What a Day!

It was one of those days.

I took a phone call from a man who was looking for travel videos, specifically DVDs, on obscure National Parks. Not just a DVD about national parks that include some of these lesser-known parks, but he wanted a movie that was devoted to each park, and it had to be on DVD. Not surprisingly, there are none available on the parks he was requesting. One had a VHS movie in some far-away library that I could have requested, but he refused the obsolete media. Finally, he expanded his interests to include some areas that are actually a little more popular, and there were libraries in the area, which could readily loan the videos to us.

“All I need is your library card number and I’ll process the hold for you,” I stated.

He stammered, “OK, let me find it. Um, it’s in my wallet, I think. Uh, hang on.”

After much ruckus, he got frustrated and blurted out, “You know, I’m not sure where my card is, but my wife is on the library board. She’s actually the president!”

Aaaaaaaaaaand I’m supposed to care about that, why? Perhaps congratulate you? Oh, wait a minute! The president’s husband? Isn’t the president of our library board the woman who donated a free facial wax for anyone who signed up for a new library card during National Library Card Month? Uh-huh. She’s a winner. I have a friend who is also on the library board, and I do believe she has described your wife, sir, as self-important, and one of the many members of the board who routinely does not read any of the board packet material ahead of time, which is part of her damn job as a trustee, and she regularly shows up to meetings completely unprepared and ignorant of the topics on the agenda. Oh yes, I’m familiar with her. The woman who volunteers two mere hours a month to use her lack of knowledge about how to run a library to make decisions that run our library. Yes, I do know of her, sir, and if you’re going to name-drop with me, you really should pick someone who might positively reflect upon you.

If only you were married to Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears. THEN I might look up your card number for you. HOWEVER, I would probably *accidentally* not place the travel videos on hold, but maybe some self-help books. That would make me feel better about the entire situation, sir, but as it stands, you telling me you’re married to the board president isn’t doing a damn thing for you.

“Sorry, but I really do need that card NUMBER to process the hold,” I said.

Eventually he found it, and much to my extreme pleasure, it was blocked with a nasty message that he had to see Circulation about a problem with his account. Oh yeah!

You see, the only thing worse than a self-important board member who expects special service because she is part of the team who doesn’t want to give us COLA raises each year, is some idiot spouse of a self-important board member, who has NOTHING to do with our library, yet expects some sort of in-law special services because he married a woman who passes policies for our library, that actually contradict the ALA’s philosophies of providing access to information without censorship.

So, about 30 minutes later, there was a tiny, scruffy-faced man with a buzz cut standing before me, and all I could think about was that his entire head was covered in stubble. Strange.

He identified himself as the caller from before, needing the travel videos.

OH! Yeah, the board-president-in-law! Right!

As irritated as I was to now have his disheveled little self standing before me, I found myself in a compromising situation. In the middle of speaking with him about what video to order now that his account had been cleared, a one-eyed man wandered over to my desk and interrupted us.

He wasn’t really one-eyed, but he had one eye that couldn’t possibly have any vision because the entire iris and pupil were covered in a cloudy film. I looked into his “good” eye, sympathizing with his ailment but not welcoming his rude interruption.

He said, “Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me! I need help with my computer!”

I froze, apologized with irritation to the board-president-in-law, and asked the one-eyed man what he needed.

“I need a new computer! Mine is going too slow. The page won’t load and I need to fill something out online today!” He was a little over 6 feet tall, thin, totally unkempt, and a little intoxicated.

“Well, if the website is going slow, I can’t speed anything up. Every computer runs off the same network, so if it’s slow at one computer, it’s going to be slow at the others. Maybe it’s the website that’s slow or overloaded with visitors,” I suggested.

“No, it can’t be! I need another computer!” he demanded.

I took a deep breath and told him that I would help him with his computer problem when I was finished with the patron who was ahead of him. The one-eyed man sighed and started pacing clumsily nearby, while the board-president-in-law seemed pleased that I made this man wait his turn, as if I somehow defended him and his imperative travel movie needs.

It’s a very strange feeling to hate a man who is name-dropping to get the rules bent to his needs, and then find myself longing to be back helping him because another patron comes along who irritates me more. And in the process of doing the right thing and triaging the situation, I somehow make the self-important bastard I don’t like very much feel even more self-important, while making the disruptive guy wait, which makes his disruptive behavior continue.

Some days my job pains me.

When my shift ended, I took a jog to the washroom for a quick bladder dump. I went into the first stall and found dark yellow poo staining the toilet seat. It looked dry and hard, not fresh, and I wondered how many people had touched this seat covered with poo and not known they were wiping someone else’s intestinal bacteria on their bum. Backing out of the stall, I opted to use the second one. There I found more copious amounts of dark yellow poo on this toilet seat. Someone shat upon both toilet seats in the washroom! What the hell kind of maniac would do something like that?

While I know that we are expected to clean up such messes when we find them, I was only there to pee quickly before going to lunch, and I feared that if I had to chisel dried poo off of two toilet seats, I’d also be cleaning up my own vomit, and additionally have absolutely no appetite, thereby wasting the 30 minutes I was going to get docked for lunch regardless of what I did or didn’t eat. It seemed unfair and a physical request that exceeds reasonable expectations of this employee.

The responsible thing would have been to report it to another staff member, who might find someone with a stronger constitution to do the clean-up. Being the irresponsible twit that I am, I decided to wash my hands and go to lunch. When I returned, I’d warn the people on staff who I like about the poo-encrusted toilet seats so that they too may avoid the liability issue of She Who Finds It, Cleans It. If you never found it, you can’t be expected to clean it.

The remainder of the evening I spent sitting cross-legged and trying not to stand up for any length of time. Holding your pee for an entire day is not easy. Thankfully, our patrons aren’t remotely funny or there might have been an accident I couldn’t avoid taking responsibility for.

It was reported later, by another librarian, that a man was sitting at a public computer, looking at softcore porn and fondling himself. Although he wasn’t exposing his naughty bits, he was definitely getting quite friendly with them through his jeans. A patron saw him and reported it. As it turns out, this fondler is a patron who is a frequent visitor at our library, and he is clearly suffering from some degree of retardation, which is easily ascertained in the briefest of conversations with him, so it’s a bit difficult to make him feel like a humiliated pervert and drive him out with our moral whip and steed, decrying him as a social leper we have no need of serving. Not that I’ve ever done such a thing, but others have. My point is that when you have someone with such severe disabilities, it is difficult to figure out what kind of talk you should have with him about the inappropriate behavior. Precisely how it was handled, I don’t know. Yet, I thank my lucky stars that I only had to deal with the board-president-in-law, the one-eyed computer-user, and the poo-encrusted toilet seats.

I’m never sure whether to feel overwhelmed by the relief that my freaks didn’t equal the freakitude others had to deal with, or more disappointed for the fate of mankind, given the sampling of members of the general public I crossed paths with. My glass is neither half-full or half-empty. It’s just a glass with a gaping hole in it, and the liquid is draining constantly.