Friday, January 14, 2011

The Moppets

We get a lot of families that visit us en masse. Mom, Dad, little Joni and Chachi. Sometimes they come in every once in a while. Other times it's like clockwork or a menstrual cycle. The Moppets being the most like a menstrual cycle. There's mama moppet and her three or four adolescent moppet daughters. They range from early teens to early twenties. They are always super nice but they take up so much time. They, on average, pick up 20-25 holds that range from graphic novels, obscure fiction and audio visual items. Not place holds... pick up holds. It takes for freaking ever. The irritating part about it is they don't care how inconvenient it is to other patrons they just settle in for the duration and the line starts forming. You can't be rude. You can't complain you just have to smile and try and get them out of the way as quickly as you can. We've had them at the desk on a Saturday morning for an hour. One entire hour. It's insane.

Bookstore Oddities....

Today we had a neurotic mother/daughter team purchase close to a hundred book sale books which was great except for the intense way they asked us to not mix up the books. We get peculiar book buyers like that. For instance Freaky Deaky Dutch Guy who complains about how expensive our bookstore prices are and then starts up a conversation about how it should be okay for 14 year old girls to be having sex in public. Or the really rude used bookstore owner that resells our books at ten times the price. He makes a profit on our little bookstore would it kill him to be polite?

Bringing in the New Year in Uncertain Times

As the New Year progresses so does our frustration. We've lost yet more employees, this time one to marital bliss. She's moving to the Eastern Seaboard with her new husband. Another is being transfered to a new branch. What with the state budget cuts I doubt we will be able to replace them.



The Demented Miss D is displaying more dementia related behavior. She's been rude to other staff members claiming that they are out to "take her job". No amount of reassurance is effective. Miss D feels even more threatened by the appearance of Miss C another senior worker who's presence is another bone of contention among the staff. Miss C was hired by Mr. Useless and is paid by the department of aging. Miss C had an unsuccessful stint as a library volunteer. We warned Mr. Useless that she was not going to be a good fit with our organization and why. As a volunteer she was unable to do even the most simple tasks no matter how much time I spent teaching her how to shelve. It didn't make matters any easier when she miss represented herself in the interview claiming that the proposed schedule was acceptable and that she would have no physical limitations. Since she's started it's been more work for the rest of the staff as they have to fix mistakes she's made when we find them. I'm sure there's more to be fixed that we are not aware of. I shudder to think about it even now. So as our employee pool dwindles and our resources are stretched thin, our tempers and frustration rises.



We've also been informed that our library system will have a new head honcho. The former head honcho leaving under uncomfortable circumstances. The unsubstantiated rumours being that he was fired, which is unfortunate because in my estimation he was an effective leader. During his tenure no one was laid off, the system opened new branches and our hours remained constant...oh and we had a small book budget. So life is uncertain. Will the new head honcho start hiring or firing? Cutting the book budget, diminish operating hours and/or staff?



While all this speculation is going on it would help to have our Branch Manager actually at the helm. I don't think it would be so much of an issue if Mr. Useless actually showed up for work more than 2 - 4 hours a week. Our "Site Manager" a.k.a. Assistant Manager is on a well deserved vacation which leaves no margin of error where staffing is concerned. With only a limited number of staff you'd think he'd pitch in and help make up the difference with his presence at the Circulation or Reference Desks, but alas he is displaying his usual lack of well...everything. All this is pissing off the staff. We wonder what does he do all day? The Branch's reports? No that's done by the assistant branch manager. Manage the staff, scheduling, book processing? Nope, all done by others. His nicknames are getting to be more and more offensive and tempers are rising. I think it's the fact that there are strong indications that Mr. Useless is getting paid for a job he doesn't actually do is what makes it so hard for the staff to stay calm. There are times when we need our Branch Manager to make decisions only he can make and of course he's not here to make them. So we call the other branch he's supposed to be managing and find that he's not there either. So what does that mean? Mr. Useless has no oversight from what the staff can see. Administration doesn't check to see if he's at work. It's amazing and it's happened before. When staff members have called or reported his ineffectiveness as a manager we've been blown off. Part of the staff occupies the "at least he's the devil we know" camp, the other part of the staff just wants him gone and the assistant manager hired to be the manager. We don't often get what we want or need.