My boss, Mrs. A, announced that she's going to hold an intensive reference interview training session for everyone on staff. Not that most of us need it. Just some of us. Well, okay, one of us. And, no, not me. It's the usual Suspect.
The other day, Mrs. A found a lady wandering around our upstairs nonfiction room, going from shelf to shelf and looking very lost. Mrs. A asked the lady if she needed help and was told by the lady that she was looking for books about the history of two different local counties and had been told they would be found upstairs. As it turns out, the county histories are actually downstairs in our closed case collection, but that didn't matter so much since the lady hadn't even been given any call numbers to begin with. Just told that she could find the books upstairs in the history section. Nevermind that our history section is the largest section about a given topic in our entire library and sprawls across three different walls. Can you guess the name of the person who sent her upstairs? Why, yes, you are correct in guessing Ms. S.
Mrs. A was naturally unhappy about this turn of events and went down to get Ms. S's side of the story. Surely things could not be as bad as they seemed. No, they were actually worse. She came to find out that Ms. S had no idea that the lady was looking for county histories in the first place. According to Ms. S, she'd been shelving books when the lady came in and asked where she could find histories. Ms. S, rather than going to the OPAC and conducting a reference interview to narrow down the subject to see what precisely the lady was looking for and where precisely on the three walls of history it might be located, didn't even leave her shelving but just told her that history was upstairs and waived a hand in the general area of the ceiling, above which the books were located. (She actually admitted to this, oblivious to the inherent problems.)
Mrs. A explained to her that this was unacceptable and that she should have gone to the OPAC and helped the woman narrow it down, because when it comes to history seekers they're always going to be looking for something specific. And besides that, the books the lady wanted were not upstairs in the first place.
"But I was busy," Ms. S reportedly responded. Yes, that's right: Ms. S, dog turd smeared in thick carpet, carried in on the bottom of the shoes of the very name of good shelvers planetwide that she is, was too busy shelving to help a patron.
"And she has a degree in this," I reminded my coworkers who had gathered to hear Mrs. A's tale.
"Actually, no," Mrs. A said. See, we had been lead to believe that Ms. S had some sort of undergraduate degree in library sciences because she had told us that she'd gone to school for it and had previously worked in a library. However, according to Mrs. A, Ms. S actually has a general studies associate's degree with a library science emphasis. This doesn't actually mean she took any sort of classes about library science. What it means is that she was allowed to intern at a library during her 2 years at school. The particular library she interned with put her on the circ desk where her sole job was to check books in and out. And that was the extent of her training before darkening our door.
"Ahh, so that explains a few things," I said.
"I just can't imagine it," Mrs. A said. "Do you think that if she worked in a restaurant and refused to go over and help a customer because she was busy with something else, they'd let her get away with it?"
I allowed a slight pause.
"Well, she does work in a restaurant," I said. "And I imagine if we went there, we'd see her doing precisely that."
Mrs. A bit her lip. "You're probably right."
Monday, February 26, 2007
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Leaving on a Midnight Train to Dumbass
It's been a while since Paranoid Rick James has paid us a visit. And it may yet be a while longer. His absence itself is easily explained in that he checked out a couple of books on tape nearly a year ago and never returned them. In the intervening months, we've had occasion to send him overdue notices about the tapes to which he has chosen to respond by first denying that he still had them, asking us to check our shelves because he knew he had returned them, and then by then denying that he'd ever checked them out in the first place. So we have continued to alert him that the tapes are still not on our shelves and are therefore still checked out on his card, a situation in which we do expect either the tapes be returned to us or properly paid for. To help make this stick, we blocked his account and put notes all over his card. Rick, for his part, has continued to spread his cheeks and vent in our general direction. He won't come in himself, mind you. Instead, he sends his emmisary, his girlfriend Gladys Knight.
Gladys came in this week with a small stack of books on tape and a plastic baggy full of loose cassettes. Mrs. A happened to be working the desk at the time, was familiar with the case and figured Rick had finally found his books and had sent them in. Gladys slid the items across the desk and said she was returning them for a friend. Mrs. A's attention was drawn immediately to the bag of loose cassettes. Evidently, Rick had destroyed or otherwise lost the case the cassettes came in, therefore losing their item barcode in the process. Mrs. A told her that the baggie was not one of our usually acceptable methods for receiving media item returns. Not only did it make checking the item back in problematic, due to the lack of a barcode, but now we'd have to replace the case and barcode before we could circulate the set again. Gladys said she had thought it wouldn't be a problem since we could just keep the tapes in the baggie. Mrs. A said that, no, we wouldn't be and furthermore we would need to charge a case and barcode replacement fee.
Still, finding out the barcode for the set wouldn't really be a huge problem as Mrs. A would just check in the other items on Rick's card and then see what remained and would be able to choose the proper barcode from his record. Only when she went to check in the other two boxed books on tape sets she found that the first one actually belonged to Town D's library and the second one wasn't library property of any kind; it had no barcode, no stamps and no date due slip. It was, however, a copy of a similar book on tape Rick had checked out from Town-D's library, but it was not the original item. Apparently when Rick had told Gladys to take his tapes back, he'd failed to alert her as to which library she was supposed to take them to. He may even have failed to alert her to the fact that he'd replaced a set of tapes that, I'm guessing, he lost with a used set that he probably got off ebay.
Regardless, none of the tapes were ours, which Mrs. A pointed out for Gladys, adding that Rick still owed us for two sets and wouldn't be allowed to check anything else out until he paid for them.
"Oh, I don't think he ever had those," Gladys countered.
Mrs. A said that it seemed pretty unlikely that the tapes would be on his card had he not checked them out personally, particularly considering that we don't check materials out to people who don't first supply us with their library card. (A fact that Rick is well aware of, having clashed with us repeatedly on the issue.) It also seemed pretty unlikely that, had Rick not checked them out himself, we would just randomly check out the very sort of books on tape Rick happens to prefer, by the same author an example of whose other work Gladys Knight had just attempted to return on Rick James's behalf, on Rick's card, completely by mistake. Furthermore, Mrs. A explained, in addition to the money Rick owes us for said mystery books on tape, he will now also owe a case and barcode replacement fee.
Gladys Knight, who isn't exactly a dummy, must have realized at that point that being as how none of the tapes she was attempting to return were even ours, we could hardly charge any fees for them at all. So she reached across the counter, gathered them all up and said she would just be returning them to their proper library on her own. Mrs. A told her it wasn't a problem for us to return them, but Gladys insisted that she wanted to do it herself. Her selections in hand, Gladys left.
Mrs. A's theory is that Gladys thinks Town-D will be a much easier mark to hustle. That being the case, she phoned them in advance to warn them what was on the way and to suggest they charge Gladys and Rick every fine and fee they possibly could. Town-D's librarian, Ms. H, a former "liberry" ass. at my branch, readily agreed. Ms. H also added that she didn't see any reason for her branch to continue checking out their materials to Rick until he pays us for our missing tapes. This will hardly stop Rick, who will just have Gladys check out things on her card for him, but it warms my dark little heart to think of just how much it will piss him off.
Gladys came in this week with a small stack of books on tape and a plastic baggy full of loose cassettes. Mrs. A happened to be working the desk at the time, was familiar with the case and figured Rick had finally found his books and had sent them in. Gladys slid the items across the desk and said she was returning them for a friend. Mrs. A's attention was drawn immediately to the bag of loose cassettes. Evidently, Rick had destroyed or otherwise lost the case the cassettes came in, therefore losing their item barcode in the process. Mrs. A told her that the baggie was not one of our usually acceptable methods for receiving media item returns. Not only did it make checking the item back in problematic, due to the lack of a barcode, but now we'd have to replace the case and barcode before we could circulate the set again. Gladys said she had thought it wouldn't be a problem since we could just keep the tapes in the baggie. Mrs. A said that, no, we wouldn't be and furthermore we would need to charge a case and barcode replacement fee.
Still, finding out the barcode for the set wouldn't really be a huge problem as Mrs. A would just check in the other items on Rick's card and then see what remained and would be able to choose the proper barcode from his record. Only when she went to check in the other two boxed books on tape sets she found that the first one actually belonged to Town D's library and the second one wasn't library property of any kind; it had no barcode, no stamps and no date due slip. It was, however, a copy of a similar book on tape Rick had checked out from Town-D's library, but it was not the original item. Apparently when Rick had told Gladys to take his tapes back, he'd failed to alert her as to which library she was supposed to take them to. He may even have failed to alert her to the fact that he'd replaced a set of tapes that, I'm guessing, he lost with a used set that he probably got off ebay.
Regardless, none of the tapes were ours, which Mrs. A pointed out for Gladys, adding that Rick still owed us for two sets and wouldn't be allowed to check anything else out until he paid for them.
"Oh, I don't think he ever had those," Gladys countered.
Mrs. A said that it seemed pretty unlikely that the tapes would be on his card had he not checked them out personally, particularly considering that we don't check materials out to people who don't first supply us with their library card. (A fact that Rick is well aware of, having clashed with us repeatedly on the issue.) It also seemed pretty unlikely that, had Rick not checked them out himself, we would just randomly check out the very sort of books on tape Rick happens to prefer, by the same author an example of whose other work Gladys Knight had just attempted to return on Rick James's behalf, on Rick's card, completely by mistake. Furthermore, Mrs. A explained, in addition to the money Rick owes us for said mystery books on tape, he will now also owe a case and barcode replacement fee.
Gladys Knight, who isn't exactly a dummy, must have realized at that point that being as how none of the tapes she was attempting to return were even ours, we could hardly charge any fees for them at all. So she reached across the counter, gathered them all up and said she would just be returning them to their proper library on her own. Mrs. A told her it wasn't a problem for us to return them, but Gladys insisted that she wanted to do it herself. Her selections in hand, Gladys left.
Mrs. A's theory is that Gladys thinks Town-D will be a much easier mark to hustle. That being the case, she phoned them in advance to warn them what was on the way and to suggest they charge Gladys and Rick every fine and fee they possibly could. Town-D's librarian, Ms. H, a former "liberry" ass. at my branch, readily agreed. Ms. H also added that she didn't see any reason for her branch to continue checking out their materials to Rick until he pays us for our missing tapes. This will hardly stop Rick, who will just have Gladys check out things on her card for him, but it warms my dark little heart to think of just how much it will piss him off.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Mrs. A vs. The Coot
Our patron known as The Coot has, over the past few months, rapidly become one of our our most frequent patrons. In fact, without ever touching a keyboard himself, he is encroaching on the visitation frequency and duration of such innanet crowd luminaries as Gene Gene the Geneal0gy Machine, Crusty the Patron, Mr. B-Natural and even he who must really really not be named, because he hasn't been seen for nearly a year and we'd like to keep it that way, and who favors puffy white winter wear. And. as I've said before, the Coot is a library patron who actually uses the library for reasons other than internet access. Sure, he might spend several hours a day, several days a week in our presence, but he spends that time reading, often from classics and works of philosophy. And other than the fact that he often leaves his reading material stacked around whatever chair he spends his time in, so that we the staff have to clean up after him later, he's mostly inoffensive. Well, except to Mrs. A.
Mrs. A does not like the Coot very much because it's outside her office that he likes to plant himself for his hours-long reading sessions. This too would be okay, except that the Coot tends to make a lot of noise, usually in the form of painful moans and groans, coughs, snorts, loud yawns, and occasional bursts of song. Over the few months he's been doing this, we've determined that he's usually at his most vocal when Mrs. A is on the phone or otherwise making noise herself. In other words, he's doing it in protest of having his reading disturbed by phone conversations near his chair of choice. The thing is, Mrs. A is the library director and as such has to take and make numerous phone calls throughout the day, not to mention frequent in-person meetings in her office. The other thing is, there are seats and more comfy areas to sit elsewhere in the library that are not in proximity to Mrs. A's office. The Coot just happens to like sitting outside her office. And as long as he's there, the two of them wind up creating a duet mixture of speech and painful groans resulting in annoyance to one and all.
One day, Mr. A came to visit Mrs. A at work and the two of them were speaking in her office. In protest to the normal conversational volume of their voices, the Coot let loose with a horrible-sounding groan. Mrs. A later told me that Mr. A looked at her and asked what was up with the mortally-wounded-sounding man seated outside her office.
"Oh, he just does that whenever I'm talking," she said, not even trying to keep her voice down. And to give an example, Mrs. A let fly with her own horrible-sounding groan at full volume. With that, the Coot stood up and went into the nonfiction room to find a quieter chair.
Mrs. A does not like the Coot very much because it's outside her office that he likes to plant himself for his hours-long reading sessions. This too would be okay, except that the Coot tends to make a lot of noise, usually in the form of painful moans and groans, coughs, snorts, loud yawns, and occasional bursts of song. Over the few months he's been doing this, we've determined that he's usually at his most vocal when Mrs. A is on the phone or otherwise making noise herself. In other words, he's doing it in protest of having his reading disturbed by phone conversations near his chair of choice. The thing is, Mrs. A is the library director and as such has to take and make numerous phone calls throughout the day, not to mention frequent in-person meetings in her office. The other thing is, there are seats and more comfy areas to sit elsewhere in the library that are not in proximity to Mrs. A's office. The Coot just happens to like sitting outside her office. And as long as he's there, the two of them wind up creating a duet mixture of speech and painful groans resulting in annoyance to one and all.
One day, Mr. A came to visit Mrs. A at work and the two of them were speaking in her office. In protest to the normal conversational volume of their voices, the Coot let loose with a horrible-sounding groan. Mrs. A later told me that Mr. A looked at her and asked what was up with the mortally-wounded-sounding man seated outside her office.
"Oh, he just does that whenever I'm talking," she said, not even trying to keep her voice down. And to give an example, Mrs. A let fly with her own horrible-sounding groan at full volume. With that, the Coot stood up and went into the nonfiction room to find a quieter chair.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Actual Conversations Heard in Actual Libraries #73
(A father and daughter approach the circ-desk. The little girl, cute as anything, puts her books up on the desk and looks up at me.)
ME-- Do you have your library card?
DAD-- She doesn't have one. I don't have mine either. Matter of fact, I don't think I ever got one.
ME-- (Thinking, I'd better check the computer just to be sure before I have him fill out an application...) Well, what's your name?
DAD-- Ignernt Q. Patron
ME-- (Ignernt Q. Patron pops right up, but I'd still better confirm...) And your mailing address?
DAD-- Route 1, Dumbass Holler.
ME-- Yep. We've got you in the computer.
DAD--Yeah, I know ya have me in the computer. I'm saying, I never got a card.
ME-- Sir, we don't create patron records without issuing a card to the patron in question. And we do require a card in order to check out materials.
DAD-- Can I get anuther?
ME-- We charge $1 for a replacement card.
Dad opens his wallet and throws down a dollar with something of a defiant air.
ME-- All righty.
After confirming some contact information, I get busy putting a new barcode into dude's record. While I do this, he starts digging around in his wallet until he stumbles upon, surprise surprise, his library card.
DAD-- (Adopting a tone of voice similar to one he might have used had Library Card Gnomes snuck the thing into his wallet) Oh. Uh, here it is here.
ME-- Ahhhh. (I take it from him and scan the old barcode over the new one I'd just done) Here's your dollar back.
ME-- Do you have your library card?
DAD-- She doesn't have one. I don't have mine either. Matter of fact, I don't think I ever got one.
ME-- (Thinking, I'd better check the computer just to be sure before I have him fill out an application...) Well, what's your name?
DAD-- Ignernt Q. Patron
ME-- (Ignernt Q. Patron pops right up, but I'd still better confirm...) And your mailing address?
DAD-- Route 1, Dumbass Holler.
ME-- Yep. We've got you in the computer.
DAD--Yeah, I know ya have me in the computer. I'm saying, I never got a card.
ME-- Sir, we don't create patron records without issuing a card to the patron in question. And we do require a card in order to check out materials.
DAD-- Can I get anuther?
ME-- We charge $1 for a replacement card.
Dad opens his wallet and throws down a dollar with something of a defiant air.
ME-- All righty.
After confirming some contact information, I get busy putting a new barcode into dude's record. While I do this, he starts digging around in his wallet until he stumbles upon, surprise surprise, his library card.
DAD-- (Adopting a tone of voice similar to one he might have used had Library Card Gnomes snuck the thing into his wallet) Oh. Uh, here it is here.
ME-- Ahhhh. (I take it from him and scan the old barcode over the new one I'd just done) Here's your dollar back.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Actual Telephone Conversations Heard in Actual Libraries #72
*RING*
ME-- Tri Metro County Library.
CALLER-- *mumble*mumble*mumble* tax books.
ME-- I'm sorry, what?
CALLER-- Do you all have tax books?
ME-- Yes, we do.
CALLER-- You do? You do have tax books?
ME-- (Did I stutter?) Yes. We. Do.
ME-- Tri Metro County Library.
CALLER-- *mumble*mumble*mumble* tax books.
ME-- I'm sorry, what?
CALLER-- Do you all have tax books?
ME-- Yes, we do.
CALLER-- You do? You do have tax books?
ME-- (Did I stutter?) Yes. We. Do.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Bad case of the Crabs
Mr. Crab, third grumpiest old man in all the world, came in yesterday at the very end of my shift. As he scuttled over to the new nonfiction, a lady came up to check out then had difficulty finding her card. I was hoping she had left it at home so I could loudly explain to her the rules about patrons having to have their cards in order to check out and offering to make her a replacement card if she needed, just for his benefit. But then she found her card and my object lesson was no more.
Mr. Crab came up to the desk a minute later. I was hoping he was going to announce to me that he had lost his card again and then dare me to try and make him purchase another, but he didn't. Instead he wanted to know if we had the Wa11 Street J0urnal. Our early afternoon mail had already arrived, but I didn't recall seeing the Journal in the stack.
"Well, we get the Wa11 Street J0urnal, but I'm not sure if today's issue came."
"You do get it?" Mr. Crab asked in a tone of disbelief.
"Yes. We do. I'm just not sure if today's issue came in earlier."
"But you DO get it regularly?"
Have I stuttered?
"Yes. We get it regularly. Usually daily."
"Because two years ago you went six months without getting it at all."
I have no recollection of that but I knew better than to try and argue the point with Mr. Crab, who probably keeps a diary about it, dutifully recording each and every time he has visited us, whether or not we demanded his library card in order to check out books to him, the amount of shit measured by exact volume that he was able to give us over the matter, whether or not the Wa11 Street $%#&ing J0urnal was in its proper place on the newspaper rack and a small memo reminding him to be sure and threaten not to send in his annual $200 donation.
"I can't speak to that," I said. "All I'm saying is that while we do receive the Wa11 Street J0urnal regularly, we may or may not have received one today. If we did receive it, it is likely upstairs on the newspaper rack. If not, it's not."
"Six months! You went six months without getting it, two years ago," he said, his red legs clattering across the floor as he moved sideways toward the stairs.
Mrs. A returned just before I was to leave. I warned her who was in the building and that she should be prepared to receive shit about the Wa11 Street J0urnal's six month gap, two years ago.
"Oh, we did not!" she said, referring to the alleged 6 month absence. She explained that there had been a problem with our subscription and we didn't receive any J0urnals between November 04 and January of 2005.
"Did he ask about his card?" she said.
"Not yet."
Unfortunately, I had appointments elsewhere, otherwise I would gladly have stuck around off the clock to deal with the storm of feces that no doubt happened after I left.
Mr. Crab came up to the desk a minute later. I was hoping he was going to announce to me that he had lost his card again and then dare me to try and make him purchase another, but he didn't. Instead he wanted to know if we had the Wa11 Street J0urnal. Our early afternoon mail had already arrived, but I didn't recall seeing the Journal in the stack.
"Well, we get the Wa11 Street J0urnal, but I'm not sure if today's issue came."
"You do get it?" Mr. Crab asked in a tone of disbelief.
"Yes. We do. I'm just not sure if today's issue came in earlier."
"But you DO get it regularly?"
Have I stuttered?
"Yes. We get it regularly. Usually daily."
"Because two years ago you went six months without getting it at all."
I have no recollection of that but I knew better than to try and argue the point with Mr. Crab, who probably keeps a diary about it, dutifully recording each and every time he has visited us, whether or not we demanded his library card in order to check out books to him, the amount of shit measured by exact volume that he was able to give us over the matter, whether or not the Wa11 Street $%#&ing J0urnal was in its proper place on the newspaper rack and a small memo reminding him to be sure and threaten not to send in his annual $200 donation.
"I can't speak to that," I said. "All I'm saying is that while we do receive the Wa11 Street J0urnal regularly, we may or may not have received one today. If we did receive it, it is likely upstairs on the newspaper rack. If not, it's not."
"Six months! You went six months without getting it, two years ago," he said, his red legs clattering across the floor as he moved sideways toward the stairs.
Mrs. A returned just before I was to leave. I warned her who was in the building and that she should be prepared to receive shit about the Wa11 Street J0urnal's six month gap, two years ago.
"Oh, we did not!" she said, referring to the alleged 6 month absence. She explained that there had been a problem with our subscription and we didn't receive any J0urnals between November 04 and January of 2005.
"Did he ask about his card?" she said.
"Not yet."
Unfortunately, I had appointments elsewhere, otherwise I would gladly have stuck around off the clock to deal with the storm of feces that no doubt happened after I left.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Rumors & Returns
It's been kind of a slow week, though not exactly uneventful.
Crusty the Patron has returned. So has his crust and odor, though a bit less of both than we've seen in the past. He's been gone since October, but then again he'd disappeared for a couple of years before that, back when he was only known as Nearsighted Dave. My theory is that he has relatives, perhaps even a son, in the area, as we've seen him with a kid in the past. So far he hasn't given us near the trouble we've had from him before, though he's certainly not as clean as we'd appreciate.
"Crusty the Patron is leaving crust again," I told Mrs. A, scratching my own beard to demonstrate Crusty's dandruff harvesting habit.
"Is he on the computer now?" she asked.
"Well, some of him is."
The other major revelation of the week is a rumor picked up by Mrs. A, to the effect that Mr. Crab has "lost" his "liberry" card yet again. Mrs. A didn't elaborate where she heard the rumor, but I suspect he probably came in over the weekend and gave one of the greenhorns hell about it and they told her. She relayed the rumor to me knowing full well I will probably be the one manning the desk when he attempts to bully his way out of having to have it, knowing full well I, of all employees, won't back down for him. Frankly, I think he "lost" it on purpose just so he'd have the excuse to raise hell. Well, that and his never-ending quest to achieve his ultimate dream of being allowed into the legendary, yet still no less mythical, club of special patrons who don't have to have their cards to check out books. (We give `em free coffee too, which they may leisurely drink, without a lid, at the computers.) Mrs. A threatened to leave an extra dollar in the cash box, earmarked to pay for the man's replacement card, just so I wouldn't have to put him in the hurt locker.
"Oh, no," I said. "I believe our policy states you have to pay $5 for a second replacement card."
Still, I might just let her leave the dollar, just so I can gleefully inform Mr. Crab that he's now in dutch to us for a dollar, which he can pay back by increasing his much remarked upon annual $200 donation all the way to $201.
Crusty the Patron has returned. So has his crust and odor, though a bit less of both than we've seen in the past. He's been gone since October, but then again he'd disappeared for a couple of years before that, back when he was only known as Nearsighted Dave. My theory is that he has relatives, perhaps even a son, in the area, as we've seen him with a kid in the past. So far he hasn't given us near the trouble we've had from him before, though he's certainly not as clean as we'd appreciate.
"Crusty the Patron is leaving crust again," I told Mrs. A, scratching my own beard to demonstrate Crusty's dandruff harvesting habit.
"Is he on the computer now?" she asked.
"Well, some of him is."
The other major revelation of the week is a rumor picked up by Mrs. A, to the effect that Mr. Crab has "lost" his "liberry" card yet again. Mrs. A didn't elaborate where she heard the rumor, but I suspect he probably came in over the weekend and gave one of the greenhorns hell about it and they told her. She relayed the rumor to me knowing full well I will probably be the one manning the desk when he attempts to bully his way out of having to have it, knowing full well I, of all employees, won't back down for him. Frankly, I think he "lost" it on purpose just so he'd have the excuse to raise hell. Well, that and his never-ending quest to achieve his ultimate dream of being allowed into the legendary, yet still no less mythical, club of special patrons who don't have to have their cards to check out books. (We give `em free coffee too, which they may leisurely drink, without a lid, at the computers.) Mrs. A threatened to leave an extra dollar in the cash box, earmarked to pay for the man's replacement card, just so I wouldn't have to put him in the hurt locker.
"Oh, no," I said. "I believe our policy states you have to pay $5 for a second replacement card."
Still, I might just let her leave the dollar, just so I can gleefully inform Mr. Crab that he's now in dutch to us for a dollar, which he can pay back by increasing his much remarked upon annual $200 donation all the way to $201.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Actual Telephone Conversations Heard in Actual Libraries #71
(It should be noted, as it has in the past, that I do not like Caller ID People.
Yes, those souls who rush right for their caller ID box the moment they
get home and start phoning all the numbers that have appeared on it,
regardless of whether or not they're familiar numbers and regardless of
whether or not any of those numbers correspond with messages that may or
may not have been left on their answering machines already, piss me
off. For the record, my wife thinks it's all perfectly logical to use
your caller ID box in this manner, and I can kind of see her point; I
mean, it's one thing to see that your friend Bubba called you but didn't
leave a message and to then surmise that Bubba, perhaps, wished to
speak with you and might enjoy a call back. Fine. However, when you get a
message from a business and/or institution with multiple employees, it
makes no sense to me to phone them up and have any sort of expectation
that the person who answers the phone will have ANY possible way to know
why someone phoned you from that number. I am, therefore, a
Caller-ID-Person-Detractor, cannot abide their behavior, and go out of
my way to make things difficult for them when they phone the "liberry."
Does this make me an asshole? Perhaps. Does it sometimes come back to
bite me? You be the judge...)
*RING*
ME— Tri-Metro County Library.
CALLER— Yeah. This number showed up on my caller ID and I was just calling to see why?
ME— I have absolutely no idea.
(Pause)
CALLER— Huh.
ME— Did the call occur today?
CALLER— No. Yesterday.
ME— Ahhh. I wasn't here yesterday, so I really couldn't say why you were called from this number. Yesterday.
(Pause)
CALLER— Er. Would it make a difference if I gave you my name?
ME— Again, I have absolutely no idea. It suppose that it might.
(Pause)
CALLER— Um...
ME— What's your name?
CALLER— Mr. Caller ID Guy.
ME— (Bell goes off in head as I recognize the name) Ah! Yes! Yes, it does. (I dig in the hold bin, where I had earlier spied an interliberry loan with his name on it.) We have a book on hold for you here.
CALLER— Oh? What is it.
(Book in hand, I tell him the title. I also see that Ms. S had noted on the book's ILL slip that she had already left a message on the man's machine telling him we had this book on hold for him, hence why it was in the Hold Bin and not the pre-call Hold Shelf. In other words, this guy hadn't even bothered to check his messages AT ALL before heading for the caller ID! What an asshole!)
*RING*
ME— Tri-Metro County Library.
CALLER— Yeah. This number showed up on my caller ID and I was just calling to see why?
ME— I have absolutely no idea.
(Pause)
CALLER— Huh.
ME— Did the call occur today?
CALLER— No. Yesterday.
ME— Ahhh. I wasn't here yesterday, so I really couldn't say why you were called from this number. Yesterday.
(Pause)
CALLER— Er. Would it make a difference if I gave you my name?
ME— Again, I have absolutely no idea. It suppose that it might.
(Pause)
CALLER— Um...
ME— What's your name?
CALLER— Mr. Caller ID Guy.
ME— (Bell goes off in head as I recognize the name) Ah! Yes! Yes, it does. (I dig in the hold bin, where I had earlier spied an interliberry loan with his name on it.) We have a book on hold for you here.
CALLER— Oh? What is it.
(Book in hand, I tell him the title. I also see that Ms. S had noted on the book's ILL slip that she had already left a message on the man's machine telling him we had this book on hold for him, hence why it was in the Hold Bin and not the pre-call Hold Shelf. In other words, this guy hadn't even bothered to check his messages AT ALL before heading for the caller ID! What an asshole!)
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Encroaching on Second
Mr. Crab, third grumpiest old man in all the world, was in yesterday. He left the lights of his vehicle on despite its patented "Hey, Jerkweed, Your Lights Are On!" *bing*bing*bing*
automatic alarm. I didn't know any of that, though, until a succession
of patrons came in to tell me about it. Still, this is Mr. Crab we're
talking about, so I wasn't in any big hurry to let him know. Nearly an
hour later, another patron mentioned the lights and alarm, so I finally
decided to go tell Mr. Crab, just so people would leave me alone about
it.
On his way out the door to go check on his vehicle, Mr. Crab dropped a book onto the circ desk, saying, "I'll be back for that in a minute." True to his word, he returned a minute later. By then, I was was busy helping another patron, so I didn't notice immediately that Mr. Crab had come up to the desk, picked up his still uncheckedout book and was headed for the door until he was nearly there. It was exactly as if he thought I had somehow magically checked that book out to him without the benefit of his having first supplied his library card. (And this, I'm certain, is Mr. Crab's greatest fantasy.)
"Excuse me," I called. "Excuse me?!" I called again. Mr. Crab stopped, scuttled around and gave me a dirty look, as if to say, What?
"I didn't check that out to you, yet," I said.
"What?"
"I haven't checked that book out to you, yet."
Mr. Crab grumbled something under his breath and returned to the desk to wait his turn. When I finished with the previous patron (coincidentally, the same lady he nearly ran over during my last encounter with him) he stepped up to the desk, set the book down and, as in accordance with tradition, stood there as though the next move were somehow mine.
"I'll just need your library card," I said.
Mr. Crab didn't actually make any negative comment on my asking him for his card, (you know, like mentioning how he was going to deprive us of his annual $200 donation for making him fish it out), but his expression said volumes about how much he really really wanted to and how much I was crushing his fantasy of not having to have it to check things out, (being as how, of course, he's such a major donor).
As he was digging in his wallet, he gestured toward our circ-computer and said, "You know, when people have a library card here, there ought to be something you could just click there that would tell you they have a library card without them having to tear up their wallet."
I had the sudden and nearly overwhelming urge to say, "Oh, but, sir, we DO have something we can click to tell us whether or not you have a patron record with us. It's called A LIBRARY CARD!!!! Whether or not you `tear up' your wallet in retrieving it is entirely your business, but retrieve it you shall, you cantankerous, great, honking asspipe."
I don't know how I managed it, but my lips remained tightly tightly sealed in a rigor mortis-like smile.
Mr. Crab regarded me for a long moment before saying, "No comment?"
I shook my head silently, in the negative, smiling like a maniac. Mr. Crab nodded back and scuttled out the door.
On his way out the door to go check on his vehicle, Mr. Crab dropped a book onto the circ desk, saying, "I'll be back for that in a minute." True to his word, he returned a minute later. By then, I was was busy helping another patron, so I didn't notice immediately that Mr. Crab had come up to the desk, picked up his still uncheckedout book and was headed for the door until he was nearly there. It was exactly as if he thought I had somehow magically checked that book out to him without the benefit of his having first supplied his library card. (And this, I'm certain, is Mr. Crab's greatest fantasy.)
"Excuse me," I called. "Excuse me?!" I called again. Mr. Crab stopped, scuttled around and gave me a dirty look, as if to say, What?
"I didn't check that out to you, yet," I said.
"What?"
"I haven't checked that book out to you, yet."
Mr. Crab grumbled something under his breath and returned to the desk to wait his turn. When I finished with the previous patron (coincidentally, the same lady he nearly ran over during my last encounter with him) he stepped up to the desk, set the book down and, as in accordance with tradition, stood there as though the next move were somehow mine.
"I'll just need your library card," I said.
Mr. Crab didn't actually make any negative comment on my asking him for his card, (you know, like mentioning how he was going to deprive us of his annual $200 donation for making him fish it out), but his expression said volumes about how much he really really wanted to and how much I was crushing his fantasy of not having to have it to check things out, (being as how, of course, he's such a major donor).
As he was digging in his wallet, he gestured toward our circ-computer and said, "You know, when people have a library card here, there ought to be something you could just click there that would tell you they have a library card without them having to tear up their wallet."
I had the sudden and nearly overwhelming urge to say, "Oh, but, sir, we DO have something we can click to tell us whether or not you have a patron record with us. It's called A LIBRARY CARD!!!! Whether or not you `tear up' your wallet in retrieving it is entirely your business, but retrieve it you shall, you cantankerous, great, honking asspipe."
I don't know how I managed it, but my lips remained tightly tightly sealed in a rigor mortis-like smile.
Mr. Crab regarded me for a long moment before saying, "No comment?"
I shook my head silently, in the negative, smiling like a maniac. Mr. Crab nodded back and scuttled out the door.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Actual Telephone Conversations Heard in Actual Libraries #70
*RING*
ME— Tri-Metro Public Library.
CALLER—Yes, is Mrs. A there?
ME— No, I'm sorry. She's not in today. Can I take a message?
CALLER— Huh? But, I talked to her this morning.
ME— Yes. She's only in for half a day on Mondays.
CALLER— So, she'll be in later?
ME— No. She's only in for half a day on Mondays. That half was this morning.
CALLER— Oh. So, she'll be in tomorrow afternoon, then?
ME— No. She's only here a half day today. She'll be in all day tomorrow.
CALLER— Oh. So, I could call tomorrow morning?
ME— (Trying not to sigh exasperatedly) Yes.
ME— Tri-Metro Public Library.
CALLER—Yes, is Mrs. A there?
ME— No, I'm sorry. She's not in today. Can I take a message?
CALLER— Huh? But, I talked to her this morning.
ME— Yes. She's only in for half a day on Mondays.
CALLER— So, she'll be in later?
ME— No. She's only in for half a day on Mondays. That half was this morning.
CALLER— Oh. So, she'll be in tomorrow afternoon, then?
ME— No. She's only here a half day today. She'll be in all day tomorrow.
CALLER— Oh. So, I could call tomorrow morning?
ME— (Trying not to sigh exasperatedly) Yes.
Friday, January 19, 2007
The Jungle Boogie (a.k.a. "Stop, thief, or we'll call your neighbors and have them ask you to stop.")
While I was out, we had a bit of very slow excitement at the
"liberry." The Alphabet Squad of Mrs.es A, B & C told me about
it today, since they all played a part in it.
Mrs. A began by saying that on Wednesday a fellow stepped into Mrs. A's office upstairs and asked if we had The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair. This is a bit unorthodox to begin with, as having patrons step into her office to ask reference questions isn't a typical occurence for Mrs. A. However, she is a librarian and helping patrons comes with the territory, so she fired up the OPAC on her computer to make certain of the floor on which the book was located and then told the fellow that if he were to go to the circ desk in our fiction room downstairs, someone there would direct him to the book.
At this point, Mrs. B chimed in saying that the fellow did come downstairs and asked for direction to The Jungle. She led dude to the shelf, pulled the book for him and passed it to him. He thanked her and returned to the children's room, where a lady Mrs. B assumed was his wife and a kid Mrs. B assumed was his kid, were at.
Mrs. C then joined the narrative saying that after a while the dude, lady and kid wrapped up their browsing, rounded the corner of the children's room, bypassed the circ desk entirely and walked out the front door. Mrs. C and Mrs. B looked at one another, thinking it was odd that dude had left without checking his book out and wondered whether he'd actually taken it with him. They quickly checked the book cart and the kids room, but didn't see The Jungle anywhere. So Mrs. C ran outside where she found the group getting into their car. Not knowing quite how to approach the subject, Mrs. C asked the man if he needed to check out The Jungle after all. He said, no, he didn't. Mrs. C then pointed out that she had not found it on the book cart and was trying to make sure he hadn't simply forgotten to check it out. Oh no, he said. He'd laid it down in the children's room. Taking him at his word, Mrs. C went back inside.
There followed a lengthy and exhaustive search of the entire library for The Jungle, enlisting the aid of all available library employees. Carts were checked. The tops of shelved books were checked. The actual spot in the General Fiction S's where the book normally lives was checked. The book remained unfound.
The Alphabet Squad considered this. The man had clearly stolen the book, but what could be done about it? He didn't have a library card, so there was no contact information for him. Then someone remembered that the woman the man had left with, presumably his wife, had applied for and received a library card during their visit, though she had not actually used it. So Mrs. A phoned her up at the number on her application, reached her and asked to speak to her husband. The lady explained that the man who'd been in with her wasn't her husband but was, instead, a neighbor she'd given a lift to. This being the case, Mrs. A explained the situation and her thoughts about the book and its likely status as being borrowed outside proper channels. Hearing the dilema, the lady offered to go next door and ask her neighbor if he had the book and phone Mrs. A back. And, after a while, she called back and told Mrs. A that her neighbor still insisted not to have the book and that he'd laid it down in the children's room.
More searching commenced. No book was found. Hours passed.
At some point in the afternoon, Mrs. A and Mrs. C were standing at the circ desk when the man from earlier returned. He didn't approach the circ-desk, but instead hugged the far wall, making his way to the children's room. Mrs. A and C looked at one another then made a break for the kids' room themselves. As they rounded the corner, they found the man stooped over, trying desperately to cram our copy of The Jungle into one of the Easy Reader shelves. Unfortunately for him, the shelf was so tightly packed with books that he couldn't open enough space to fit it. Catching sight of Mrs.es A and C, he quickly threw The Jungle on top of the books on that shelf and nervously stood up.
"See. I laid it down in here," he offered, pointing to it for them.
Mrs. A didn't elaborate on any consequences to the man, so I imagine they just let him go. Maybe he was addled about the head. The question arises, though, that if he'd had to get a lift from his neighbor to come to the library earlier, had he done so again to return the stolen book?
Mrs. A began by saying that on Wednesday a fellow stepped into Mrs. A's office upstairs and asked if we had The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair. This is a bit unorthodox to begin with, as having patrons step into her office to ask reference questions isn't a typical occurence for Mrs. A. However, she is a librarian and helping patrons comes with the territory, so she fired up the OPAC on her computer to make certain of the floor on which the book was located and then told the fellow that if he were to go to the circ desk in our fiction room downstairs, someone there would direct him to the book.
At this point, Mrs. B chimed in saying that the fellow did come downstairs and asked for direction to The Jungle. She led dude to the shelf, pulled the book for him and passed it to him. He thanked her and returned to the children's room, where a lady Mrs. B assumed was his wife and a kid Mrs. B assumed was his kid, were at.
Mrs. C then joined the narrative saying that after a while the dude, lady and kid wrapped up their browsing, rounded the corner of the children's room, bypassed the circ desk entirely and walked out the front door. Mrs. C and Mrs. B looked at one another, thinking it was odd that dude had left without checking his book out and wondered whether he'd actually taken it with him. They quickly checked the book cart and the kids room, but didn't see The Jungle anywhere. So Mrs. C ran outside where she found the group getting into their car. Not knowing quite how to approach the subject, Mrs. C asked the man if he needed to check out The Jungle after all. He said, no, he didn't. Mrs. C then pointed out that she had not found it on the book cart and was trying to make sure he hadn't simply forgotten to check it out. Oh no, he said. He'd laid it down in the children's room. Taking him at his word, Mrs. C went back inside.
There followed a lengthy and exhaustive search of the entire library for The Jungle, enlisting the aid of all available library employees. Carts were checked. The tops of shelved books were checked. The actual spot in the General Fiction S's where the book normally lives was checked. The book remained unfound.
The Alphabet Squad considered this. The man had clearly stolen the book, but what could be done about it? He didn't have a library card, so there was no contact information for him. Then someone remembered that the woman the man had left with, presumably his wife, had applied for and received a library card during their visit, though she had not actually used it. So Mrs. A phoned her up at the number on her application, reached her and asked to speak to her husband. The lady explained that the man who'd been in with her wasn't her husband but was, instead, a neighbor she'd given a lift to. This being the case, Mrs. A explained the situation and her thoughts about the book and its likely status as being borrowed outside proper channels. Hearing the dilema, the lady offered to go next door and ask her neighbor if he had the book and phone Mrs. A back. And, after a while, she called back and told Mrs. A that her neighbor still insisted not to have the book and that he'd laid it down in the children's room.
More searching commenced. No book was found. Hours passed.
At some point in the afternoon, Mrs. A and Mrs. C were standing at the circ desk when the man from earlier returned. He didn't approach the circ-desk, but instead hugged the far wall, making his way to the children's room. Mrs. A and C looked at one another then made a break for the kids' room themselves. As they rounded the corner, they found the man stooped over, trying desperately to cram our copy of The Jungle into one of the Easy Reader shelves. Unfortunately for him, the shelf was so tightly packed with books that he couldn't open enough space to fit it. Catching sight of Mrs.es A and C, he quickly threw The Jungle on top of the books on that shelf and nervously stood up.
"See. I laid it down in here," he offered, pointing to it for them.
Mrs. A didn't elaborate on any consequences to the man, so I imagine they just let him go. Maybe he was addled about the head. The question arises, though, that if he'd had to get a lift from his neighbor to come to the library earlier, had he done so again to return the stolen book?
Thursday, January 18, 2007
The Drama Queen
Back in late December and in the early part of January, we were paid several visits by a girl I like to call the Drama Queen. The Drama Queen is a college-aged girl who grew up in the Tri-Metro area but is now firmly in college elsewhere in the country. However, being as how school was out for the Christmas holidays, she was at home with her mom.
Apparently things around Tri-Metro just aren't exciting enough for the Drama Queen, for she seemed determined to bring some kind of, well, drama, to our otherwise dullish community, even if this meant she had to force some to happen.
During my first encounter with the Drama Queen, she began a conversation with me in mid-conversation, walking through the door and then, as though we'd been talking about it for the past ten minutes, mentioning that her family was STILL painting the interior walls of their house. She said this with exactly that attitude too; that her family was so intolerably slow at home decorating that they were STILL engaged in painting the walls after ALL this time. I'd never met the girl before, as far as I knew, let alone discussed her family's decorating projects, but the Drama Queen's end of the conversation seemed to be a continuation of one she'd been having with someone and it may as well have been me.
Over the course of the following two weeks, the Drama Queen returned again and again. One day she was followed by her mother, a small woman who looked pained as her daughter wildly gestured and went on and on about some small item of trivia that she was determined to inflate to enormous proportions. Other days, her brother accompanied her and looked similarly pained. Sometimes the Drama Queen would arrive alone, restart previously unstarted conversations with us, as though we had all been waiting in breathless anticipation for the next installment of The Exciting World of the Drama Queen and I'm sure we too gave pained expressions.
The Drama Queen would be an ideal candidate for such programs as The Real World, or, better still, Flavor of Love, because she seems to exist in that same sort of hyper-reality those shows aim to capture. Everything revolves around her. We're all supposed to be terribly excited about her life and what's happening in it, regardless of how minor those happenings might be.
It took me a while to really quantify this behavior. It seemed familiar somehow, yet not exactly in the right context. Only after some thought did I finally realize where I'd seen this before: The Drama Queen was a Cell Phone Person without a cell phone; the very kind of soul who goes about loudly and publicly narrating the intricacies of their existence over their cell phone for all to hear, because damn if they aren't living interesting, complicated and, all-importantly, dramatic lives.
(As opposed to those of us who just blog about it--which may be the other reason this seemed so uncomfortably familiar.)
Apparently things around Tri-Metro just aren't exciting enough for the Drama Queen, for she seemed determined to bring some kind of, well, drama, to our otherwise dullish community, even if this meant she had to force some to happen.
During my first encounter with the Drama Queen, she began a conversation with me in mid-conversation, walking through the door and then, as though we'd been talking about it for the past ten minutes, mentioning that her family was STILL painting the interior walls of their house. She said this with exactly that attitude too; that her family was so intolerably slow at home decorating that they were STILL engaged in painting the walls after ALL this time. I'd never met the girl before, as far as I knew, let alone discussed her family's decorating projects, but the Drama Queen's end of the conversation seemed to be a continuation of one she'd been having with someone and it may as well have been me.
Over the course of the following two weeks, the Drama Queen returned again and again. One day she was followed by her mother, a small woman who looked pained as her daughter wildly gestured and went on and on about some small item of trivia that she was determined to inflate to enormous proportions. Other days, her brother accompanied her and looked similarly pained. Sometimes the Drama Queen would arrive alone, restart previously unstarted conversations with us, as though we had all been waiting in breathless anticipation for the next installment of The Exciting World of the Drama Queen and I'm sure we too gave pained expressions.
The Drama Queen would be an ideal candidate for such programs as The Real World, or, better still, Flavor of Love, because she seems to exist in that same sort of hyper-reality those shows aim to capture. Everything revolves around her. We're all supposed to be terribly excited about her life and what's happening in it, regardless of how minor those happenings might be.
It took me a while to really quantify this behavior. It seemed familiar somehow, yet not exactly in the right context. Only after some thought did I finally realize where I'd seen this before: The Drama Queen was a Cell Phone Person without a cell phone; the very kind of soul who goes about loudly and publicly narrating the intricacies of their existence over their cell phone for all to hear, because damn if they aren't living interesting, complicated and, all-importantly, dramatic lives.
(As opposed to those of us who just blog about it--which may be the other reason this seemed so uncomfortably familiar.)
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Real Life Interruption
Gonna be a bit of radio silence here for the next couple of days.
We're back in North Carolina. Ashley's grandmother, Nonnie, passed away
around 1 Monday morning. It wasn't exactly an unexpected passing, as
her health had been rapidly declining over the past month. Tell the
truth, it's not been so hot over the past ten years since she had her
first major stroke, or the past five years or so since she's had to live
in assisted living homes and, finally, a nursing home. Mostly, it's
come as a relief, as the past couple of weeks have been rough going for
her health-wise and it's been pretty upsetting to her family. In the
end, she went out fairly comfortably.
According to Nonnie's roommate, Nonnie sat up in bed Sunday afternoon and said, "I'm going home, today." Within hours, she had.
According to Nonnie's roommate, Nonnie sat up in bed Sunday afternoon and said, "I'm going home, today." Within hours, she had.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Ad Infinitum
Yesterday morning, a lady patron came in, signed up for a computer,
then turned to me and said, "By the way. I was here last night and had
to buy a computer disc to save what I was working on, but the girl at
the desk wouldn't let me pay her because she said she had closed out the
cash box already. So, I owed her 50 cents." The lady then passed over
the 50 cents.
Now, I knew that newbie greenhorn Ms. S had been on shift the night before and I knew that she has a penchant for tallying up the cashbox as early in her shift as she possibly can. So I asked, "About what time was that?"
"Oh, right at 7," the lady said, though she could have said anything from 4:30 on and I would have believed it. While I wasn't surprised to hear of Ms. S refusing money for services rendered in order to get out of having to retally the cashbox, we've repeatedly—allow me to further stress, *REPEATEDLY* (and, if I were any kind of real web coder, that word would appear to be aflame, shooting fireworks from its ass and singing Deee-Lite's "Groove is in the Heart")—explained to her that if someone pays her for something after the cash box has been tallied, she is welcome to take their money, deposit it into the cash box, take out a new date due slip and stick it to the counter beside the fines and copier tally slip of the current day, forward the date due stamp ahead one day, stamp the top of the new slip and then write down the amount paid on it so that it will be accounted for the following day. Doing that, however, would have required effort, so it didn't get done.
The patron wasn't finished with her tale, though. As I logged her onto her computer, she explained that the reason she had to purchase a disc in the first place was because she had been cutting and pasting vital information from websites into a Word document for quite some time, but when Ms. S came back to tell her the library was soon to close she also told the lady that she couldn't print any of what she'd been pasting because "I've already shut off the printer for the day." Okay, this was a flat out lie because we never—NEHehehHEHHHVER— shut off the printer. It simply doesn't happen. It stays on all the time and was, in fact, on this morning when we opened. The last time that printer's off switch saw any action was over two years ago when the damned thing refused to print for us one day and I was forced to reason with it using something other than a stick. What Ms. S was really saying was, "I've already tallied up the cash box for the day, which I probably did at 6:02, and I'm too lazy to do any more math tonight so I don't want to accept any of your money for prints made. Instead, I'm just going to say I shut down the printer already, a lie I hope you'll completely swallow before going away."
I smiled as I listened to the story. The lady wasn't even complaining, though. In fact, she thought that she herself was in the wrong for daring to want to print something so close to closing time. She even commented that Ms. S was very nice about it all and had been very patient with her. I decided not to tell her that Ms. S was full of shit. Instead, I ran and tattled to my boss Mrs. A, who, in turn, became delighted to have more evidence—from a patron, no less—to prove that Ms. S STILL isn't doing her damned job right.
Later, when the other alphabet squad arrived, we discussed it.
"I think we're going to HAVE to tell her she's not allowed to count the cashbox until 7 p.m.," Mrs. A said.
"Well, no," I said. "She could count it earlier if she'd just put it on a new tally slip like we've told her to do again and again."
"No, no. That's something YOU can do if you count the cashbox early," Mrs. C said. "MS. S has to do it at 7. It's a special rule for her."
"Ah."
Now, I knew that newbie greenhorn Ms. S had been on shift the night before and I knew that she has a penchant for tallying up the cashbox as early in her shift as she possibly can. So I asked, "About what time was that?"
"Oh, right at 7," the lady said, though she could have said anything from 4:30 on and I would have believed it. While I wasn't surprised to hear of Ms. S refusing money for services rendered in order to get out of having to retally the cashbox, we've repeatedly—allow me to further stress, *REPEATEDLY* (and, if I were any kind of real web coder, that word would appear to be aflame, shooting fireworks from its ass and singing Deee-Lite's "Groove is in the Heart")—explained to her that if someone pays her for something after the cash box has been tallied, she is welcome to take their money, deposit it into the cash box, take out a new date due slip and stick it to the counter beside the fines and copier tally slip of the current day, forward the date due stamp ahead one day, stamp the top of the new slip and then write down the amount paid on it so that it will be accounted for the following day. Doing that, however, would have required effort, so it didn't get done.
The patron wasn't finished with her tale, though. As I logged her onto her computer, she explained that the reason she had to purchase a disc in the first place was because she had been cutting and pasting vital information from websites into a Word document for quite some time, but when Ms. S came back to tell her the library was soon to close she also told the lady that she couldn't print any of what she'd been pasting because "I've already shut off the printer for the day." Okay, this was a flat out lie because we never—NEHehehHEHHHVER— shut off the printer. It simply doesn't happen. It stays on all the time and was, in fact, on this morning when we opened. The last time that printer's off switch saw any action was over two years ago when the damned thing refused to print for us one day and I was forced to reason with it using something other than a stick. What Ms. S was really saying was, "I've already tallied up the cash box for the day, which I probably did at 6:02, and I'm too lazy to do any more math tonight so I don't want to accept any of your money for prints made. Instead, I'm just going to say I shut down the printer already, a lie I hope you'll completely swallow before going away."
I smiled as I listened to the story. The lady wasn't even complaining, though. In fact, she thought that she herself was in the wrong for daring to want to print something so close to closing time. She even commented that Ms. S was very nice about it all and had been very patient with her. I decided not to tell her that Ms. S was full of shit. Instead, I ran and tattled to my boss Mrs. A, who, in turn, became delighted to have more evidence—from a patron, no less—to prove that Ms. S STILL isn't doing her damned job right.
Later, when the other alphabet squad arrived, we discussed it.
"I think we're going to HAVE to tell her she's not allowed to count the cashbox until 7 p.m.," Mrs. A said.
"Well, no," I said. "She could count it earlier if she'd just put it on a new tally slip like we've told her to do again and again."
"No, no. That's something YOU can do if you count the cashbox early," Mrs. C said. "MS. S has to do it at 7. It's a special rule for her."
"Ah."
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Actual Telephone Conversations Heard in Actual Libraries #69 ("Awww yeah!")
*RING*
ME: Tri-Metro County Library?
BIRTHDAY LADY: Yes, could you tell me what year Yvonne DeCarl0 was born?
ME: Oh, did she die?
BIRTHDAY LADY: Yes. Yes, she did.
ME: Aw. (Types) Hang on just a sec... (Googles Yvonne DeCarl0 and brings up her entry in IMDB.) Looks like September 1, 1922.
BIRTHDAY LADY: Oh, good. (Writing) Sep-tember... first... What was it?
ME: 1922.
BIRTHDAY LADY: Nineteen... twenty... two. Did you ever see her in that picture with Clark Gable?
ME: No, I'm afraid not. I'm mostly familiar with her from the Munsters.
BIRTHDAY LADY: Yes, she played in that too, but she was in a picture with Clark Gable that was very good.
ME: I can imagine. I have an early picture of her on the screen here and she was quite beautiful.
BIRTHDAY LADY: Thank you so much.
ME: Tri-Metro County Library?
BIRTHDAY LADY: Yes, could you tell me what year Yvonne DeCarl0 was born?
ME: Oh, did she die?
BIRTHDAY LADY: Yes. Yes, she did.
ME: Aw. (Types) Hang on just a sec... (Googles Yvonne DeCarl0 and brings up her entry in IMDB.) Looks like September 1, 1922.
BIRTHDAY LADY: Oh, good. (Writing) Sep-tember... first... What was it?
ME: 1922.
BIRTHDAY LADY: Nineteen... twenty... two. Did you ever see her in that picture with Clark Gable?
ME: No, I'm afraid not. I'm mostly familiar with her from the Munsters.
BIRTHDAY LADY: Yes, she played in that too, but she was in a picture with Clark Gable that was very good.
ME: I can imagine. I have an early picture of her on the screen here and she was quite beautiful.
BIRTHDAY LADY: Thank you so much.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Finding Nanci
For Christmas, my wife got me a Creative Zen Vision-M.
It's a 30 gig (welllll 27.3 gig, really) digital music playing
wonderment. Thus far, I love it dearly. My only complaint is that it is
incapable of playing files ripped in either of Windows Media Player's
lossless digital formats, which is what I'd ripped nearly my entire CD
collection into some three months back. I sulked about this for a day or
so, figuring I'd have to either convert all those files to something
different, or re-rip everything in a slightly less lossless format.
I opted to rerip.
I know, I know, I can already hear the cries of "Don't do it! There's an easier way!" ringing out. You're far too late to sway me, though, for as of the writing of this very sentence, I have now reripped everything in the highest possible quality otherwise that the player will play and soon 98 percent of my CD collection will be stored on this fabulous little device. (Even now, the CD drawer has popped out, having successfully ripped You Are Here #5, a compilation CD given to me as a bonus for spending so much money at Criminal Records in Atlanta, some eightornine years ago.)
The thing about CDs, though—actual CDs—is that every once in a while you lose one. Or you lose its case only. Or you lose the liner notes. Whatever. For a good while now, I have been missing the CD to Nanci Griffith's album Flyer. I had the case and the liner notes, but couldn't figure out what I could possibly have done with the CD that would cause it to become so lost. My only thought was that, some seven years ago, I'd somehow left it in my old car when I traded it in for the current one. But that didn't make sense, either, as I clearly remember listening to it since then. Perhaps not since I'd moved to WV, mind you, but certainly since the advent of the Malibu in early 2000. So, as you can see, years have passed with this empty case in my possession, hauled along with all 360 or so of my other CDS, from house to house and state to state, every time we've moved.
This morning, as I entered the home stretch of CD ripping, I found Nanci. The little minx had apparently been shacking up with the boys from The Why Store, for I found her snuggled up beside their album Two Beasts as I was about to rip that. I hadn't ripped Two Beasts during my original, ill-fated CD ripping project, three months ago. I had, however, finally tossed the case and liner notes to Flyer figuring 6 years was long enough for Nanci to have returned on her own. If you love something, set it free, and all that.
So now, Nanci Griffith is homeless.
Maybe I can get Toad the Wet Sprocket's Dulcinea to take her in.
I opted to rerip.
I know, I know, I can already hear the cries of "Don't do it! There's an easier way!" ringing out. You're far too late to sway me, though, for as of the writing of this very sentence, I have now reripped everything in the highest possible quality otherwise that the player will play and soon 98 percent of my CD collection will be stored on this fabulous little device. (Even now, the CD drawer has popped out, having successfully ripped You Are Here #5, a compilation CD given to me as a bonus for spending so much money at Criminal Records in Atlanta, some eightornine years ago.)
The thing about CDs, though—actual CDs—is that every once in a while you lose one. Or you lose its case only. Or you lose the liner notes. Whatever. For a good while now, I have been missing the CD to Nanci Griffith's album Flyer. I had the case and the liner notes, but couldn't figure out what I could possibly have done with the CD that would cause it to become so lost. My only thought was that, some seven years ago, I'd somehow left it in my old car when I traded it in for the current one. But that didn't make sense, either, as I clearly remember listening to it since then. Perhaps not since I'd moved to WV, mind you, but certainly since the advent of the Malibu in early 2000. So, as you can see, years have passed with this empty case in my possession, hauled along with all 360 or so of my other CDS, from house to house and state to state, every time we've moved.
This morning, as I entered the home stretch of CD ripping, I found Nanci. The little minx had apparently been shacking up with the boys from The Why Store, for I found her snuggled up beside their album Two Beasts as I was about to rip that. I hadn't ripped Two Beasts during my original, ill-fated CD ripping project, three months ago. I had, however, finally tossed the case and liner notes to Flyer figuring 6 years was long enough for Nanci to have returned on her own. If you love something, set it free, and all that.
So now, Nanci Griffith is homeless.
Maybe I can get Toad the Wet Sprocket's Dulcinea to take her in.
Monday, January 08, 2007
Johnny "Print-Server" saves the day
Since I started working at the "liberry" in 2001, every coupleathree
months, or so, one of our computer patrons prances up to the circ-desk,
asks for the prints they just made from their computer and then deposits
a square brick of poop into their undies when we pass over the half
ream of paper they printed.
"But I didn't print this much," they invariably say. And we always know what will follow... "I just wanted to print that one little paragraph."
"Uh huh," we say. And, again, we know what will follow, for this is the point at which they tell us that they highlighted the one little paragraph of text they wanted to print on the massive website they wanted to print from and then hit print, honestly expecting that only the one little paragraph would print.
The last time this happened, I was finally fed up with it.
"Yeah," I said, "people keep telling us that highlighting and hitting print works, but I have never—NeHeHEHHHHVER—actually known it to. It prints the entire website EVERY single time."
"Oh. But I was told..."
"EVERY. SINGLE. TIME."
That's when a separate and unrelated patron, who happened to wander in and overhear this transaction, stepped over and said, "Did you set the print range to SELECTED?"
"Um. What?"
The eavesdropping patron then explained something I'd never heard before: when you only want to print only your highlighted text, you have to go FILE > PRINT > and within the PAGE RANGE part of the print menu, click the dot by SELECTED. Then and only then will it print exclusively your highlighted selection.
"Huh. I did not know that," I said. "Thanks, Wandering, Eavesdropping Print-Advisor!" Okay, I didn't say that last part, but I was thinking it.
This, of course, won't put a stop to the problem at hand of patrons printing entire websites when they only wanted a sentence, but at least when they complain about doing so, I'll now know precisely how to convey how much it is still their their fault.
"But I didn't print this much," they invariably say. And we always know what will follow... "I just wanted to print that one little paragraph."
"Uh huh," we say. And, again, we know what will follow, for this is the point at which they tell us that they highlighted the one little paragraph of text they wanted to print on the massive website they wanted to print from and then hit print, honestly expecting that only the one little paragraph would print.
The last time this happened, I was finally fed up with it.
"Yeah," I said, "people keep telling us that highlighting and hitting print works, but I have never—NeHeHEHHHHVER—actually known it to. It prints the entire website EVERY single time."
"Oh. But I was told..."
"EVERY. SINGLE. TIME."
That's when a separate and unrelated patron, who happened to wander in and overhear this transaction, stepped over and said, "Did you set the print range to SELECTED?"
"Um. What?"
The eavesdropping patron then explained something I'd never heard before: when you only want to print only your highlighted text, you have to go FILE > PRINT > and within the PAGE RANGE part of the print menu, click the dot by SELECTED. Then and only then will it print exclusively your highlighted selection.
"Huh. I did not know that," I said. "Thanks, Wandering, Eavesdropping Print-Advisor!" Okay, I didn't say that last part, but I was thinking it.
This, of course, won't put a stop to the problem at hand of patrons printing entire websites when they only wanted a sentence, but at least when they complain about doing so, I'll now know precisely how to convey how much it is still their their fault.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Yosemite Sam vs. Mr. Little Stupid
An event too bizarre to not chronicle occurred in the "liberry" this week. ("What? Only one?")
Granny & Grandson arrived for some mid afternoon browsing and incessant whining, respectively. Grandson is perhaps the whiniest child I've ever encountered. He moves from shelf to shelf among the videos and kiddie books on tape and WHHIIIIIIIINES about what he wants what he wants what he wants. And Granny follows along telling him what he can't have and what he can have and not to pull down all the bagged books on tape while trying to get just one and to stop pulling down all the bagged books on tape AGAIN now that he's decided to do it anyway and to pick up all the bagged books on tape that he's now pulled down. He doesn't listen. He's already whining about something else.
As in accordance with tradition, Granny and Grandson began approaching the circ desk with their choices only to veer away at the last second and stay another five minutes browsing elsewhere. I knew the longer they stayed the better the chance that Yosemite Sam, no doubt waiting in the car, would get tired of waiting and come inside to find someone to inflict his presence upon, i.e. me. When the door opened, though, it was only Mr. Little Stupid who entered.
I've not mentioned it until now, but Mr. Little Stupid has been a more frequent sight at the "liberry" as of the past few months. It took me a little bit to realize who he was, as he's gained a bit of weight, now dresses in clothing other than overalls (for instance, the fetching Carrie Underw00d concert T-Shirt he had on during this incident) and no longer habitually carries the Girl Scouts binder. These days he still comes in to use the computer, but no longer requires a lengthy and identical tutorial before every session.
Mr. Little Stupid was on his way to the computer sign in sheet when Granny & Grandson decided they were indeed finished and hauled their choices up to the desk, blocking Mr. Little Stupid from access to the sheet.
The door opened and Yosemite Sam stepped in, surveyed the room and siddled up to the desk. Sam seemed to take an immediate interest in Mr. Little Stupid, much like a lion might take interest in a wounded gazelle. Before he could say anything, though, Granny noticed Mr. Little Stupid's shirt, took a deep intake of breath and squealed to Grandson, "Look who he has on his shiiiiirt!"
"Who?" Grandson said.
"Carrie Underw000000d!!!" Grandma said in amazement.
Mr. Little Stupid looked nervous about this sudden attention. He became even moreso when Sam said, "Where'd you get that?"
"Um... at the Carrie Underw00d concert at the fair."
"Who is it?" Grandson repeated.
I was still furiously checking out Granny's selection when Sam noticed another item of Mr. Little Stupid's attire.
"Hey, those ain't real dog tags," Yosemite Sam said, pointing to two brightly colored decorative metal tags hanging around Mr. Little Stupid's neck.
"Um, no," Mr. Little Stupid said.
"Then what ya wearin' `em for?" Yosemite Sam said in an accusatory tone.
"Um, um, ah, um, what?" Mr. Little Stupid said.
"If they ain't real dog tags, what ya wearin' `em for?" I took from Sam's tone that he was a bit offended that someone would dare to wear dog tags with no personal military connection to speak of. Sam, I'm speculating, is a Vietnam vet, possibly of the bitter variety.
"I... um, I just like them," Mr. Little Stupid said.
I thought Sam might jump on this, but instead he let it pass, saying that he was just kidding around and that he knew men have to have their necklaces too. Then, not abandoning the military subject, he said, "You in the National Guard?"
Mr. Little Stupid explained that, no, he wasn't in the military at all, but worked for a local fast food establishment.
By this point, I'd finished with Granny's items and she'd gathered them up and headed for the door with Grandson. Sam made no move to leave. Instead, he continued on about how Mr. Little Stupid should join the national guard where he might get to wear real dog tags and perhaps see a firefight before it's all said and done. Better still, Mr. Little Stupid should come up and visit Yosemite Sam himself sometime because, as Sam put it, "I can show you a real firefight."
"SAM!" Granny barked from the doorway.
His back turned to Granny, Sam cut his eyes in what I took to be malevolent annoyance. Whatever the case, he looked plum evil to me. Granny departed and Sam turned back to his quarry, who was still twisting nervously in the web. Sam did eventually leave, but not before waiting what seemed to be an amount of time carefully measured to infuriate Granny and not without insulting Mr. Little Stupid's receding hairline using a jovially toned Good Ol' Boy verbal jab.
After Sam was gone, Mr. Little Stupid looked a bit weak, but signed up for his computer nevertheless, no doubt off to search up some Carrie Underw00d fan sites.
Granny & Grandson arrived for some mid afternoon browsing and incessant whining, respectively. Grandson is perhaps the whiniest child I've ever encountered. He moves from shelf to shelf among the videos and kiddie books on tape and WHHIIIIIIIINES about what he wants what he wants what he wants. And Granny follows along telling him what he can't have and what he can have and not to pull down all the bagged books on tape while trying to get just one and to stop pulling down all the bagged books on tape AGAIN now that he's decided to do it anyway and to pick up all the bagged books on tape that he's now pulled down. He doesn't listen. He's already whining about something else.
As in accordance with tradition, Granny and Grandson began approaching the circ desk with their choices only to veer away at the last second and stay another five minutes browsing elsewhere. I knew the longer they stayed the better the chance that Yosemite Sam, no doubt waiting in the car, would get tired of waiting and come inside to find someone to inflict his presence upon, i.e. me. When the door opened, though, it was only Mr. Little Stupid who entered.
I've not mentioned it until now, but Mr. Little Stupid has been a more frequent sight at the "liberry" as of the past few months. It took me a little bit to realize who he was, as he's gained a bit of weight, now dresses in clothing other than overalls (for instance, the fetching Carrie Underw00d concert T-Shirt he had on during this incident) and no longer habitually carries the Girl Scouts binder. These days he still comes in to use the computer, but no longer requires a lengthy and identical tutorial before every session.
Mr. Little Stupid was on his way to the computer sign in sheet when Granny & Grandson decided they were indeed finished and hauled their choices up to the desk, blocking Mr. Little Stupid from access to the sheet.
The door opened and Yosemite Sam stepped in, surveyed the room and siddled up to the desk. Sam seemed to take an immediate interest in Mr. Little Stupid, much like a lion might take interest in a wounded gazelle. Before he could say anything, though, Granny noticed Mr. Little Stupid's shirt, took a deep intake of breath and squealed to Grandson, "Look who he has on his shiiiiirt!"
"Who?" Grandson said.
"Carrie Underw000000d!!!" Grandma said in amazement.
Mr. Little Stupid looked nervous about this sudden attention. He became even moreso when Sam said, "Where'd you get that?"
"Um... at the Carrie Underw00d concert at the fair."
"Who is it?" Grandson repeated.
I was still furiously checking out Granny's selection when Sam noticed another item of Mr. Little Stupid's attire.
"Hey, those ain't real dog tags," Yosemite Sam said, pointing to two brightly colored decorative metal tags hanging around Mr. Little Stupid's neck.
"Um, no," Mr. Little Stupid said.
"Then what ya wearin' `em for?" Yosemite Sam said in an accusatory tone.
"Um, um, ah, um, what?" Mr. Little Stupid said.
"If they ain't real dog tags, what ya wearin' `em for?" I took from Sam's tone that he was a bit offended that someone would dare to wear dog tags with no personal military connection to speak of. Sam, I'm speculating, is a Vietnam vet, possibly of the bitter variety.
"I... um, I just like them," Mr. Little Stupid said.
I thought Sam might jump on this, but instead he let it pass, saying that he was just kidding around and that he knew men have to have their necklaces too. Then, not abandoning the military subject, he said, "You in the National Guard?"
Mr. Little Stupid explained that, no, he wasn't in the military at all, but worked for a local fast food establishment.
By this point, I'd finished with Granny's items and she'd gathered them up and headed for the door with Grandson. Sam made no move to leave. Instead, he continued on about how Mr. Little Stupid should join the national guard where he might get to wear real dog tags and perhaps see a firefight before it's all said and done. Better still, Mr. Little Stupid should come up and visit Yosemite Sam himself sometime because, as Sam put it, "I can show you a real firefight."
"SAM!" Granny barked from the doorway.
His back turned to Granny, Sam cut his eyes in what I took to be malevolent annoyance. Whatever the case, he looked plum evil to me. Granny departed and Sam turned back to his quarry, who was still twisting nervously in the web. Sam did eventually leave, but not before waiting what seemed to be an amount of time carefully measured to infuriate Granny and not without insulting Mr. Little Stupid's receding hairline using a jovially toned Good Ol' Boy verbal jab.
After Sam was gone, Mr. Little Stupid looked a bit weak, but signed up for his computer nevertheless, no doubt off to search up some Carrie Underw00d fan sites.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Happy new year to me!
As I walked up to the door of the "liberry" yesterday, to put in my
first day at work of 2007, I saw a glorious thing taped into one of the
glass panes of our front door. It was a paper sign that read: "We now
have wireless access!" What wonders a new year brings! Us, with WIRELESS! I never thought I'd never live to see the day.
I did a little dance on our front doorstep and then cautiously entered the building, bracing myself in case it was just a cruel joke on me. It wasn't!
Mrs. C showed me the new three-buttoned, paper-tape-spitting, plastic thing that now lives by the answering machine. Now when a patron comes in and asks if we have wireless, instead of kicking them in the junk and shoving them in the general direction of Ornathological Coffee—the nearest wireless access point whose signal we've often leached off of—I am to ask them "Would you like one hour, or two?" (Or four, really; the paper spitty thing has three buttons, after all.) I then hit the corresponding button to their request and the spitty thing spits out a piece of paper with their login information, all purty and convenient.
So far, we've only had one guy who's taken any notice—a fellow I kicked in the junk and shoved down the street just last week. Who knew?
I did a little dance on our front doorstep and then cautiously entered the building, bracing myself in case it was just a cruel joke on me. It wasn't!
Mrs. C showed me the new three-buttoned, paper-tape-spitting, plastic thing that now lives by the answering machine. Now when a patron comes in and asks if we have wireless, instead of kicking them in the junk and shoving them in the general direction of Ornathological Coffee—the nearest wireless access point whose signal we've often leached off of—I am to ask them "Would you like one hour, or two?" (Or four, really; the paper spitty thing has three buttons, after all.) I then hit the corresponding button to their request and the spitty thing spits out a piece of paper with their login information, all purty and convenient.
So far, we've only had one guy who's taken any notice—a fellow I kicked in the junk and shoved down the street just last week. Who knew?
Friday, December 29, 2006
Christmas Party, the fifth
The wife and I attended the Christmas party for my writing workshop
last night. For the past few years it's been held at the bed &
breakfast run by one of our members, everyone brings great food and wine
and a fine time is had scarfing it down. Then, afterward, we have
readings of some of our latest material or Christmas related stuff. This
year, though, our b&b member has sold his b&b and so we
had to have it at a local tea-dispensing establishment, where we dined
on heavy `horse's doovers' and then did the readings.
At the end, Linda, our nefarious leader, asked us for our best Christmas memories of things we found in our Christmas stockings. Most of our class is of an age where they can remember being terribly excited to receive fruit in their stocking. We think nothing today of popping down to the market for a nice pineapple, but such exotic conveniences are a relatively recent thing, even in this country, particularly in rural areas of my state. My family never did much with stockings, growing up, so I had no memories of that. However, I did speak of a relatively recent Christmas memory of a gift I still treasure.
In the summer of 1980 I saw my first episode of the British science fiction show Doctor Who. It was an episode somewhere in the middle of the story "Revenge of the Cybermen." I was instantly transfixed by the universe presented to me, its chief resident, the Doctor, his lovely companion Sarah Jane Smith and, to a far lesser extent, his other companion Harry Sullivan. I was hooked from that moment and hungrilly sought out all things Doctor Who, from the books about the show, to the novelizations, to magazine articles, to the comics and to, eventually, the toys.
Though I didn't quite vocalize it at the time, what I wanted most in the world as a 4th grader was a Doctor Who scarf just like the one worn by Tom Baker on the show. (Yeah, I know, there were like 5 of them.) It was such a monstrous thing in both length and color scheme, but I adored the show and therefore adored the fashion sense of its characters. At the time, I didn't even consider that I might one day have an actual scarf like it. That sort of thing was only found on TV, as far as my 9 year old brain was concerned. Instead, I borrowed a muffler from my dad's then girlfriend, Nell, which I still have not returned. It looked nothing like the Doctor's scarf, being white and with tied off tassles on the end, but it was all I had and I wore it habitually.
Time travel ahead a decade or so. My friend Joe and I took a weekend trip to Hotlanta and happened to find a Nerd Shop, somewhere on the outskirts of the city. We were nearly finished with our shopping and were on the way to the counter to check out when there, lying coiled in a basket like a multi-colored snake, we spyed a single Doctor Who scarf. It was a thing of beauty and we both coveted it. However, because there was only one scarf and two of us, neither of us could purchase it for fear of drawing the eternal jealous ire of the other. If we had bought it, we would have had to work out some kind of time share deal and that seemed unwieldy. Later, I was able to search out a knitting pattern for such a scarf on a Doctor Who Usenet newsgroup, but I didn't know anyone who could knit.
Time travel ahead another decade. I'm married to a wonderful woman who had the good fortune to have been given birth by another wonderful woman, my Ma-In-Law. Ma, I learned early on, is a crafty soul who can knit all sorts of yarny goodness, if of a mind. It took me a couple of years, but slowly it dawned on me that here was a gal who COULD knit and who loved me enough that she might do me up a scarf if I asked real sweet. On Thanksgiving, in 2002, I even brought the subject up to my wife, Ashley, and asked if she thought Ma might be willing. Ashley said, no way and that a Doctor Who scarf would take forever to knit and Ma just didn't have that kind of time.
One short month later, a day or so from Christmas, we were back in North Carolina visiting family for a day before heading toward Mississippi. I was sitting in a chair, watching TV when Ashley and Ma approached carrying a double lined grocery bag, tied off by its straps. They passed it to me and stood smiling down. I took it, not even suspecting what might be inside. As I was trying to untie the straps, I caught a glimpse of knitting through the top and instantly knew what it was. Deep inside me, the 4th grade version of me snapped to attention and I began clapping my nuts N bolts stained forearms together in pure 9 year old glee. At long long last, I had my scarf. And a beautiful scarf it was, 17 feet of green and tan and brown and orange--just fantastic! Ma said it was the ugliest thing she'd ever created, but she was glad I liked it. I wrapped myself up in its length and soaked in the coolness of the very concept.
"You're gonna sleep with that thing, tonight, aren't you?" Ashley asked.
"Hell, yes, I'm going to sleep with it!" I said.
At the end, Linda, our nefarious leader, asked us for our best Christmas memories of things we found in our Christmas stockings. Most of our class is of an age where they can remember being terribly excited to receive fruit in their stocking. We think nothing today of popping down to the market for a nice pineapple, but such exotic conveniences are a relatively recent thing, even in this country, particularly in rural areas of my state. My family never did much with stockings, growing up, so I had no memories of that. However, I did speak of a relatively recent Christmas memory of a gift I still treasure.
In the summer of 1980 I saw my first episode of the British science fiction show Doctor Who. It was an episode somewhere in the middle of the story "Revenge of the Cybermen." I was instantly transfixed by the universe presented to me, its chief resident, the Doctor, his lovely companion Sarah Jane Smith and, to a far lesser extent, his other companion Harry Sullivan. I was hooked from that moment and hungrilly sought out all things Doctor Who, from the books about the show, to the novelizations, to magazine articles, to the comics and to, eventually, the toys.
Though I didn't quite vocalize it at the time, what I wanted most in the world as a 4th grader was a Doctor Who scarf just like the one worn by Tom Baker on the show. (Yeah, I know, there were like 5 of them.) It was such a monstrous thing in both length and color scheme, but I adored the show and therefore adored the fashion sense of its characters. At the time, I didn't even consider that I might one day have an actual scarf like it. That sort of thing was only found on TV, as far as my 9 year old brain was concerned. Instead, I borrowed a muffler from my dad's then girlfriend, Nell, which I still have not returned. It looked nothing like the Doctor's scarf, being white and with tied off tassles on the end, but it was all I had and I wore it habitually.
Time travel ahead a decade or so. My friend Joe and I took a weekend trip to Hotlanta and happened to find a Nerd Shop, somewhere on the outskirts of the city. We were nearly finished with our shopping and were on the way to the counter to check out when there, lying coiled in a basket like a multi-colored snake, we spyed a single Doctor Who scarf. It was a thing of beauty and we both coveted it. However, because there was only one scarf and two of us, neither of us could purchase it for fear of drawing the eternal jealous ire of the other. If we had bought it, we would have had to work out some kind of time share deal and that seemed unwieldy. Later, I was able to search out a knitting pattern for such a scarf on a Doctor Who Usenet newsgroup, but I didn't know anyone who could knit.
Time travel ahead another decade. I'm married to a wonderful woman who had the good fortune to have been given birth by another wonderful woman, my Ma-In-Law. Ma, I learned early on, is a crafty soul who can knit all sorts of yarny goodness, if of a mind. It took me a couple of years, but slowly it dawned on me that here was a gal who COULD knit and who loved me enough that she might do me up a scarf if I asked real sweet. On Thanksgiving, in 2002, I even brought the subject up to my wife, Ashley, and asked if she thought Ma might be willing. Ashley said, no way and that a Doctor Who scarf would take forever to knit and Ma just didn't have that kind of time.
One short month later, a day or so from Christmas, we were back in North Carolina visiting family for a day before heading toward Mississippi. I was sitting in a chair, watching TV when Ashley and Ma approached carrying a double lined grocery bag, tied off by its straps. They passed it to me and stood smiling down. I took it, not even suspecting what might be inside. As I was trying to untie the straps, I caught a glimpse of knitting through the top and instantly knew what it was. Deep inside me, the 4th grade version of me snapped to attention and I began clapping my nuts N bolts stained forearms together in pure 9 year old glee. At long long last, I had my scarf. And a beautiful scarf it was, 17 feet of green and tan and brown and orange--just fantastic! Ma said it was the ugliest thing she'd ever created, but she was glad I liked it. I wrapped myself up in its length and soaked in the coolness of the very concept.
"You're gonna sleep with that thing, tonight, aren't you?" Ashley asked.
"Hell, yes, I'm going to sleep with it!" I said.
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Got on the bad foot
As we were closed on Christmas Day, Birthday lady was unable to phone us to inquire as to James Brown's birthday, following his death. So, instead, she phoned yesterday.
In case you have Birthday ladies of your own, it was May 3, 1933.
Now, of course, she'll be calling back for Gerald Ford. His was July 14, 1913.
In case you have Birthday ladies of your own, it was May 3, 1933.
Now, of course, she'll be calling back for Gerald Ford. His was July 14, 1913.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Christmas Parties, the fourth and third
We're back from our Christmas weekend, spent mostly near Fort Bragg,
NC, where we had Christmas festivities at my sister-in-law Amber's
house. Beyond just Christmas, we were there to see off my
brother-in-law, Jim, who's headed to Afghanistan at some point in
January. It was a good time, hanging out with family of both the two and
four legged varieties, stuffing ourselves stupid on fantastic food and
never-ending snack tables and getting to meet family-in-law I'd not met
before. The entire weekend amounted to a fourth Christmas party.
As to the third...
Back on Friday, our 8 a.m. Christmas party at the "liberry" went very well. I had to get up ass-crack of 6:15 to bake up my breakfast egg dish, because I'd forgotten to prepare it the day before. So I baked some eggy, cheesy, potatoey, sausagy, peppers & onionsy goodness and hauled it in to work to take its place along side the breakfast foods of my coworkers. We were all there, except Ms. S, who had to work at her other job. We replaced her with Mrs. S, the "liberrian" from Town-C. Tasty breakfast was consumed and theme gift baskets filled and exchanged.
My theory that many cookies could be had for under $5 each was correct, though not quite in the way I expected. My basket was overflowing with cookies, but except for the mason jar full of dry cookie ingredients given to me by Mrs. B, none of them were home made and many were of the Christmas cookie variety. Being Christmas time, this was okay, though I must confess I would have been just as happy with six packages of Oreos or Nutter Butters. (No Droxies!)
My only miscalculation was how much eggy, cheesy, potatoey, sausagy, peppers & onionsy goodness to bring. I baked a full lasagna dish and was actually worried that it might not be enough. However, with ALL the other food we had on hand, most of us just took a small square of the egg dish and still had a plate full of other stuff. Our stomachs were quickly packed, so I wound up taking more than half of it home to my houseguests. I will note happily, though, that Mrs. J, possibly the pickiest human being on the planet when it comes to food, went back for seconds of my dish. That's a Christmas miracle on its own.
As to the third...
Back on Friday, our 8 a.m. Christmas party at the "liberry" went very well. I had to get up ass-crack of 6:15 to bake up my breakfast egg dish, because I'd forgotten to prepare it the day before. So I baked some eggy, cheesy, potatoey, sausagy, peppers & onionsy goodness and hauled it in to work to take its place along side the breakfast foods of my coworkers. We were all there, except Ms. S, who had to work at her other job. We replaced her with Mrs. S, the "liberrian" from Town-C. Tasty breakfast was consumed and theme gift baskets filled and exchanged.
My theory that many cookies could be had for under $5 each was correct, though not quite in the way I expected. My basket was overflowing with cookies, but except for the mason jar full of dry cookie ingredients given to me by Mrs. B, none of them were home made and many were of the Christmas cookie variety. Being Christmas time, this was okay, though I must confess I would have been just as happy with six packages of Oreos or Nutter Butters. (No Droxies!)
My only miscalculation was how much eggy, cheesy, potatoey, sausagy, peppers & onionsy goodness to bring. I baked a full lasagna dish and was actually worried that it might not be enough. However, with ALL the other food we had on hand, most of us just took a small square of the egg dish and still had a plate full of other stuff. Our stomachs were quickly packed, so I wound up taking more than half of it home to my houseguests. I will note happily, though, that Mrs. J, possibly the pickiest human being on the planet when it comes to food, went back for seconds of my dish. That's a Christmas miracle on its own.
Friday, December 22, 2006
Board Report
Every couple of weeks, when it gets close to pay day, one of the
members of the "liberry's" board of directors comes around to sign
paychecks. We always hope and pray it's Mrs. Em or Mrs. Aitch.
Unfortunately, it's often Mrs. Day.
Since Mr. Kreskin's departure, our board of directors has been composed of a pretty easy-going bunch of folks who stay out of our ass. However, if there's any ass-spelunking to be done, Mrs. Day is always the one to harness up due to the fact that she's been on the board since the Pliocene epoch and enjoys wielding that tenure whenever the opportunity presents. Mrs. Day is an old white woman in every sense of the phrase and she's not happy about anything, particularly when it comes to matters of money. See, Mrs. Day is among the inheritors of a major toiletries manufacturer and has more money than the Pope. For all her billions, though, she's prone to being very very cheap. Whenever she has to come in to sign checks, she questions every penny. She's particularly obsessive about it if the amount of pennies she's questioning is very small. Big checks don't cause her to even blink—she'll sign them right away—but the smaller the check, the more interested in its purpose she becomes. Petty cash checks are always of deep concern to her, but of even greater concern, due no doubt to their being exponentially smaller, are our paychecks.
Mrs. A warned me today that Mrs. Day was scheduled to come in after lunch to sign checks, so instead of eating lunch at the circ-desk, Mrs. A, Mrs. B and Mrs. J were going to retreat to Mrs. A's tiny office upstairs where they would sit, cramped around the desk to have their meal. This is because Mrs. Day has the mutant ability to sense when there are employees behind the circ desk and she can magically appear whenever there is an inconvenient number of them there—say, over one—thus catching us in the act of having too many employees being paid to stand around behind the desk with no justification. (She almost always comes to sign checks on a Thursday, when we have a greater concentration of employees on scene because of Story Hour, often at lunch time, when those employees are there, gathered behind the desk eating.)
Mrs. Day arrived about ten minutes into lunch. I wasn't surprised that she was early, since Mrs. Day has never been known to arrive at the time she has specified. Usually she arrives hours or, in one case, a day, late. And whenever she does appear, it's usually at the least convenient time possible. I smiled, greeted her and fetched the checkbook, then stood back to watch the show.
"Their salaries keep going up up up," Mrs. Day said in a disdainful tone as she signed. "I don't recall ever signing checks for such a high amount before." Then, as though sensing it was unbecoming to complain about the money earned by the staff in front of the staff, she added, "It's fantastic," in a less than thrilled tone. It didn't occur to me at the time, but Mrs. Day was probably correct about those being the largest payroll checks she'd ever signed. See, it's also Christmas bonus time, but unlike the last several years, in which we've received separate checks for our bonuses, this year the accountant advised Mrs. A to include the bonus amount in our normal paycheck so that FICA can be taken out. Mrs. A countered that this was bad, because that would lessen the bonus amount. Another board member, a wise man named Mr. Eggs, told her to just raise the bonus amount until the FICA deduction would leave the amount at the previous bonus level, so as not to cause any financial drain of our bonuses. Either no one thought to inform Mrs. Day about this, though, or they'd informed her and she just hadn't listened. (Gosh, I wonder which is the more likely of the two?)
"Is MRS. A in?" Mrs. Day asked.
"She's at lunch," I said, neglecting to mention exactly where she was at lunch.
"Hmm. Well, I did get here early," Mrs. Day said.
Ah, so she IS aware of her bad timing! Hell, she probably engineers it.
"How many employees are working today?" Mrs. Day asked.
"Um... four?" I said. Technically, we'd had five, but Mrs. C had gone home early. Mrs. Day nearly spit at this number, though. "There's just no excuse for that. There should NEVER be more than two people working. This place isn't that busy. The library doesn't have that kind of money. Four employees! It's wasteful."
Did I mention that despite her decades of service on the board, Mrs. Day remains the least informed as to how a library truly operates of any breathing creature to have ever walked the earth? Oh, she's the least informed, all right.
I thought about explaining the whole story hour thing and how we always have more employees on Thursday mornings than at any other time of the week. I thought about explaining that, sure, while it wasn't very busy at that moment, in five minutes we'd be deluged with patrons wanting to surf the internet on their lunch hour, etc. I thought about lecturing her on the subject of overdue notices and how we always run them on Thursdays when we have enough people to be able to check the shelves for them AND run the desk AND help patrons AND log computers on AND shelve books AND answer the damn phone. It wouldn't matter, though. She wouldn't listen. Instead, I decided to throw her a bone.
"Well, ma'am, I'll be gone in a few minutes and then we'll only have three employees."
"Hmmpf," she hmmpfed. "Don't you tell MRS. A I was complaining."
After Mrs. Day left, I took the checkbook up to Mrs. A so she could distribute the checks within. I told Mrs. A that Mrs. Day had been complaining. She wasn't surprised. What did surprise us, though, was that Mrs. Day had probably known I was going to rat her out and had planned her revenge accordingly, because my check was the only one Mrs. Day had neglected to sign.
Since Mr. Kreskin's departure, our board of directors has been composed of a pretty easy-going bunch of folks who stay out of our ass. However, if there's any ass-spelunking to be done, Mrs. Day is always the one to harness up due to the fact that she's been on the board since the Pliocene epoch and enjoys wielding that tenure whenever the opportunity presents. Mrs. Day is an old white woman in every sense of the phrase and she's not happy about anything, particularly when it comes to matters of money. See, Mrs. Day is among the inheritors of a major toiletries manufacturer and has more money than the Pope. For all her billions, though, she's prone to being very very cheap. Whenever she has to come in to sign checks, she questions every penny. She's particularly obsessive about it if the amount of pennies she's questioning is very small. Big checks don't cause her to even blink—she'll sign them right away—but the smaller the check, the more interested in its purpose she becomes. Petty cash checks are always of deep concern to her, but of even greater concern, due no doubt to their being exponentially smaller, are our paychecks.
Mrs. A warned me today that Mrs. Day was scheduled to come in after lunch to sign checks, so instead of eating lunch at the circ-desk, Mrs. A, Mrs. B and Mrs. J were going to retreat to Mrs. A's tiny office upstairs where they would sit, cramped around the desk to have their meal. This is because Mrs. Day has the mutant ability to sense when there are employees behind the circ desk and she can magically appear whenever there is an inconvenient number of them there—say, over one—thus catching us in the act of having too many employees being paid to stand around behind the desk with no justification. (She almost always comes to sign checks on a Thursday, when we have a greater concentration of employees on scene because of Story Hour, often at lunch time, when those employees are there, gathered behind the desk eating.)
Mrs. Day arrived about ten minutes into lunch. I wasn't surprised that she was early, since Mrs. Day has never been known to arrive at the time she has specified. Usually she arrives hours or, in one case, a day, late. And whenever she does appear, it's usually at the least convenient time possible. I smiled, greeted her and fetched the checkbook, then stood back to watch the show.
"Their salaries keep going up up up," Mrs. Day said in a disdainful tone as she signed. "I don't recall ever signing checks for such a high amount before." Then, as though sensing it was unbecoming to complain about the money earned by the staff in front of the staff, she added, "It's fantastic," in a less than thrilled tone. It didn't occur to me at the time, but Mrs. Day was probably correct about those being the largest payroll checks she'd ever signed. See, it's also Christmas bonus time, but unlike the last several years, in which we've received separate checks for our bonuses, this year the accountant advised Mrs. A to include the bonus amount in our normal paycheck so that FICA can be taken out. Mrs. A countered that this was bad, because that would lessen the bonus amount. Another board member, a wise man named Mr. Eggs, told her to just raise the bonus amount until the FICA deduction would leave the amount at the previous bonus level, so as not to cause any financial drain of our bonuses. Either no one thought to inform Mrs. Day about this, though, or they'd informed her and she just hadn't listened. (Gosh, I wonder which is the more likely of the two?)
"Is MRS. A in?" Mrs. Day asked.
"She's at lunch," I said, neglecting to mention exactly where she was at lunch.
"Hmm. Well, I did get here early," Mrs. Day said.
Ah, so she IS aware of her bad timing! Hell, she probably engineers it.
"How many employees are working today?" Mrs. Day asked.
"Um... four?" I said. Technically, we'd had five, but Mrs. C had gone home early. Mrs. Day nearly spit at this number, though. "There's just no excuse for that. There should NEVER be more than two people working. This place isn't that busy. The library doesn't have that kind of money. Four employees! It's wasteful."
Did I mention that despite her decades of service on the board, Mrs. Day remains the least informed as to how a library truly operates of any breathing creature to have ever walked the earth? Oh, she's the least informed, all right.
I thought about explaining the whole story hour thing and how we always have more employees on Thursday mornings than at any other time of the week. I thought about explaining that, sure, while it wasn't very busy at that moment, in five minutes we'd be deluged with patrons wanting to surf the internet on their lunch hour, etc. I thought about lecturing her on the subject of overdue notices and how we always run them on Thursdays when we have enough people to be able to check the shelves for them AND run the desk AND help patrons AND log computers on AND shelve books AND answer the damn phone. It wouldn't matter, though. She wouldn't listen. Instead, I decided to throw her a bone.
"Well, ma'am, I'll be gone in a few minutes and then we'll only have three employees."
"Hmmpf," she hmmpfed. "Don't you tell MRS. A I was complaining."
After Mrs. Day left, I took the checkbook up to Mrs. A so she could distribute the checks within. I told Mrs. A that Mrs. Day had been complaining. She wasn't surprised. What did surprise us, though, was that Mrs. Day had probably known I was going to rat her out and had planned her revenge accordingly, because my check was the only one Mrs. Day had neglected to sign.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Christmas Party, the second
Okay, we've now decided on the date for our "liberry" Christmas party. But that's not what I wanted to write about here.
No, we had a different sort of "liberry" Christmas party yesterday after our Friends of the Tri-Metro "Liberry" group bought us all lunch. I even came in an hour early to join in the festivities. We had a tasty sandwich variety platter from a local bakery along with a crock pot full of potato corn soup, chips and desserts. Mighty nice of `em.
As to our Christmas party theme, I should explain first that the year after I began working for the "liberry" we have always had to have a theme for our Christmas parties in order to limit the spending of our beloved Mrs. J. If we don't pick a fund-limiting theme and talk very sternly to her about sticking to it, she'll rush off and spend her entire paycheck on presents for us. (In many ways, we're the family she wishes was really family, because her own family is pretty awful. We've often threatened to adopt her in order to take away their visitation rights.) So, in year's past, we've chosen cookies as our theme, or comfort food, or something similarly cheap.
This year's theme is gift baskets. Mrs. A found very cheap, empty baskets and bought enough for each of us to have one. We were then asked to come up with a gift-buying theme for ourselves. For instance, Mrs. J needs stuff for her kitchen so Mrs. A told her to her choose KITCHEN STUFF for a theme. And since Mrs. B has like 5000 pictures of her first grandbaby laying around, she chose PICTURE FRAMES. (The themes were all supposed to done anonymously, so that no one knew whose theme was whose, but we're all good detectives so everyone knows everyone's theme now.) We then take our list of themes and go out and buy one item per theme, spending no more than $5, then we're to get together at some point and put our stuff in the baskets.
I decided to go with something a little less permanent and chose COOKIES as my theme. I chose this because I really like cookies and I know you can buy and/or make a lot of cookies for $5. I'll likely regret the decision, but I can always share.
And when do you think we chose to have our party? Why at 8 in the morning this Friday, of course! Yep. 8 in the morning, for a Christmas breakfast party. This was near about the only time we could all get together before Christmas and still wouldn't have to worry about needing someone to watch the desk. It wouldn't be so bad, except that I'm going to have friends from out of town staying overnight, who I'll have to temporarily abandon to run off and party. Maybe we can take them to the new pub down the street and get them faced on Guinness, the night before. They'll sleep right through it.
No, we had a different sort of "liberry" Christmas party yesterday after our Friends of the Tri-Metro "Liberry" group bought us all lunch. I even came in an hour early to join in the festivities. We had a tasty sandwich variety platter from a local bakery along with a crock pot full of potato corn soup, chips and desserts. Mighty nice of `em.
As to our Christmas party theme, I should explain first that the year after I began working for the "liberry" we have always had to have a theme for our Christmas parties in order to limit the spending of our beloved Mrs. J. If we don't pick a fund-limiting theme and talk very sternly to her about sticking to it, she'll rush off and spend her entire paycheck on presents for us. (In many ways, we're the family she wishes was really family, because her own family is pretty awful. We've often threatened to adopt her in order to take away their visitation rights.) So, in year's past, we've chosen cookies as our theme, or comfort food, or something similarly cheap.
This year's theme is gift baskets. Mrs. A found very cheap, empty baskets and bought enough for each of us to have one. We were then asked to come up with a gift-buying theme for ourselves. For instance, Mrs. J needs stuff for her kitchen so Mrs. A told her to her choose KITCHEN STUFF for a theme. And since Mrs. B has like 5000 pictures of her first grandbaby laying around, she chose PICTURE FRAMES. (The themes were all supposed to done anonymously, so that no one knew whose theme was whose, but we're all good detectives so everyone knows everyone's theme now.) We then take our list of themes and go out and buy one item per theme, spending no more than $5, then we're to get together at some point and put our stuff in the baskets.
I decided to go with something a little less permanent and chose COOKIES as my theme. I chose this because I really like cookies and I know you can buy and/or make a lot of cookies for $5. I'll likely regret the decision, but I can always share.
And when do you think we chose to have our party? Why at 8 in the morning this Friday, of course! Yep. 8 in the morning, for a Christmas breakfast party. This was near about the only time we could all get together before Christmas and still wouldn't have to worry about needing someone to watch the desk. It wouldn't be so bad, except that I'm going to have friends from out of town staying overnight, who I'll have to temporarily abandon to run off and party. Maybe we can take them to the new pub down the street and get them faced on Guinness, the night before. They'll sleep right through it.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Christmas Party, the first
Ash and I headed out to a Christmas party, last night (no, not the
"liberry's" party, which we have not yet decided a date for, though we
do have an interesting theme for gift exchanging). The host of the party
was a fellow I know from church and from The Outdoor Drama What I Did for the Past Two Summers.
I've been to parties at his place before and know them to be enjoyable
and food-laden events not to be missed. Most of the people at this party
were folks I didn't know, being friends of the host. But I did
recognize one lady there as a patron at the library and she me--or so I
thought.
We had just arrived and I was on my way to the enormous food buffet on a quest to stuff little cheesy fried sausage balls down my gob when the woman spied me and waved me over. I think she even called me by name, though it was sort of loud so I can't be sure. She introduced me to a fellow she said was her nephew and then told him that I was doing a great job "teaching for us." As inaccurate as that sounded, I decided to just let it go in favor of politely excusing myself to the buffet. But she wouldn't let it go.
"You've been at TRI-METRO HIGH for how long, now?"
"Er... I'm not."
She blinked at me for a second then said, "Oh... well... I mean, not now, but you were there?"
"Nooo," I said. "No. Not me."
"Sure, I've seen you there," she said, rather insistently. "I remember seeing you there."
"I'm not a teacher," I said.
The woman stared at me, as though I were making this up. "You're not teaching now, but you were at TRI-HIGH," she said, as though trying to give me an out from my lie.
"Er... uhm... " I said. It didn't occur to me to just tell her, No, actually, you know me from the library where I've had to bust you and your boyfriend off the computers on several occasions, not to mention that I've had to teach, reteach and reteach again the process of attaching files to email to your boyfriend, who's about the most technophobic human being I've ever met and who was nearly in a nervous fit over the process, mananged to screw it all up twice after having FINALLY attached all the files he'd intended to attach and then nearly peed himself begging me to help him do it again, as though I was actually going to deny him assistance. No. Instead, I plunged further down the awkward road of denial.
"I think the only time I've ever been to TRI-HIGH was when I once rehearsed there with the chorale."
"Ohhhhhh," she said, as though the light had suddenly gone on in her head. "That's where!"
Never mind the fact that our chorale rehearsal had been on a Saturday and she had not been there. I decided to let that lie, now that the ajar door of her world seemed firmly shut again. I imagine we'll run into one another at the "liberry" soon enough. I also imagine she'll have no recollection of any of this.
We had just arrived and I was on my way to the enormous food buffet on a quest to stuff little cheesy fried sausage balls down my gob when the woman spied me and waved me over. I think she even called me by name, though it was sort of loud so I can't be sure. She introduced me to a fellow she said was her nephew and then told him that I was doing a great job "teaching for us." As inaccurate as that sounded, I decided to just let it go in favor of politely excusing myself to the buffet. But she wouldn't let it go.
"You've been at TRI-METRO HIGH for how long, now?"
"Er... I'm not."
She blinked at me for a second then said, "Oh... well... I mean, not now, but you were there?"
"Nooo," I said. "No. Not me."
"Sure, I've seen you there," she said, rather insistently. "I remember seeing you there."
"I'm not a teacher," I said.
The woman stared at me, as though I were making this up. "You're not teaching now, but you were at TRI-HIGH," she said, as though trying to give me an out from my lie.
"Er... uhm... " I said. It didn't occur to me to just tell her, No, actually, you know me from the library where I've had to bust you and your boyfriend off the computers on several occasions, not to mention that I've had to teach, reteach and reteach again the process of attaching files to email to your boyfriend, who's about the most technophobic human being I've ever met and who was nearly in a nervous fit over the process, mananged to screw it all up twice after having FINALLY attached all the files he'd intended to attach and then nearly peed himself begging me to help him do it again, as though I was actually going to deny him assistance. No. Instead, I plunged further down the awkward road of denial.
"I think the only time I've ever been to TRI-HIGH was when I once rehearsed there with the chorale."
"Ohhhhhh," she said, as though the light had suddenly gone on in her head. "That's where!"
Never mind the fact that our chorale rehearsal had been on a Saturday and she had not been there. I decided to let that lie, now that the ajar door of her world seemed firmly shut again. I imagine we'll run into one another at the "liberry" soon enough. I also imagine she'll have no recollection of any of this.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Actual Conversations Heard in Actual Libraries #68
(Setting: My "liberry." A large and repulsively stinky
man—stinkier still than Mr. Stanky himself—arrives and signs up for a
computer. Our computers are all full and a female patron is already
waiting for the one that's about to become available.)
ME— It's going to be a few minutes before we have a computer for you.
MR. STANKIER— Oh, do you think so?
ME— Yeah, I'm pretty sure.
(I go back to the computer hall, see that there is now a free computer, log it off and back on and then start back up front to tell the female patron her computer is ready. As I pass through the children's room, Mr. Stankier is on his way back to the computer hall.)
MR. STANKIER— So, you got me fixed up?
ME— (Pause) No. No, I don't. Like I said, it's going to be a few minutes before we have a computer available for you.
MR. STANKIER— Oh. A few minutes, then?
ME— Yes.
(What I really want to say to him, though, is: "What the hell is it with all the large, rock stupid, foul and stinky patrons we seem to attract? Is there a club of you guys I'm unaware of? And does it meet in the ass of a dead dog?")
ME— It's going to be a few minutes before we have a computer for you.
MR. STANKIER— Oh, do you think so?
ME— Yeah, I'm pretty sure.
(I go back to the computer hall, see that there is now a free computer, log it off and back on and then start back up front to tell the female patron her computer is ready. As I pass through the children's room, Mr. Stankier is on his way back to the computer hall.)
MR. STANKIER— So, you got me fixed up?
ME— (Pause) No. No, I don't. Like I said, it's going to be a few minutes before we have a computer available for you.
MR. STANKIER— Oh. A few minutes, then?
ME— Yes.
(What I really want to say to him, though, is: "What the hell is it with all the large, rock stupid, foul and stinky patrons we seem to attract? Is there a club of you guys I'm unaware of? And does it meet in the ass of a dead dog?")
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Oops, spoke too soon
A lady patron arrived at the circ desk and alerted me we had an
interlibrary loan for her. I fetched it from our holds cabinet while the
lady patron dug in her purse for her card. This often happens with
ILL-seeking patrons, particularly in the past couple of years that we've
been enforcing the YES, YOU NEED YOUR DAMN CARD policy.
"Oh, no," I said, "we don't need your card for interlibrary loans."
"You don't?"
"No, ma'am."
"Well, I didn't think so, but I came in without my card the other day and the young lady here said I had to have it. I tried to explain that I never have for interlibrary loans before, but she wouldn't back down. By the time I'd walked back home to get it, I decided to just wait."
"Do you remember which day this was?" I asked, knowing the answer already.
"Mmm... a couple days ago. Probably Saturday."
"Ah. I see." Yep, I was right. Not surprisingly, it had been Newbie Greenhorn Ms. S being overzealous about her job. "Well, I apologize for that."
"Oh, it's no problem. I needed the walk."
The lady patron signed her ILL slip and left, at which point I turned to Mrs. C and we both exchanged looks of befuddlement at Ms. S's stupidity.
"What did she even...? Was she trying to...? Is it even possible? I mean, how could...?" I said.
"I don't know," Mrs. C said.
Our confusion may seem odd, but that's probably just because you don't know how ILLs work around here. We don't require a card for ILLs because we don't check them out on the patron's library card at all. The interlibrary loaned books, you see, are already checked out on OUR library's library card before they're even mailed to us. Once we receive it, we check the appropriate accordion file folder to see who wanted it locally, process that information into our ILL binder so that we have a record of the book's title, the patron requesting it and its due date, then we give it to that patron and have them sign the accompanying ILL slip to show that they received it. Again, we DO NOT check the book out to them on their library card. That screws up the whole process for us and for the other libraries, as once a book is checked out to a patron and not a library it suddenly becomes subject to a much less generous loan time (say 2 weeks instead of a month) and causes other problems down the line. So the fact that Ms. S insisted on seeing a card might mean she's been checking the ILLs out on patron cards, screwing up not only our library but others as well.
The madness--it's spreading!
"Oh, no," I said, "we don't need your card for interlibrary loans."
"You don't?"
"No, ma'am."
"Well, I didn't think so, but I came in without my card the other day and the young lady here said I had to have it. I tried to explain that I never have for interlibrary loans before, but she wouldn't back down. By the time I'd walked back home to get it, I decided to just wait."
"Do you remember which day this was?" I asked, knowing the answer already.
"Mmm... a couple days ago. Probably Saturday."
"Ah. I see." Yep, I was right. Not surprisingly, it had been Newbie Greenhorn Ms. S being overzealous about her job. "Well, I apologize for that."
"Oh, it's no problem. I needed the walk."
The lady patron signed her ILL slip and left, at which point I turned to Mrs. C and we both exchanged looks of befuddlement at Ms. S's stupidity.
"What did she even...? Was she trying to...? Is it even possible? I mean, how could...?" I said.
"I don't know," Mrs. C said.
Our confusion may seem odd, but that's probably just because you don't know how ILLs work around here. We don't require a card for ILLs because we don't check them out on the patron's library card at all. The interlibrary loaned books, you see, are already checked out on OUR library's library card before they're even mailed to us. Once we receive it, we check the appropriate accordion file folder to see who wanted it locally, process that information into our ILL binder so that we have a record of the book's title, the patron requesting it and its due date, then we give it to that patron and have them sign the accompanying ILL slip to show that they received it. Again, we DO NOT check the book out to them on their library card. That screws up the whole process for us and for the other libraries, as once a book is checked out to a patron and not a library it suddenly becomes subject to a much less generous loan time (say 2 weeks instead of a month) and causes other problems down the line. So the fact that Ms. S insisted on seeing a card might mean she's been checking the ILLs out on patron cards, screwing up not only our library but others as well.
The madness--it's spreading!
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Auxiliary Trouble (or "Ms. S finally gets one right")
My once-a-month Monday shift went pretty smoothly, yesterday. The
only real incident I had came with a 4p arrival of Brent &
Brice: The New Devil Twins.
I've not seen much of the Devil Twins in a while, particularly after all the confusion we had with them back in June, during which we finally learned which of them was which and that, while they are brothers, they aren't actually twins in the first place. In the intervening months, Brice—the shorter brother, whose patron record fines tab was the far scarier of the two—actually brought all his books back or otherwise paid his fines, so he's been allowed to use the computers again. Brent, the taller one, still has a LOOOOONG overdue book out and is still therefore banned from computer usage. This fact, however, didn't stop him from signing up for a computer in front of me, God and everybody when the two of them walked in Monday afternoon.
I didn't have computers for either of them at the time, so I sent them away to wait while I double checked both of their patron records to make sure at least one was still in Dutch with us. Yep. Brent still owes $60 in fines and/or book replacement fees. So I went back and broke the news to him that I couldn't let him use the computer until that was taken care of. He tried to act surprised about it, but I don't think his heart was really in his performance.
Jump to today.
Not long after I arrived, Mrs. C mentioned that the twins had been on scene during another incident over the weekend. She said that on Sunday she received a phone at home from infamous Newbie Greenhorn Ms. S, our weekend warrior womanning the desk. It seems that Brent & Brice were in the "liberry" along with two members of the Brent & Brice Auxiliary League of Neighborhood kids. (Of course, they were all using computers since Ms. S didn't remember that there were any banning issues involved.) At some point during their visit, Ms. S had gone upstairs to drop off some nonfiction and when she returned downstairs she spotted a member of the League—a 10 or 11 year old kid who I'll call Tony—behind the circ-desk. Tony saw that he'd been spotted, for Ms. S said they locked eyes, and he zipped from behind the desk. When confronted as to why he was behind the desk, he claimed he was trying to find a pen with which to sign up for a computer. (Because the can of pens RIGHT BEHIND the computer sign in sheet wasn't obvious enough, eh?)
Now, the thing you have to remember about Ms. S is that she's terified of our cash box and the possibility that she might somehow miscount it by three cents and get brought up on charges. We've tried to explain to her that as long as the count isn't wildly off, it's all right and that miscalculations happen. She remains in fear of the box. Also, being a very very slow human being in both mind and body, she likes to do the end-of-the-day cash count as early in her shift as she can get away with so she'll have plenty of time to count and recount and recount should something come up wrong. And, since we close at 5 on Sundays, she'd already done the cash count some time between 3:30 and 4p. Luckily, this meant she was already aware that there had been a $20 bill in the cash box, the very bill which she saw was missing following Tony's visit behind the circ-desk.
"What do I do?" she asked Mrs. C.
"I'll be there in a minute," Mrs. C told her.
Minutes later, Mrs. C arrived and the kids were all still in-house. Ms. S pointed her to Tony and Mrs. C asked to speak to him in private. She explained to Tony that Ms. S had seen him behind the desk, that he was NOT supposed to BE behind the desk and, while we were not going so far as to accuse him yet, we were now aware that there was a $20 bill missing from the cash box. Had he taken it? Tony claimed he had not taken it and reiterated that he was looking for a pen.
"In that case, is your mom home?" Mrs. C asked.
"Yeah."
"Would you call her for me?"
"Yeah."
Tony dialed, but said the number was busy. So Mrs. C passed the time by talking to Brent & Brice and the other League member present, alerting them to the situation and asking if they knew anything about it? They said they didn't and recommended she call Tony's mom again. So Mrs. C had Tony phone home again, got through this time and reached mom. Mrs. C explained the situation to Tony's mom, stressing again that we weren't accusing him but that evidence did seem to point in his direction. Tony's mom said that she'd never known him to steal, but that there was always a first time for it. She agreed to deal with the matter and return the money should she find it. Then, she asked to speak to Tony and, from his growing petrified expression, apparently gave him the what for.
Mrs. C was relieved. Ms. S was even more relieved.
Jump back to this morning. Mrs. J, our sexagenarian "liberry" ass., was straightening up around our restroom and noticed a $20 bill behind the trash can. So it would appear that Tony, knowing Ms. S had seen him, ditched the money rather than get caught with it.
We don't, at this point, know Tony's phone number to call his mom back and let her know, but that will be easy enough to find out. My suggestion, in the meantime, is that we put a little note behind the trash can that reads:
I've not seen much of the Devil Twins in a while, particularly after all the confusion we had with them back in June, during which we finally learned which of them was which and that, while they are brothers, they aren't actually twins in the first place. In the intervening months, Brice—the shorter brother, whose patron record fines tab was the far scarier of the two—actually brought all his books back or otherwise paid his fines, so he's been allowed to use the computers again. Brent, the taller one, still has a LOOOOONG overdue book out and is still therefore banned from computer usage. This fact, however, didn't stop him from signing up for a computer in front of me, God and everybody when the two of them walked in Monday afternoon.
I didn't have computers for either of them at the time, so I sent them away to wait while I double checked both of their patron records to make sure at least one was still in Dutch with us. Yep. Brent still owes $60 in fines and/or book replacement fees. So I went back and broke the news to him that I couldn't let him use the computer until that was taken care of. He tried to act surprised about it, but I don't think his heart was really in his performance.
Jump to today.
Not long after I arrived, Mrs. C mentioned that the twins had been on scene during another incident over the weekend. She said that on Sunday she received a phone at home from infamous Newbie Greenhorn Ms. S, our weekend warrior womanning the desk. It seems that Brent & Brice were in the "liberry" along with two members of the Brent & Brice Auxiliary League of Neighborhood kids. (Of course, they were all using computers since Ms. S didn't remember that there were any banning issues involved.) At some point during their visit, Ms. S had gone upstairs to drop off some nonfiction and when she returned downstairs she spotted a member of the League—a 10 or 11 year old kid who I'll call Tony—behind the circ-desk. Tony saw that he'd been spotted, for Ms. S said they locked eyes, and he zipped from behind the desk. When confronted as to why he was behind the desk, he claimed he was trying to find a pen with which to sign up for a computer. (Because the can of pens RIGHT BEHIND the computer sign in sheet wasn't obvious enough, eh?)
Now, the thing you have to remember about Ms. S is that she's terified of our cash box and the possibility that she might somehow miscount it by three cents and get brought up on charges. We've tried to explain to her that as long as the count isn't wildly off, it's all right and that miscalculations happen. She remains in fear of the box. Also, being a very very slow human being in both mind and body, she likes to do the end-of-the-day cash count as early in her shift as she can get away with so she'll have plenty of time to count and recount and recount should something come up wrong. And, since we close at 5 on Sundays, she'd already done the cash count some time between 3:30 and 4p. Luckily, this meant she was already aware that there had been a $20 bill in the cash box, the very bill which she saw was missing following Tony's visit behind the circ-desk.
"What do I do?" she asked Mrs. C.
"I'll be there in a minute," Mrs. C told her.
Minutes later, Mrs. C arrived and the kids were all still in-house. Ms. S pointed her to Tony and Mrs. C asked to speak to him in private. She explained to Tony that Ms. S had seen him behind the desk, that he was NOT supposed to BE behind the desk and, while we were not going so far as to accuse him yet, we were now aware that there was a $20 bill missing from the cash box. Had he taken it? Tony claimed he had not taken it and reiterated that he was looking for a pen.
"In that case, is your mom home?" Mrs. C asked.
"Yeah."
"Would you call her for me?"
"Yeah."
Tony dialed, but said the number was busy. So Mrs. C passed the time by talking to Brent & Brice and the other League member present, alerting them to the situation and asking if they knew anything about it? They said they didn't and recommended she call Tony's mom again. So Mrs. C had Tony phone home again, got through this time and reached mom. Mrs. C explained the situation to Tony's mom, stressing again that we weren't accusing him but that evidence did seem to point in his direction. Tony's mom said that she'd never known him to steal, but that there was always a first time for it. She agreed to deal with the matter and return the money should she find it. Then, she asked to speak to Tony and, from his growing petrified expression, apparently gave him the what for.
Mrs. C was relieved. Ms. S was even more relieved.
Jump back to this morning. Mrs. J, our sexagenarian "liberry" ass., was straightening up around our restroom and noticed a $20 bill behind the trash can. So it would appear that Tony, knowing Ms. S had seen him, ditched the money rather than get caught with it.
We don't, at this point, know Tony's phone number to call his mom back and let her know, but that will be easy enough to find out. My suggestion, in the meantime, is that we put a little note behind the trash can that reads:
Dear Tony,
So sorry, but we're afraid what you came to look for is no longer here.
XXOO
--the staff
p.s.-- you're banned.
Monday, December 11, 2006
Actual Conversations Heard in Actual Libraries #67
SETTING: My "liberry." I've just logged a computer patron onto a computer. He sits down and sighs.
COMPUTER PATRON: Don’t know why I’m using this thing. Every time I print anything it always cuts off my prints.
ME: (Understanding that he meant the printer only prints what it’s capable of printing from a given screen and invariably winds up cutting off the right half of his prints due to a sidebar on the left side that forces all the text he wanted a couple inches to the right...) Yeah, sometimes that’s a problem when you have a sidebar on the left. But most email services have a Printer-Friendly-Version link at the top that will open your text in a new window that won’t have the sidebar on the left.
PATRON: But I’m not printing from email.
ME: Well, other sites often have one too. It’s usually at the top of the screen and will say Printer-Friendly-Version or Printable Screen.
PATRON: (Not listening to me whatsoever) But it cuts off the right side of my text.
ME: Exactly. So you just need to look for the Printable Screen link. Like I said, it’s usually at the top of the page and then you can then print without any problem.
PATRON: (Still oblivious to the information I am imparting at him) I just hit PRINT, and then it cuts off the right side of my text.
ME: That’s what I’m saying to you. Look for PRINTER-FRIENDLY-VERSION or PRINTABLE SCREEN. It will be in a link. It will usually be at the top of the web page. If you click it, it will open your text in a new window that won’t have a sidebar and won’t cut off your text on the right when you print from it. If you just keep hitting PRINT on the normal screen it will just keep cutting off your text. You have to look for PRINTABLE SCREEN or PRINT-FRIENDLY-VERSION. It’s usually at the top of the page.
PATRON: I don’t know much about computers.
(I nod and walk away.)
COMPUTER PATRON: Don’t know why I’m using this thing. Every time I print anything it always cuts off my prints.
ME: (Understanding that he meant the printer only prints what it’s capable of printing from a given screen and invariably winds up cutting off the right half of his prints due to a sidebar on the left side that forces all the text he wanted a couple inches to the right...) Yeah, sometimes that’s a problem when you have a sidebar on the left. But most email services have a Printer-Friendly-Version link at the top that will open your text in a new window that won’t have the sidebar on the left.
PATRON: But I’m not printing from email.
ME: Well, other sites often have one too. It’s usually at the top of the screen and will say Printer-Friendly-Version or Printable Screen.
PATRON: (Not listening to me whatsoever) But it cuts off the right side of my text.
ME: Exactly. So you just need to look for the Printable Screen link. Like I said, it’s usually at the top of the page and then you can then print without any problem.
PATRON: (Still oblivious to the information I am imparting at him) I just hit PRINT, and then it cuts off the right side of my text.
ME: That’s what I’m saying to you. Look for PRINTER-FRIENDLY-VERSION or PRINTABLE SCREEN. It will be in a link. It will usually be at the top of the web page. If you click it, it will open your text in a new window that won’t have a sidebar and won’t cut off your text on the right when you print from it. If you just keep hitting PRINT on the normal screen it will just keep cutting off your text. You have to look for PRINTABLE SCREEN or PRINT-FRIENDLY-VERSION. It’s usually at the top of the page.
PATRON: I don’t know much about computers.
(I nod and walk away.)
Friday, December 08, 2006
Lame Ducks
The patron known as Granny
returned to the "liberry" yesterday, minus her destructive grandson.
The rest of the staff had gone to lunch, so no one else had to smell the
aura of stale cigarette smoke that clung to her. Granted, she was a far
cry from the olfactory offensiveness of Mrs. Carol Satan, but my recent trip to Missouri has made me more sensitive to such things.
Granny turned in some books, inquired about the cost of a video she couldn't locate, failed to pay for it and then set about looking for more selections. After five minutes, or so, the door opened and a startling looking man walked through. I recognized him as Yosemite Sam, her husband who bears a striking resemblance to the cartoon character of the same name, albeit with black hair. It was far too cold for Sam to have clad his torso only in his trademark leather vest, but he wore the vest over a dark long sleeve all the same. The rest of him was clad in black clothing made, whenever possible, out of leather. The startling thing about him was that his hair was not pulled into a receding pony tail, but was down, splayed out in a tangly mess from beneath a black leather cowboy hat. His eyes were wide, wild and rather glinty. He could have passed for the malevolent father of Jeff Fahey's already malevolent character, Tyree, in Silverado; the very sort of fellow that, were you to come upon him on a dusty western street, near, say, a saloon, you would be well-advised to find the nearest horse headed out of town. I very quickly stopped making eye-contact with him. However, the temptation to look up soon became too great and I hazarded a quick glance only to find Sam's wild eyes staring right back.
"Yah'd think she'd be through, by now," Sam said, jutting a thumb in Granny's direction. I raised eyebrows in response, then quickly returned to my list of overdues. I caught a whiff of Sam, though. He smelled of stale cigarettes, but there were also two parts body odor and alcohol thrown into that three part mix. God, I prayed, please don't let him start in on his home-brew business with me again.
"Paul Harvey's out there calling everyone lame ducks," Sam said, indicating, I assume, the radio in his car. Before he could continue further, the door opened and Mrs.es A, B, C and J returned from lunch. I could tell by Mrs. A's expression that she too caught wind of Sam and soon she was looking for air-freshener. Sam and Granny only stayed a few minutes more and mostly confined their talk to themselves. Sam seemed to indicate that Granny had enough books at home as it was and that they ought to bring some of them and give them to us. Granny disagreed. Then, as they left, Sam lingered in the door until Granny was outside, then turned back to me and, with a few glances back over his shoulder to make sure Granny wasn't there to hear him, said that he was planning to sneak a box of Granny's books to us regardless of her approval. I just nodded and smiled and told him I had to occasionally watch my wife for such treachery, as she often gets it in her head to rid our house of clutter and usually eyes my clutter as the first to go.
"Oh, yew got one of them, too, huh?" Sam said. Then his boots clomped out the door. You could practically imagine the sound of spurs jangling as he left.
Granny turned in some books, inquired about the cost of a video she couldn't locate, failed to pay for it and then set about looking for more selections. After five minutes, or so, the door opened and a startling looking man walked through. I recognized him as Yosemite Sam, her husband who bears a striking resemblance to the cartoon character of the same name, albeit with black hair. It was far too cold for Sam to have clad his torso only in his trademark leather vest, but he wore the vest over a dark long sleeve all the same. The rest of him was clad in black clothing made, whenever possible, out of leather. The startling thing about him was that his hair was not pulled into a receding pony tail, but was down, splayed out in a tangly mess from beneath a black leather cowboy hat. His eyes were wide, wild and rather glinty. He could have passed for the malevolent father of Jeff Fahey's already malevolent character, Tyree, in Silverado; the very sort of fellow that, were you to come upon him on a dusty western street, near, say, a saloon, you would be well-advised to find the nearest horse headed out of town. I very quickly stopped making eye-contact with him. However, the temptation to look up soon became too great and I hazarded a quick glance only to find Sam's wild eyes staring right back.
"Yah'd think she'd be through, by now," Sam said, jutting a thumb in Granny's direction. I raised eyebrows in response, then quickly returned to my list of overdues. I caught a whiff of Sam, though. He smelled of stale cigarettes, but there were also two parts body odor and alcohol thrown into that three part mix. God, I prayed, please don't let him start in on his home-brew business with me again.
"Paul Harvey's out there calling everyone lame ducks," Sam said, indicating, I assume, the radio in his car. Before he could continue further, the door opened and Mrs.es A, B, C and J returned from lunch. I could tell by Mrs. A's expression that she too caught wind of Sam and soon she was looking for air-freshener. Sam and Granny only stayed a few minutes more and mostly confined their talk to themselves. Sam seemed to indicate that Granny had enough books at home as it was and that they ought to bring some of them and give them to us. Granny disagreed. Then, as they left, Sam lingered in the door until Granny was outside, then turned back to me and, with a few glances back over his shoulder to make sure Granny wasn't there to hear him, said that he was planning to sneak a box of Granny's books to us regardless of her approval. I just nodded and smiled and told him I had to occasionally watch my wife for such treachery, as she often gets it in her head to rid our house of clutter and usually eyes my clutter as the first to go.
"Oh, yew got one of them, too, huh?" Sam said. Then his boots clomped out the door. You could practically imagine the sound of spurs jangling as he left.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Actual Conversations Heard in Actual Libraries #66
(Setting: My "liberry." A man enters the building and approaches the desk, bearing a single volume from a set of encyclopedias.)
ME: Can I help you?
MAN: Yes, I wanted to see if your library would be interested in having these. I have the whole set and they're very, very nice.
ME: (I look down at his book, which is indeed a very, very nice E volume, gilded edges and all, from the year 1987.) Well, I'm sure we could accept them. We often sell encyclopedia sets in our book sale.
MAN: Oh. I thought you could use them here at the library.
ME: Well, no. We already have a current set of encyclopedias in our collection and yours are from 1987.
MAN: But, they're very, very nice.
ME: They are.
MAN: And you can't use them?
ME: Not for the collection, but we could possibly sell them in the book sale.
MAN: (Long pause) I... I... I'd rather give them to someone who'll use them. Maybe I can find someone else to take them.
ME: I understand, sir. I understand.
ME: Can I help you?
MAN: Yes, I wanted to see if your library would be interested in having these. I have the whole set and they're very, very nice.
ME: (I look down at his book, which is indeed a very, very nice E volume, gilded edges and all, from the year 1987.) Well, I'm sure we could accept them. We often sell encyclopedia sets in our book sale.
MAN: Oh. I thought you could use them here at the library.
ME: Well, no. We already have a current set of encyclopedias in our collection and yours are from 1987.
MAN: But, they're very, very nice.
ME: They are.
MAN: And you can't use them?
ME: Not for the collection, but we could possibly sell them in the book sale.
MAN: (Long pause) I... I... I'd rather give them to someone who'll use them. Maybe I can find someone else to take them.
ME: I understand, sir. I understand.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
I'll take "Cap'ns other than Crunch for $400, Alex."
In what is perhaps his final appearance of 2006, Cap'n Crossdresser
paid us a visit today. He was decked out in a quilted red coat, a low
cut tangerine-colored blouse, baggy green slacks, a peach colored
knitted scarf and dark boots.
That is all.
That is all.
Monday, December 04, 2006
And her head she'd be scratchin' while her thoughts were busy hatchin' if she only had a... well, you know.
We think we've solved the problem of Newbie Greenhorn Ms. S, or at least have deduced why
she's such a problem. Ms. S, we've determined, rarely if ever engages
her brain in the course of doing her job. We have quite a bit of
evidence.
For instance, despite the fact that we've repeatedly explained to her how to process new books, thereby also having explained to her the various color coded dots we place on the spines of our smaller paperbacks to differentiate them by subject, not to mention where to FIND said dots, Ms. S went ahead and put a few romance novels out sans dots. When confronted about it, she claimed she couldn't find the dots and didn't know what else to do. (For the record, the dots were in plain view atop the open basket of office supply crap beneath the front edge of the circ-desk.)
No, wait, I got a better one. Despite the fact that we've repeatedly explained to her how to put patrons on hold for books within our computer system, and that if a patron doesn't pick up their hold before their time runs out that she, Ms. S, is to cancel out that patron's hold, pass the hold to the next patron on the list and then be sure to put the original holding patron back on hold at the end of the list, Ms. S still can't quite manage to do it. Patrons keep coming in and telling us they missed their first turn on hold and want to know where they fall on the list now, only for us to discover they're not on it anymore. We know she's at fault because she's the one who initials the old hold slips, which we save in our rubberband bound Ass Covering Hold Slips Pile, which she somehow found beneath the circ desk.
No, wait, I got a better one. Despite the fact that we've repeatedly explained to her how to process interlibrary loans when they arrive, and despite the fact that she's been doing THAT VERY JOB for the past FEW MONTHS, she utterly failed to process an incoming loan that had been hand-delivered by a local branch. She even left a note saying that she didn't know what to do with it, so she was just going to leave it on the desk.
No, wait, I got a better one. Despite the fact that we've repeatedly told her that we do not renew books that patrons interlibrary loan from other libraries—simply because they're not OUR books to renew and getting the other libraries to cooperate on renewing them is a pain in the ass—she tried it anyway for a fellow who showed up with his ILLed book in person. I imagine that she first tried to renew it with our circulation software several times, scanning its barcode only to find the computer unwilling to cooperate due precisely to the above reason. So, instead, she just stamped a new due date on the date due slip and let him go. Then, the very next day, she found that same guy on her list of patrons with overdue ILLs, didn't make the connection that he was the guy she'd dealt with the day before, and she called and left a message for him that his book was overdue and he needed to bring it back. When he came in to complain about it to me—quite irritated about it, as you can imagine—I tried to explain the whole "We don't renew ILLs" bit and that his claim that Ms. S somehow had was not possible. The patron then became even more irate with me and said, "Well, whether it's possible or not, she did it! Look right here!" and showed me the stamp in his book—which, these days, means nothing, unless the computer also has that date, which it did not and, more to the point, could not.
No, wait, I got two better ones. Despite the fact that Ms. S has received all of the above training and BEYOND from us on MULTIPLE occasions, she cannot help but ask questions that have already been covered by said training or that have painfully, PAINFULLY obvious answers. And since she works her weekend shifts alone, Mrs. C is often the target of such querries via the telephone. A few weeks back, Mrs. C received a call from Ms. S, who said: "We're running low on 10 inch book wrap. What do I do when I run out?" Mrs. C told her that when she ran out of 10 inch book wrap, she could stop wrapping the 10 inch books. (My suggested answer: "Oh, that's easy! See, Mrs. A keeps the Philosopher's Stone up in her office bathroom. You can use it to transmute some 14 inch book wrap into 10 inch book wrap, no prob. Oh , and by the way, the Philosopher's Stone has taken the form of a big pair of scissors. And it demands you write a note on the pad that we need to order more 10 inch book wrap. Just thought I'd let ya know.")
And then there was last weekend, when Ms. S phoned Mrs. C at home to alert her that our canvas mail bag was completely stuffed with outgoing ILL packages, so she wanted to know what to do with the rest of the ILL's she'd packed up, which could no longer fit in the bag. She'd better be glad she didn't phone me with such a great setup line, for I would have been unable to resist telling her exactly where I thought she should cram the other packages.
No, wait, I got one last better one. Ms. S recently complained that she was running low on her orange shelving slips. Rather than go all the way over to the activity room and retrieve some orange paper to cut into new slips, she chose to use a more conveniently located stack of pink paper she found in our supply cabinet, which she cut into dozens and dozens of new slips. Then, so no one would get confused that she was now using both orange and pink slips, she carefully wrote her initials on each and every one of them. I remarked to Mrs. B that for someone who so frequently tries to get out of doing any work, this seemed like an awful lot of effort. Mrs. B countered that Ms. S was able to do that work while sitting down, which was the real objective of the operation. I'm starting to hope those aren't the only pink slips Ms. S sees.
For instance, despite the fact that we've repeatedly explained to her how to process new books, thereby also having explained to her the various color coded dots we place on the spines of our smaller paperbacks to differentiate them by subject, not to mention where to FIND said dots, Ms. S went ahead and put a few romance novels out sans dots. When confronted about it, she claimed she couldn't find the dots and didn't know what else to do. (For the record, the dots were in plain view atop the open basket of office supply crap beneath the front edge of the circ-desk.)
No, wait, I got a better one. Despite the fact that we've repeatedly explained to her how to put patrons on hold for books within our computer system, and that if a patron doesn't pick up their hold before their time runs out that she, Ms. S, is to cancel out that patron's hold, pass the hold to the next patron on the list and then be sure to put the original holding patron back on hold at the end of the list, Ms. S still can't quite manage to do it. Patrons keep coming in and telling us they missed their first turn on hold and want to know where they fall on the list now, only for us to discover they're not on it anymore. We know she's at fault because she's the one who initials the old hold slips, which we save in our rubberband bound Ass Covering Hold Slips Pile, which she somehow found beneath the circ desk.
No, wait, I got a better one. Despite the fact that we've repeatedly explained to her how to process interlibrary loans when they arrive, and despite the fact that she's been doing THAT VERY JOB for the past FEW MONTHS, she utterly failed to process an incoming loan that had been hand-delivered by a local branch. She even left a note saying that she didn't know what to do with it, so she was just going to leave it on the desk.
No, wait, I got a better one. Despite the fact that we've repeatedly told her that we do not renew books that patrons interlibrary loan from other libraries—simply because they're not OUR books to renew and getting the other libraries to cooperate on renewing them is a pain in the ass—she tried it anyway for a fellow who showed up with his ILLed book in person. I imagine that she first tried to renew it with our circulation software several times, scanning its barcode only to find the computer unwilling to cooperate due precisely to the above reason. So, instead, she just stamped a new due date on the date due slip and let him go. Then, the very next day, she found that same guy on her list of patrons with overdue ILLs, didn't make the connection that he was the guy she'd dealt with the day before, and she called and left a message for him that his book was overdue and he needed to bring it back. When he came in to complain about it to me—quite irritated about it, as you can imagine—I tried to explain the whole "We don't renew ILLs" bit and that his claim that Ms. S somehow had was not possible. The patron then became even more irate with me and said, "Well, whether it's possible or not, she did it! Look right here!" and showed me the stamp in his book—which, these days, means nothing, unless the computer also has that date, which it did not and, more to the point, could not.
No, wait, I got two better ones. Despite the fact that Ms. S has received all of the above training and BEYOND from us on MULTIPLE occasions, she cannot help but ask questions that have already been covered by said training or that have painfully, PAINFULLY obvious answers. And since she works her weekend shifts alone, Mrs. C is often the target of such querries via the telephone. A few weeks back, Mrs. C received a call from Ms. S, who said: "We're running low on 10 inch book wrap. What do I do when I run out?" Mrs. C told her that when she ran out of 10 inch book wrap, she could stop wrapping the 10 inch books. (My suggested answer: "Oh, that's easy! See, Mrs. A keeps the Philosopher's Stone up in her office bathroom. You can use it to transmute some 14 inch book wrap into 10 inch book wrap, no prob. Oh , and by the way, the Philosopher's Stone has taken the form of a big pair of scissors. And it demands you write a note on the pad that we need to order more 10 inch book wrap. Just thought I'd let ya know.")
And then there was last weekend, when Ms. S phoned Mrs. C at home to alert her that our canvas mail bag was completely stuffed with outgoing ILL packages, so she wanted to know what to do with the rest of the ILL's she'd packed up, which could no longer fit in the bag. She'd better be glad she didn't phone me with such a great setup line, for I would have been unable to resist telling her exactly where I thought she should cram the other packages.
No, wait, I got one last better one. Ms. S recently complained that she was running low on her orange shelving slips. Rather than go all the way over to the activity room and retrieve some orange paper to cut into new slips, she chose to use a more conveniently located stack of pink paper she found in our supply cabinet, which she cut into dozens and dozens of new slips. Then, so no one would get confused that she was now using both orange and pink slips, she carefully wrote her initials on each and every one of them. I remarked to Mrs. B that for someone who so frequently tries to get out of doing any work, this seemed like an awful lot of effort. Mrs. B countered that Ms. S was able to do that work while sitting down, which was the real objective of the operation. I'm starting to hope those aren't the only pink slips Ms. S sees.
Friday, December 01, 2006
Found Poetry (Or "Actual Hand-written Email First Drafts found in Actual Libraries")
Yesterday, while going back to log a computer on for someone, I
noticed that the previous user of said computer had left behind a
half-piece of notebook paper on both sides of which were handwritten
words. Being a curious soul, and considering that the previous patron
had been gone for over an hour, I picked it up.
You never can tell what patrons will leave at the computers, or, even, on the screens of the computers. Sometimes it's just a pair of sunglasses. Other times, though, we get comedy gold.
For instance, our late, lamented patron the Purple Nun, used to spend quite a bit of time composing emails which she would leave on the screen without sending them to anyone. When asked if she would prefer to send the mail to someone, the Nun simply replied that the person meant to find it would find it. (I don't know what any of the email said, as I was apparently not the predestined person.)
Or, there's the case of Stoner Lad, who once left on the screen a Microsoft Word draft of a grammatically incorrect mash note filled with wildly misspelled genitalia and other descriptives. He'd evidently pasted it into an email, but left the original draft for me to find. If only I'd saved it.
The note I found yesterday, however, I did save. It appears to be a paper first draft of two separate emails, written by a female to her boyfriend. (Who drafts email on paper, anyway?) Handwritten in pencil on the first side of the half-sheet of notebook paper is the following letter, capitalization and punctuation intact, though a name or so has been changed.
And on the other side of the paper was the following note.
I suspect by posting this, though, I have violated my "liberry" ass. code of ethics in a most heinous way. However, it is the patron's own fault for leaving the note behind for someone else to throw away.
You never can tell what patrons will leave at the computers, or, even, on the screens of the computers. Sometimes it's just a pair of sunglasses. Other times, though, we get comedy gold.
For instance, our late, lamented patron the Purple Nun, used to spend quite a bit of time composing emails which she would leave on the screen without sending them to anyone. When asked if she would prefer to send the mail to someone, the Nun simply replied that the person meant to find it would find it. (I don't know what any of the email said, as I was apparently not the predestined person.)
Or, there's the case of Stoner Lad, who once left on the screen a Microsoft Word draft of a grammatically incorrect mash note filled with wildly misspelled genitalia and other descriptives. He'd evidently pasted it into an email, but left the original draft for me to find. If only I'd saved it.
The note I found yesterday, however, I did save. It appears to be a paper first draft of two separate emails, written by a female to her boyfriend. (Who drafts email on paper, anyway?) Handwritten in pencil on the first side of the half-sheet of notebook paper is the following letter, capitalization and punctuation intact, though a name or so has been changed.
(Andy)
Hey baby, I miss you too,
see you soon though.yeah we have to go to the cemetery.I get scared so easy! [the word "though" is scratched out here]Ugh. Come to WV!
haha.
If Matt says Anything to
you just don't say Anythingback okay?
he's trying to start shit.
But whatever.
I'll talk to you soon
*Big Hugs!*
xoxo, Lis
And on the other side of the paper was the following note.
(Matt)Wow. Quite a soap opera, huh? Entertaining and open to a few interpretations.
Shut your fucking mouth
& leave me Alone.[The words "I Hate you So" are scratched out on this line]
& I swear to god if you
start fucking with Andy
I will Rip your fucking face off.
This is the end of it.
So backup.
I suspect by posting this, though, I have violated my "liberry" ass. code of ethics in a most heinous way. However, it is the patron's own fault for leaving the note behind for someone else to throw away.
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