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.

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.

To Beg or not To Beg...

A guy came in reeking of nicotine begging to use the computer. He did not have a library card or Id. I asked him to see the manager. He continued to beg. When I asked him to stop begging he ripped me a new one for calling him a beggar. Oops. I guess the truth hurts. Because the definition of to beg is: 1. to ask for money, or to ask someone to do something in an urgent way. That's what he was doing. I guess I should sugar coat it next time. I'm making friends and influencing people. Left and Right.

Invisible Signs and the Printer Blues

It never ceases to amaze me.

Due to budget cuts we aren't always able to get our laserjet printer cartridges in a timely manner. (We used to have one or two stored at the branch)

Yesterday, our printer ran out of ink.

Today we've posted several signs in bright lime green that state:

"No Printing Until Further Notice."

One sign on the post as you enter the library.
One at the reservation station.
One on the printer itself.

Still no one sees these signs and want to print and are extra pissed when they can't.

One girl would not take no for an answer, she in fact insisted that there should be a way we could print for her and why wouldn't we do it.

It took all I had not to pick up a pencil and scrap paper and say knock yourself out.

On a similar note our Reservation Receipt Printer ran out of paper. So I took it apart and went to get another roll of paper. The nice thing about the Reservation Station is that people can make reservations to use the computer and the Reservation Receipt Printer will print out a little receipt with the patrons library card number, computer number and time to use the computer. OK so sometimes I have to show them how to decipher the receipt but if they have multiple brain cells then it's pretty simple. So I return to find a guy trying to make a reservation and wondering why he didn't get his freakin' receipt. With the printer all taken apart in front of him. He had to move parts of it to make his reservation.

All I could do was stare.

I think I may live in a village of idiots.

Blood from a....

This lady walks up to me and asks for a Phlebotomy Handbook. After checking the catalog I inform her that we only have Phlebotomy Exam Review books and she asks me "What's that?"

Crap. Crap. Crap.

....and this chick wants to work with needles?

The Moose Has Landed

An older gentleman came in today with a slip of paper wanting to know if a specific phone number was still valid. After going through the gamut of reference questions where I must figure out what in heaven's name this guy actually wants. It becomes clear, kind of, sort of. This guy wants to contact a long lost friend in order to tell them of a family member's death. The actual interview takes 3x the usual amount of time but I finally figure it out.


My immediate unspoken response was..."Have you called the actual number?"


...I mean come on it's a phone number for God's sake. If you want to know if it's a valid number DIAL IT!

My actual spoken response..."Let's see what I can find out for you" ...Freakin' customer service brainwashing.


The Older Gentleman is uncertain of the spelling of the persons first name which was when I asked myself the question "Um...how close a friend where you if you don't know how to spell the person's first name?"


I am unable to locate the lost friend on the Internet and really don't want to continue this search because the guy has phone number and won't. call. it.


Finally he asks me to look up a relative of the person he's looking for. Okay, I'll humor him so ...whack! irony hits me on the side of the head with....oh yes, a hit. I found the relative on peoplefinder which lists the individuals last known cities of residence and known relatives.



I show the Older Gentleman my results and he starts asking me questions which have no context like...he must be the son, or a nephew and she must be his aunt. Right? Huh? Who? WTF.



I finally said "Sir I have no idea what you're talking about, I don't know these people or their relationship to each other. "

A lot of the websites for finding people just dangle a little bit of information in front of you so you'll pay the $14.95 a month for their services. Which might be worth it for some but not for me and well not for this guy either because even if he gets contact information like, say, a phone number he won't call it.


Finally I convinced the guy to try the actual number that he already had and if that didn't work out he could always call 411 (which he had to write down so he'd remember it, we are talking about the number for information...INFORMATION.) in each of the cities the long lost friends relative has lived in and see if there's anyone by the name of Moose listed. Yes the family he's looking for has MOOSE as a surname.

I almost asked if his last name was Ox as in dumb as an...

But that would be rude and against my customer service programming....

Nursing the Next Generation

A college aged girl came in yesterday looking for a book on Florence Nightingale. Unfortunately we only had juvenile books on Florence. The girl wanted something more age appropriate on good old Flo but couldn't wait three to seven business days for the book to get here because she waited until the last minute to do her paper. After a brief interview in which I had to ask the questions that would give me an idea of what she really needed, I discovered that she just needed information on someone who made a significant contribution to nursing. OMG. This girl wants to be a nurse...a nurse? And all she could come up with was Florence Nightingale? I asked her if Clara Barnes or Dorothea Dix would be acceptable. She never heard of them. She didn't even know who Marie Curie was. Arghh!!! This is an adult. I had to print out bios for her so she could decide. Oh dear. It's not the fact that she didn't know these people but how helpless she seemed to be in making any kind of decision. It takes a lot of intelligence and commitment to be a nurse and something tells me she's not prepared.

The Comb Overs

Sometimes I just don't understand fashion.



Be it Lady Gaga and her meat dress or those earrings that make the holes in people's ear lobes larger. Sometimes it just doesn't make sense. Lately I've seen a disturbing trend in hair for teens. I've seen boys and girls sporting a comb overs. Yes, you read that correctly... comb overs. Unlike a traditional comb over the teen comb over starts with taking a swath of hair from just over the ear and dragging it across the forehead kinda like a head band and securing it with a bobby pin or hair clip and from the odor, a lot of hairspray. My father used to sport a really bad comb over for many years. When I say bad, I mean really awful but, you could kind of reason out why he to tried badly disguise his balding head by artfully combing over the remaining fifty hairs on the upper portion of his head with aqua net to form a helmet o' lacquer. I wonder however why a teen would do it. It's just not attractive. I have only three reasons why I think someone would sport a comb over (other than the obvious);



1. A big zit or pimple on the forehead

2. to hide a tat

3. to hide a Charles Manson carving on his/her forehead

Wheels on the Car Show Go Round and Round...

Every year our fair city hosts a car show. Every year the epicenter of this car show is the library parking lot. Library Staff dreads the car show every year. I've got mixed feelings about it though. I have a Grandfather that used to collect antique and classic cars so it's somewhat nostalgic for me. Unfortunately our fair city forgets that there are people that have to show up for work at the library and people that want to visit the library. Hence why there is little not noo no parking for us. This year is no different. One of the great aggravations of the yearly car show is the lack of communication between...well...everybody. Between the event coordinators, the participants, the police and the library there is not a clue to be had. This year the coordinator planned for parking for us but the police told us there was no library parking alotted for us and to move along. I got smart this year just parked across the street at the community building to avoid the stress. Each year the event gets bigger and bigger. This year has been the biggest yet. The only patrons who walk in are the hardcore ones who've braved the car show and walked the distance here to use the Internet. A few try to manoeuvre the labyrinth of shiny, expensive, classic cars and traffic cones to park in the assigned library parking stalls. The rest plan on staying home or go to one of our sister branches for the day. Most of the people walking into the library are the car show enthusiasts. Why do they come into the library? To use the restrooms.
I believe that is the most asked question of the day. "Where are your restrooms?"


I also get one old geezer, every car show, every year that wants some obscure information on a manufacturer, inventor, or other "notable" figure in automobile history. Although this is not always true, sometimes it's a question about a make or model of car inwhich only 20 cars were produced. Maybe around the time dinosaurs roamed the earth. This year was no different. A grizzled man without one real tooth in his mouth and ill fitting dentures, drags his potbellied, smelly carcass in with a cane to ask for an obscure figure in automotive history. He's not sure about the individual's name but he's sure this guy invented an engine that was bought by Henry Ford. He thinks. Oh, and the guy was origionally from Germany. Maybe. There was also something about a motorcycle this inventor manufactured who's name started with an "S". The guy pronounces the word motorcycle "motor sickle". He remembers reading an article the last time he was in a library from their special collection of antique car magazines. I asked him how long ago was it. A Decade. He read the article a freakin' decade ago.

Stupid Question of the Day

A Patron called to day wanting to know if our fair city had a pool. Urmmmm okay. I suppose there must be at least one pool in our fair city... somewhere. Right? He wanted to know if our fair city had a pool because the city is advertising an aquatics program. I have to say I wasn't at my best today with this question. He didn't ask where the city pool was, only if the city had a pool. I told him that if the city had an aquatics program then they would have access to a pool. He seemed okay with that. I wondered. Why didn't he just call the city and ask?

Attack of the Dumb Non-Blondes

I'm amazed. Today I've had a gaggle of preteens and teens who can't seem to read a wall clock. I wonder if it's because it's not a digital clock? Or perhaps they just can't figure out to look on the wall for a clock. I don't know. You'd think that all preteen and teens would come fully equipped with cell phones and they could check the time with that. I've had a least three groups ask me for the time and as I peer at the clock on the wall I'm wonder if they think I'm perhaps looking at my internal clock or if the hormones currently running haywire aren't limiting their ability to come to the logical conclusion that I am actually reading a wall clock.

One of the preteens was trying to get on the computer but was unable to read the printed receipt with her registration time on it. Then she is incapable of signing on by herself. She was not only having trouble with entering her card number but also her pin. Her pin is 4 numbers, it is in fact the last four numbers of her phone. So I had to do it for her. Arghhh...

Lunch with Eyebrow Girl

Yesterday I was working the reference desk when a woman came up to me and asked if we were allowed to eat in the library. Now you'd think that would be a pretty straightforward question but the library sells snacks to help fund it's book budget. So while technically we don't allow food or drink we sell items like pretzels, chex mix, nerds, m&m's. Snacks that aren't going to leave a nasty stain or smear itself on the books, furniture or carpet. Before I could explain the fine intricacies of our food policy, she explains that there is a woman in the teen section eating her lunch and it's very distracting. Okay. Time to investigate! I walk back to the teen section to find Eyebrow girl sitting at one the diner booth in the teen section with a hamburger, fries (complete with ketchup) and a coke. I tell her she can't have a lunch in the library and she looks at my like I'm nuts and leaves. Gosh if only she'd stay away. But alas, later that day she returns to use the computer. I think that she may have eaten a little too quickly because as she was passing the reference desk she let loose a big fart. You should have seen the look on the guys face I was helping at the Reference Desk. I don't know what amazed and shocked him more Eyebrow Girl's near to non existent ensemble or the amazing amount of flatuence she let loose in public. Sadly, I was not so suprised by either.

Living in the land of the indecisive...

Just decide already! I've had two SRP tweenies sift through the incentives for the last 45 minutes. We close in 30 minutes. After that I'm leaving. They are on their own. What's so hard about picking an incentive. I don't freakin' get it. Just pick something already. We have stuff. Stuff that you can choose. It's not like they are choosing a college to attend. It's a coupon for frozen yogurt or a magnetic book mark, or a book bag. Give me a break. Then there is the questions. How much frozen yogurt can you get. Can you replace the batteries on the lava lamp key chain? Can I exchange this if I don't like it later on? OMG. I told them when SRP is over SRP is over! it all goes away! No refunds no exchanges. Now it's just one tweenie and she's talking to herself....