for any reason, you can lock the computer so that no one else can sit down and use your time.
But the clock keeps ticking while you are away…. So sure: Let’s piss all over ourselves, and the library furniture, so that we don’t lose any time from our session.
These were actually the excuses given to me by patrons for their “accidents.” I’m not cleaning it up. And I will never sit at a library terminal for my own personal use; You never know what you’ll be sitting in.
Mar 19, 2008
Today I’m trying to remember the fact that I am an employee of a public library. I hope that the main function of a library is still to house and dispel information. One of the greatest distillers of information who ever lived, the great scientist and author Arthur C. Clarke, passed away yesterday.
So ignoring comments of: “I thought he was already dead” and “Wasn’t he that monkey movie guy?,” I find it necessary to express some modicum of tribute to the life of one of the last great thinkers of our age.
The first novel I ever read in the genre of Science Fiction was Arthur C. Clarke’s mysterious “Rendezvous With Rama.” I was probably only about 12 years old, and my older brother had pushed me into reading it. In the book scientists discover a celestial object hurtling through the solar system at a tremendous speed. They name the object Rama, and then launch an exhibition to determine what it is. It turns out to be not a meteor, but a completely inside-out planet-like mass created by a mysterious and unknown alien civilization. The book is about their investigation of the interior of the object.
The whole tone of the book was mysterious, and the book ends without ever fully explaining what the object is or where it came from. It was my first taste of science fiction, and every sci-fi book I have read since then has left me slightly disappointed in comparison. There were several sequels to rendezvous with Rama, but they all had slightly religious zealot overtones and were not written by Clarke, but by Gentry Lee. I blame the crappiness of the sequels on Clarke’s uninvolvement.
Of course Clarke also wrote 2001: a Space Odyssey, and its sequels. (The basis of that “monkey movie”). Many of his other books were made into movies as well, but none as successfully or intelligently as Kubrick’s interpretation of 2001.
Clarke wasn’t just a writer; he was a trained scientist. His ideas led to the creation of the geostationary orbit for satellite communications. When he died he was working in Sri Lanka, helping research the effects of cell phones on Gorillas because of what he saw as a link between global cell phone use and the plight of gorillas in Central Africa due to prospectors hunting for tantalum, a material used in making many gadgets.
I credit Clarke with turning me into the book geek that I am today. If I hadn’t found the pages of Rendezvous With Rama, I don’t know that I would have devoured so many subsequent science fiction books, including such authors as Ray Bradbury, Carl Sagan, Orson Scott Card, and Isaac Asimov. These books have shaped the person that I am today, and I think I am a better person for them.
Thank you Mr. Clarke for being a thinker in a land of couch potatoes. I’m in your debt.
Labels: cat piss, computer, Library, pervert, rainMar 18, 2008
It’s raining. That means the freaks come in early and don’t leave all day. They just STAY in the library. All day. Can’t go outside: it’s raining.
So the guy sitting across from me on the computers has his jeans pulled down so low that it is no longer an issue of ass-crack, but complete bare-assness on the library’s wooden computer chair. Don’t people wear underwear anymore? I don’t really want to know. And somebody smells like urine…..
Then there is Mr. Entrepreneur two computers down. He knows me by name. He is here EVERY day. His floppy disk never works. He is trying to design packaging for a product that he is going to patent and make a million dollars and then he is going to take me out to dinner (he says.)
“Have you ever used this floppy before?” (as the drive buzzes, and buzzes, and fails to load.)
“Naw. I just found it in a drawer and I figured it’s grey like the other one so it has to work.”
Every time he asks me for something by waving his hand around and yelling across the library “Miss, Miss? Yoo-hoo!” I stupidly walk over to his computer, where he LAYS HIS FUCKING HAND ON MY THIGH as he asks his question. The first time he did it I wasn’t sure it was intentional. I’m sure it is, now.
Not only urine… CAT URINE. How does an adult leave their house smelling like cat urine? So I get out the Febreeze and spray down the unoccupied computers and chairs and get choruses of: “Oh man. That stuff stinks.”
Right. And cat piss is fine perfume.
There is no point to this rant. I’m just having a shitty morning.
Mar 17, 2008
This wasn’t my experience, so I can't take credit for its humor. I was going through old emails and found the quote from a couple of weeks back from a coworker.....
Does every library have at least one employee who will not stop running their mouth every second that they are there? This particular employee can be heard talking to herself as she leaves the parking garage, up the stairs to the building, and she doesn’t stop or slow down as she enters the building and walks into the staff room. At least you can hear her coming..... However, if you are stuck working the circulation desk with her for any period longer than five minutes your head is liable to explode from the running monologue of inane chatter about anything and everything that she sees, notices, or thinks while you are standing there with her. Example:
“If you had glasses I could spray clean your glasses, but you don’t. I’m not going to spray clean your eyeballs, they probably already do that on their own. This is that nice non-ammonia glass cleaner…”
Is it ever appropriate to shush a librarian?
Mar 15, 2008
Had the pleasure of taking this question over the phone today:
"Are you hiring in your bookery?"
"Bookery?"
"You know, where you keep the books? I can put the books away."
At least they were aware of the fact that a library contains books.....
Mar 12, 2008
Customer: a person or organization that buys goods or services from a store or business; (as adj) customer service.
Service: the action of helping or doing work for someone; an act of assistance
A library is a business, therefore we do provide service through a business…. But it is free of charge See entry: patron.
Patron: a person who gives financial or other support to a person, organization, cause, or activity. we provide services free of charge. So this doesn’t apply to our “patrons. 2, a customer. which pretty much puts us back at square one
Where in the definition of customer service does it state that I have to babysit your child, who is running back and forth across the library while alternately whistling at the top of his lungs and yelling “Mom, hey Mom!” while you are on the computer looking at MySpace?
Merriam Webster doesn’t have a specific entry “customer service.” Just for shits and giggles, I checked Wikipedia:
Customer Service is the provision of service before, during, and after, a purchase.
Gotta love Wikipedia. It’s not as bad as many of their answers, but it’s bad practice to use the root word in a definituion….They go on in the article to say: Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation.
So by the blessed Wikipedia definition, if your desire is to have me babysit your demon child while you are on Myspace, then customer service does indeed dictate that I do so.
Fuck wikipedia.
Mar 11, 2008
One of the local big warehouse-type stores is apparently advertising that they are hiring.
Why do I care? Their application process is entirely online now. This means that rather than having to talk to people face-to-face in the store, applicants have to find a computer and go through the process online. I understand that they get thousands of applicants, and it probably makes the whole screening process easier for them to force people to apply online, but what this means for the library is that we have to take on the role of tech support for the multitude of applicants who have no knowledge of computers, or how to navigate the extremely confusing website. It means that I have to waste taxpayer money by spending eight hours answering questions that all fall along the lines of: “Excuse me, miss? This website ain’t working.”
I don’t work for your company. Why am I stuck providing your tech support?
What I really find sad about the whole situation is not the time that I’m wasting, or the assholes who are yelling at me all day over it. What I find really sad is the fact that our local job market is so depressed that being a clerk at a big-box store looks like a successful career choice. People are actually fighting over the job…..
I’m not being a snob; I’ve worked in factories and been a clerk and gotten dirt under my nails before landing this super-posh library job. I just have to wonder if it is worth so much fight to work for minimum wage for a nationally syndicated company that would rather replace you with a computer or a monkey than pay you your five dollars.
But still, let’s be sure and blame the library if it doesn’t work out.
Mar 7, 2008
A woman slams her books down on the circulation desk.
“These are late.”
“Ok. Would you like to know what the fine is?”
“If I keep paying you all these fines you aren’t going to need my tax money anymore. You're charging so much in fines now that I don’t know why you’re taking our tax money. How much did you say I owe you?”
“Sixty cents.....”
Mar 6, 2008
Basic common sense, Basic etiquette. Do these even exist anymore? I’m referring to you, Dumbass. You who stand behind my chair just out of my line of sight until your loud sighing attracts my attention. Why not come around to the front of my desk where I can see you and possibly help you with whatever asinine question you are waiting so impatiently to ask me? I’m not a teacher; I don’t have eyes in the back of my head. In fact, the eyes on the front of my head are extremely myopic and I probably wouldn’t see you if you were more than three feet away anyway. But yeah. My point is still that standing directly behind someone is not going to get you any fucking help.
And then, oh most pleasant patron, grabbing my shoulder and/or placing your hand on my back is not a good way to attract the attention of a young, small girl in the dark corner of a library. It is more likely to result in my knee in your crotch than any immediate help for your desires. See: Knee jerk – a sudden involuntary reflex kick, automatic and unthinking; a knee jerk reaction. Subheading: knee jerk radicals: of a person reacting in this way. See also subject heading: Courtesy – common. (If you can attract the attention of the reference librarian sufficiently to be directed to a Dictionary.)
Mar 5, 2008
“Is your WIFI working?”
“As far as I know it is.”
“How come I can’t connect”
“Where’s your computer?”
“At home.”
“I can’t help you connect to the wireless without your computer.”
“But you have free wireless, right?”
“Yes. The library provides free wireless.”
“Then how come it’s not working?”
“Tell you what. Bring in your laptop, and I’ll help you get connected.”
“No, I’m telling you, I live right across from here and its not working from my house. Are you saying I’d actually have to be in the library to use it?”
“Yes. You would actually have to be in the library to use our wireless service.”
“Well that sucks!”
“You have no idea how much.”
Mar 4, 2008
A patron came over to my desk with a handful of forms and asked me which one she needed. I told her I wasn’t trained to answer any tax questions but if she knew the exact name of the form that she needed I could help her find the form.
“It ends in 99. I remember that.”
“You have a handful of 1040s there. If you know exactly which form you need I can help you find it on the IRS website.”
So…. She called her husband, who was doing their taxes and he told her to get a 1099 MISC. form from the website. When I pulled it up there was a message saying something to the effect of: “This form is for information purposes only, YOU CAN”T FILE THIS FORM.” It’s a scan-able form. You need an actual hard copy from the IRS.
I showed her the message and explained that she would have to call the IRS, as we didn’t have any hard copies of the form.
“Print me two copies.”
“You can’t file this form, it’s for information purposes only. I can print it for you if you want it, but it’s for information only.”
“I want two copies.”
So I printed her two copies, and didn’t charge her because she had left her money at home and I wasted about twenty sheets of paper. She then looked at the forms and said:
“I can’t file these?”
“No. That’s what the message on the front says.”
“Then why did you give me these?”
“……….”
Now. To all Library Users: Quit Being Stupid! Do not expect the library to be able to find your social security number for you on the Internet because you forgot it. Do you really believe that a stranger should be able to find your personal information that easily? Do you want me to have access to your personal information? And aren’t you the one who was in here last week bitching to me about identity theft and how you aren’t going to pay your library fines because somebody else has been using your library card? THINK, DAMNIT. If you give your identity to a stranger it isn’t really theft anymore, now is it?
And when did the library put up an H&R Block sign above the reference desk? I’m not a CPA. I don’t know what form you need. I don’t give a shit whether you get your three hundred dollars from the government or not. Ask me if I can help you find a book – that would be refreshing. We even have books on TAXES.
Mar 1, 2008
Why do I keep trying? I put out a poster for a book-display give away that Baker and Taylor is doing. You select which teen novel is your favorite, and your school or library has a chance to win some free stuff. Yay for Free Stuff! I was excited to actually get a few entries….. until I read them. One was not a teenager. Two were from the same person. The other one said only: fuck you.
