Longer Time Gone...

So it's basically been a while, a long while. I sometimes wonder why I blog and have come to the realization that I do it for me. Most of what I blog about isn't nice. It's basically all the crap I witness or have to deal with but I've figured out that blogging helps me put some of experiences into perspective and deal with them. I also figure who the heck's ever going to read this blog anyway? So I can express myself and rant a bit and move on.

Lost Art of Communication

You know the end of civilization as we know it is close at hand when Adults start losing the art of verbal communication. I assisted an older man on the public computers today who ranted about Yahoo loosing his newest email account and password. He could access his old email address and password which he'd forgotten earlier but not this new one.  He didn't know how to retrieve his new email and he just wanted to call Yahoo and talk to a person.(to complain) Which was strange because his verbal skills were seriously in question. Like adults and children alike have lost the art of verbal communication. I had a hard time determining what he wanted from me. He had difficulty phrasing the actual question, or asking for help or knowing what to ask for. Lets not go into following verbal commands or using comprehensive skills to problem solve. He had a hard time listening and following directions. After the fourth time of showing him how to not delete a contact, I almost lost it.  Also it was never "his" fault. I was really feeling the pressure and starting to unravel when I came back to the Reference desk to find that one of our regular patrons had wrote a note commending me on my amazing reserve of patience and understanding. Little did he know how close I was to losing it. Thankfully his nice note pulled me from the edge.

Case of dwindling returns...

A few years ago our library boasted a staff numbering eighteen. Eighteen. Now with the economy we are down to nine, oh or is it eight. I like to think of it as 6.5 due to the fact that the Demented Miss D is still an employee and she rates a negative number. I hate to say it but thank goodness for our self-check out machines or we'd be sunk. Mr. Useless left us and we got a new Branch manager for four months before he retired. Said he couldn't take the 1.5 hour drive to get to work every day each way. So now we trudge on leaderless. The Head Honcho's seem to think all we need to do is step it up. It doesn't help that they hired a new employee last October and she has yet to start. I mean really. Really. What the FU*K is up with that?

Plain English vs. Pirate

This morning a patron requested a copy of Treasure Island in plain English. Plain English? It seems she was helping her daughter read the book and neither could understand it. I asked her if she meant Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island and she confirmed that yes that was the title. I was a little flummoxed I mean Treasure Island is in plain English. The woman explained that she and her daughter had difficulty with the way it was written she felt that something that was written in the 18th century was just too difficult for them to understand. I failed to correct her and mention that it was written in the late nineteenth century. I asked her if she'd like a copy of the cliff's notes and she had no idea what I was talking about. I mean how could anyone who ever attended an American high school not know what Cliff's Notes are? I explained what they were and how they could perhaps help them understand the literary work they were reading. The patron had no interest what so ever. I tried to explain to her that if someone else wrote a version of Treasure Island it wouldn't be well... Treasure Island. It was so difficult for me to try and explain that there really is no substitute for Treasure Island. Sure the vernacular is a little different and you might need a dictionary for some of the seafaring terms but it's not like it's Shakespeare for goodness sake. I ended up feeling bad for her kid's literary expectations because it's just going to be more of the same; Bronte's Jane Eyre, Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter all written more than a century ago...a never ending tale of classics's that will be a required read. I'm not sure if they publish an idiots guide for those titles.

Miss Communication and her WiFi Blues

If I get another communication challenged patron today that and I'll puke. This lady comes up to me and says, "My son needs the code" My reply: " I'm sorry what code?" Ms Communication replies "You know the code for his laptop" I'm thinking "Huh?" and then with a mental groan I realize she means a code to connect her son's laptop to our non-existent WiFi connection. Ohhhh...yeah....right.....When I tell her we don't have WiFi she looked at me as if I was an escapee from a mental institution. A few minutes later a boy comes up to me and wants to know how he can use the Internet. I tell him he's got to have a library card to use our computers and that if his parent or guardian was here they could get him a library card at the cards and accounts desk for free with their I.D. (I find out later that he's Ms Communications ten year old son) He runs to the cards and accounts desk and tells Ms. Bernie our circulation clerk that he wants a "free pass" to use the computer. Huh? Where did he get free pass from free library card? After much confusion we figure out that they are visiting from out of state and that they are eligible for an extended guest pass. In order to get an extended guest pass I have to see an out of state ID. Ms Communication looks at me and says you mean I have to go all the way over there pointing in the direction of the cards and accounts desk, to get my I.D? At this point I'm freaking' lost...this lady's speaking English like native but not making any sense. With the help of Miss Penelope we finally figure out that she's asking if she has to go back to where she's staying in order to get her ID in order to get the extended guest pass. For which I'm thinking...lady you are in a strange city and you left your ID in what your hotel room are you nuts?

The Digital Age without It's Digits...

Lately I've been wondering why I'm getting all the communicably challenged people. I swear I don't know if it's me or if it's something in the tap water that's making it near impossible for people to communicate. Sometimes it's people's listening and comprehension skills or sometimes it's critical thinking and speaking. For instance a patron wanted help making a reservation for one of our computers and I verbally walk this guy through the process. I do this all the time with a minimum of fuss. All goes well until we get to the part where he needs to enter in his pin. I can only find so many ways to tell him that his pin is the LAST FOUR DIGITS of his freakin' phone number before I begin hyperventilating. I finally ask him if the last part of his library card is the same as his phone number. He looks at me like I'm nuts and says why no of course not. Then I had to ask him why he was using the last four digits of his library card number instead of the last four digits of his phone number. His reply was because I didn't tell him his pin was the last for digits of his phone number. Arghhh. This ended up happening more times than I care to admit during the course of this last month. I've come to the conclusion that many of our patrons don't know the complete definition of the word "digits". It was a bit unsettling.

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.