-Excellent
Aug 28, 2008
I wasn't going to post this, but it is really too good not to. And I have been obsessively going over it all day to see if I could have done something differently....
So. A patron asks me for books on numbers for her little boy. She holds her hand out flat at about waist level to indicate “little boy.” She says they are learning their numbers and his don’t look right. She needs books that show how to write the numbers.
I show her children’s math books. I show her books with pictures of numbers. They aren’t right; they don’t show how to write them. So I finally, after twenty minutes, find the book “everything your kindergartener needs to know” under the heading “penmanship” and show her the sections on how to write numbers.....
“This isn’t it. He’s in sixth grade.”
“Sixth grade? Ok. But this does show how to form the numbers.”
“But these are numbers.”
“Yes. You asked me for books on how to write numbers.”
“No. Numbers. Like O N E. They are writing the words. His words don’t look right.”
“Ok. Like handwriting, then?”
“No.”
I never did find her anything satisfactory.
At the end of the whole thing she patted me on the shoulder and told me that "it's ok, I'll ask the boy's teacher. We were using the Dictionary at home, but I lost it."
Fuck. I could have found her a Dictionary.
Labels: Library, Monday, telephoneAug 25, 2008
First phone call on this lovely Monday morning:
“Hello _______ Public Library”
“Yeah." I need the number for the library.”
“You need the telephone number for the library?”
“Yeah.”
“You have called the library. We are the library.”
“No. I mean the real library.”
I don’t really believe in bad omens, but this doesn’t bode well for the rest of my week.
Aug 20, 2008
Computer I-Spy
First terminal: MySpace.
Second terminal: MySpace. Patron is scratching his crotch. I hope that’s all he’s doing....
Third terminal: MySpace
Next: FaceBook
Next: Two teenage boys sitting in the same chair. RuneScape.
Next: Email. Patron is scratching his crotch.
Next: MySpace. Patron is scratching HER crotch
Next: Solitaire game. Patron has visible ass crack, complete with thong and lower back tattoo.
Current average wait-time to use a computer: One hour and ten minutes.
Glad to see we are providing such a vital business and educational resource.
Aug 16, 2008
Kid: "Did I ever tell you I have a bladder problem?"
Me: "No."
Kid: "Well, I had an accident."
Shit. Actually, piss. Today I am thankful for a coworker who doesn't mind helping me clean up disgusting things, and will actually take over and clean up most of the mess herself.
Labels: computers, internet, mah jong, schoolAug 13, 2008
Eerily quiet in here today. I shouldn’t say anything, I might jinx it...
A nice break from Tuesday night, when a group of five men started a shoving match in front of the Internet Reservation station over a woman who was taking too long scanning her library card. And then there was the woman who waited ten minutes at a computer before telling me she was having trouble signing in, and told me that I was being snippy when I softly suggested that her reservation had expired five minutes ago.... and then solidly sat in front of the computer, refusing to get up until I “fixed” it. And there was the woman who threw her headphones at me because she couldn’t get the sound on her computer to work. The sound which just consisted of beeps on her Mah-jong game.
Oh, wait. Duh. School started back this week. That’s why it’s been so quiet all morning. I probably have about 30 more minutes of quiet before all hell breaks loose again......
Labels: futility, Gilbert Library, mathAug 7, 2008
Formula for how the rest of your day will go:
Take the percentage of your reference questions so far that have to do with tattoos, multiplied by two if they want you to find them a pattern, quadrupled if the tattoo artist is waiting in their car.
Multiply by the number of times a patron has touched your shoulder, thigh, or otherwise infringed on your personal space.
Add the number of times a teenage boy has winked at you and/or hummed stripper music when you ask them to lower their voices.
Multiply by the number of times you have received a request for a movie that won’t be released on DVD for another four months.
Divide by the square root of your hourly wage.
The result: an exercise in futility. Every day is about the same, anyway.
Aug 6, 2008
But dart guns with small tranquilizers might just do the trick.
Or a patron could get hurt since the “lovely” children are biking up and down the handicap ramp, swinging on the stairwell bars and hitting each other.
Followed by running through the library cussing.
Labels: Library
I was having a really good morning. The sun is shining, the ivy is growing prettily over the windows of the library creating a nice shady scene. I’ve got coffee and the library rodent is happily chewing up a cardboard tube in his cage. The library is almost Disney in its serenity.
Then somebody unlocked the doors and let the patrons in.
Damnit.
Aug 4, 2008
Have you ever seen the British television series Red Dwarf? It was brilliantly stupid. One of my favorite shows of all time. I have a tendency to compare every event of my real life with episodes from various shows due to my scrupulously intellectual upbringing in front of the television. There is a reason behind my mentioning the show.
At the beginning of the series the main character wakes up to find himself alone on a giant spacecraft. He is completely alone. The computer tells him that everyone else on the ship has been killed. Their conversation goes something like this:
“What about Jerry? Where’s Jerry?”
“He’s Dead Dave. They’re all dead, Dave.”
“What about Kochanski?”
“She’s dead, Dave. They’re all dead, Dave.”
“What about Harry? Where’s Harry?”
"He’s Dead, Dave. They’re all dead, Dave. Everybody is dead Dave."
And so on.
Our computers went down several times over the past few days. My conversations with patrons have been going something like this:
“Why isn’t my computer working?”
“There’s no Internet. They’re all not working.”
“Well, what about the Express computer?"
“It’s down. They are all down.”
“So how can I make a computer reservation?”
“You can’t. The computers are down.”
“What about number eight? Nobody is on number eight.”
“It’s down. They are all down.”
They’re all dead, Dave.
