Volunteers of Evil Be Gone

Good volunteers have a special place in my heart. For those few who truly want to give back to the community and are willing donate their precious time - I am always humbled and honored to work with them. For those many who have poisoned their own grandmother, held up a liquor store, used drugs, drove drunk, shoplifted, beat up their significant other, committed vandalism or sexual act with an animal and got caught- please go pick up trash on the side of the road or something. Court ordered community service volunteers and students with academic required volunteer service make up the bulk of our volunteer applicants. These individuals, with few exceptions, lack intellegence and motivation. I call them the Dregs. (as in the dregs of society) Why would the court system and academic establishments punish librarians in such a cruel manner? They don't want to be here and we don't want volunteers we have to babysit. Most of them don't care about libraries or have a decent work ethic. There are a few of these Dregs that are exceptions but on the whole it just doesn't work.

Case in point The BM (Branch Manager) was approached by a patron who was interested in volunteering. This is not so unusual however, during the course of the excruciatingly difficult conversation ( English not being the patron’s first, second or even third language) made her request clear. Basically, her teenage daughter needed to complete 25 hours of community service for an academic requirement and needed it done in less than a month. Obviously the teen had waited until the very last minute. Mom thought it’d be perfectly acceptable to do the work for her kid and just have us sign off on her highness’s paperwork.