For some reason, my library employs a lot of moms. I don’t just mean women who have children, but that personality flaw that causes these uterus-active ladies to treat everyone around them like they are parental to us. Thanks, but not only do I have a mom already, I have enough female bosses who are condescending, and I really don’t need people who do not have any authority over me to be treating me like they exist to guide me in the ways of being a responsible person.
One of the moms frequently sends out an inordinate number of emails making announcements about various staff members she deals with. Each email doesn’t just announce something, but it guides us in how to react to this announcement, like we’re all retards who didn’t know we should probably congratulate the recent graduates or wish a fond farewell to the departing employees.
We receive things that are worded like this:
“Today is Barbara-Ann’s last day. She will be off to college for her senior year. Please wish her well in the school year before her shift ends today.”
Maybe the momming brings out the juvenile in me, but my instant reaction is to say, “No. You can’t make me.”
Recently, one of our employees had a baby. A joyous event for her, I’m sure, but pretty much meh for me. I hardly know the woman and babies just don’t interest me at all. In fact, I regard pregnancy as a parasitic infection that results in having to care for the parasite for the remainder of your life. It really baffles me why people celebrate this, but I recognize that I’m fairly unique in my view of how very uninteresting it is when someone has a child, and I try to pretend to care when they’re around. Or I avoid them.
Anyway, there were no fewer than three greeting cards that went around for us to sign, from baby shower to birth, in addition to these patronizing emails announcing that we should sign these cards for our beloved coworker, and wish her the appropriate greetings. Why didn’t she just fill it out for us? Would I be on her shit list if I didn’t sign the card in the way she instructed? What if I signed the card and didn’t congratulate her? What if I accidentally forgot my instructions to congratulate her on her parasite, panicked, and instead wrote “Happy Birthday”? Well, I can only imagine the chastisement I’d get! Clearly more detailed instructions would follow in subsequent emails.
“Monday is Marcus’ birthday. There is a card on my desk for him. Please sign the card with only wishes of a happy birthday and do not deviate from the topic at hand. Do not take up more than three lines or use permanent marker. Do not write in another language because Marcus only speaks English. Wait for the ink to dry before closing the card again. Be respectful. Use proper spelling and grammar. Do not write with letters that would be larger than 24 font if in a document. And make sure you don’t leave any dirt or grease stains on the card of envelope. Thank you for following instructions to the letter.”
Why do these women feel compelled to give us instructions on how to be human? Are we that animalistic that they can’t possibly leave it up to our uncivilized tendencies to address important events with the right words? What the hell do these moms say about us behind our backs?
“Did you hear what so-and-so said to Mrs. Smith yesterday?”
“No, what?”
“So-and-so helped Mrs. Smith print something out, and when Mrs. Smith thanked her, instead of saying ‘you’re welcome’, she said, ‘no problem.’ How rude is that?!”
“Oh yeah? Well, I heard you-know-who today refer to a couple at a computer as ‘you guys’, and it was a man AND a woman. She called them ‘you GUYS!’ And worst of all, you should have SEEN her posture! She might as well have had a hunchback!”
“Unbelievable. Someone needs to teach these people about proper work etiquette.”
“Let’s do it! If I can potty-train my stubborn toddler, I can teach these people how to use fewer colloquialisms and actually make us proud.”
“It’s a daunting challenge. But if my teenager ever talked the way some of my coworkers do, I’d sent him right to military school.”
“But it has to be subtle, so they don’t complain. Let’s give them polite instructions in emails whenever we address something.”
“Yes, we need to guide them without it being too overt. Invite them to participate in something so they feel included, but then tell them exactly what’s expected of them, so they know how to behave.”
“Exactly. They can’t be trusted on their own at this point.”
I just want to gather up these moms and strangle them. While using bad posture. And speaking in slang. And wearing dirty underwear.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Thursday, August 21, 2008
It Wasn't Even a Monday
She said to me, “Aw, you don’t look pretty today. Too bad.”
Yes, that was my greeting from what I would ordinarily have considered a friendly patron.
I shouldn’t be so offended because this comes on the heels of her making such a huge deal about how pretty she said I looked the other day, when I was in a fairy costume for a program. Evidently, I should always have pink flowers in my hair, a low-cut shirt and a glittery skirt on, because otherwise the disparity compels her to tell me I’m not pretty today.
Pshaw, she should’ve seen me when I woke up this morning.
Yes, that was my greeting from what I would ordinarily have considered a friendly patron.
I shouldn’t be so offended because this comes on the heels of her making such a huge deal about how pretty she said I looked the other day, when I was in a fairy costume for a program. Evidently, I should always have pink flowers in my hair, a low-cut shirt and a glittery skirt on, because otherwise the disparity compels her to tell me I’m not pretty today.
Pshaw, she should’ve seen me when I woke up this morning.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Phone Misuse
A woman approached my desk and I could tell right away that she was hard of hearing. Aside from her audio assault, she required me to nearly scream back at her when I responded. These encounters drive me nuts because I hate to shout in a quiet and empty library.
She roared, “I HAVE A CALL ON MY CALLER ID FROM THE LIBRARY, BUT I’M NOT SURE WHY ANYONE CALLED ME. THE GIRL AT THE OTHER DESK SAID I DON’T HAVE ANY HOLDS IN. DO YOU KNOW WHY THEY CALLED ME?”
I answered, “We don’t usually—“
She pushed, “WHAT?!?”
I tried again, “WE DON’T USUALLY CALL PATRONS FROM THIS DESK UNLESS YOU’RE EXPECTING US TO CALL YOU WITH AN ANSWER TO A QUESTION. WERE YOU EXPECTING A CALL FROM US?”
She yelled, “I ORDERED A BOOK, BUT THEY SAY IT’S NOT IN YET. I DON’T KNOW WHY ANYONE WOULD CALL ME.”
I said, “Was there a message?”
She hollered, “WHAT?!?”
“WAS THERE A MESSAGE?”
“YES. BUT I DIDN’T CHECK IT. DO YOU THINK I SHOULD CHECK IT?”
No, ma’am, I really think it’s probably quite smart that you saw the Caller ID register a call from the library, so you got into your car, drove over, and began bellowing at every staff member you encountered about this mystery call, because there’s no better way of getting to the bottom of a Caller ID call than confronting the 50 people who might have placed that call from the public library in your neighborhood. And really, since we all don’t work at the same time, you should probably hang around and scream at each person from each shift, for at least the next few days, if not weeks, until you’ve loudly interviewed all the staff and get to the bottom of this. Voice mail exists for people who aren’t into thorough investigating like you, ma’am. Someone with as much attention to detail as yourself should be rewarded with a live and very vociferous conversation about the very same thing they already left on your voice mail. Why should you listen to a message when you can interrogate the library staff and totally disturb the entire building? Please, do us all a favor and just deactivate the voice mail so that we may have the pleasure of these intelligent and practical encounters. Please.
Once the screaming lady checked her voice mail and found out that the message was regarding something she ordered that we were unable to obtain for her, she smiled and loudly announced she had her answer and could leave now.
Bummer. I was starting to hope I’d have to yell at her all afternoon and pretend not to be irritated with her inability to use her head.
Then I was greeted with one of my least favorite patrons, Bertha. Bertha is one of those women who is sizable as well as malicious, which makes her quite intimidating and difficult to get rid of. Last week she infuriated a coworkers who is probably one of the most unflappable of our staff, all because Bertha saw her helping another patron, walked right up to her, interrupted her, and asked her to find something for her. She was in the middle of speaking, and Bertha touched her and started talking over her, to stop her so she’d answer her question instead. Well, it didn’t work, and she told Bertha to wait until she was done. Bertha was so offended that she wasn’t helped immediately, that she stood next to her with her arms crossed over he chest, sighing and shifting her weight impatiently. Bertha is not someone who takes no for an answer.
My first encounter with Bertha almost resulted in having to call the police because she would not accept that her card had fines on it and wasn’t usable until she cleared up her bills. She had her two very sizable and malicious sons with her, and the three of them were leaning on my desk, yelling at me, calling me names, telling me I was too stupid to be of any use to anyone. She was asked to leave and she had a few choice words to shout as she walked out, too.
I’m no fan of hers.
So, when she approached my desk today, I knew I was probably going to need backup.
Bertha said, “Honey, I need a phone. Where can I use a phone?”
I recommended the pay phone in the lobby, but Bertha swore she hadn’t a penny to use it. Then I suggested she make a collect phone call.
She got animated and said, “Look, I don’t have a cell phone or any money to call anyone, but I just got this email from someone about a job, and I need to call about this job so I can work! Okay? Do you understand how important this is? I can’t be calling a future boss collect! Who would hire me?”
I told her I understood, but that the telephone at my desk was strictly for library staff to use, and only in an emergency could someone else use it.
Bertha insisted, “This is an emergency! I need a job!”
I apologized and said that it was actually a personal call, not an emergency, and I couldn’t let people use my phone for their personal calls. I asked if she had a friend, family member, neighbor, or anyone who had a phone she could use, and she insisted that she had to make this phone call right that minute or risk losing this job opportunity.
This is when the battle in my head began.
Would I deny this phone use to anyone else, or is it because it’s Bertha that I’m so staunchly opposed to letting her use it?
Would it do me more good to let her use the phone and go away than to deny it and fight with her, possibly having to bring in someone else who might just let her use the phone and make me look like a vulvahead?
Am I overstepping myself and trying to teach her some kind of lesson about her expectations of limitless services offered by the library and its staff?
Would someone else let her use the phone for this reason?
When I broke it down, I figured there was SOMEONE on staff who would likely agree to let her make the phone call, so it might as well be me. And that’s what did it, surprisingly: the refusal to be overridden by someone who is a spineless pushover. So, dummy that I am, I let myself be the biggest pushover because I didn’t want to be the biggest bitch.
I sternly cautioned, “I’m going to let you do it this time, and only this time, and the call must be very brief. Don’t expect anyone else on staff to ever do anything like this for you, either, because I guarantee it won’t happen.”
She thanked me and I dialed her number.
Then I sat there and listened to a 3-minute job interview over the phone, which involved Bertha telling this man on the phone, who she repeatedly called “Honey”, “Sweetie” and “Dear,” what a wonderful worker she is. She talked up all her extensive office experience and people skills, which caused me to have to turn my back quickly so as not to laugh loudly enough for her interviewer to hear. She didn’t even set up a real interview with the man. It seemed she had overreacted to the email and called right away to thank him for responding to her. He must have said he’d contact her to set up an interview, and she assured him that the phone number she provided belonged to her nephew, but that he would relay any message to her quickly. She thanked him and called him a pet name again.
As she was ending the phone call, she said, “I really look forward to hearing from you. I think it would be so wonderful to work at O’Hare Airport and I hope you call soon.”
Yeah, she’s exactly the type of person we need at O’Hare. The unfriendly skies are about to get unfriendlier, I fear. Between the craziness of all the reports of family members who PICK UP or DROP OFF a traveler to be required to have all of their proper immigration papers on them just for stepping into the airport itself, and ridiculous rules about nail clippers and three ounces of fluid, with constant flashing signs about the terrorism alert levels being high, why the hell not hire Bertha to work there too? It’s not like traveling by plane is a pleasant experience anyway. Why not just require passengers to hack off an appendage so that they are duly miserable during their flight? Break a rib, voluntarily sodomize yourself with a rolled up newspaper, or deal with Bertha in some capacity on your way to your destination – it’s all the same. Bertha could actually cut out some body fluid cleanup by just inflicting herself on people, and then more people would hate to fly. That sounds like a fabulous idea. That’s what the airlines are trying to do, right? Yeah, Bertha will fit right in.
In a year, Chicago will be the Leader of Staycations.
She roared, “I HAVE A CALL ON MY CALLER ID FROM THE LIBRARY, BUT I’M NOT SURE WHY ANYONE CALLED ME. THE GIRL AT THE OTHER DESK SAID I DON’T HAVE ANY HOLDS IN. DO YOU KNOW WHY THEY CALLED ME?”
I answered, “We don’t usually—“
She pushed, “WHAT?!?”
I tried again, “WE DON’T USUALLY CALL PATRONS FROM THIS DESK UNLESS YOU’RE EXPECTING US TO CALL YOU WITH AN ANSWER TO A QUESTION. WERE YOU EXPECTING A CALL FROM US?”
She yelled, “I ORDERED A BOOK, BUT THEY SAY IT’S NOT IN YET. I DON’T KNOW WHY ANYONE WOULD CALL ME.”
I said, “Was there a message?”
She hollered, “WHAT?!?”
“WAS THERE A MESSAGE?”
“YES. BUT I DIDN’T CHECK IT. DO YOU THINK I SHOULD CHECK IT?”
No, ma’am, I really think it’s probably quite smart that you saw the Caller ID register a call from the library, so you got into your car, drove over, and began bellowing at every staff member you encountered about this mystery call, because there’s no better way of getting to the bottom of a Caller ID call than confronting the 50 people who might have placed that call from the public library in your neighborhood. And really, since we all don’t work at the same time, you should probably hang around and scream at each person from each shift, for at least the next few days, if not weeks, until you’ve loudly interviewed all the staff and get to the bottom of this. Voice mail exists for people who aren’t into thorough investigating like you, ma’am. Someone with as much attention to detail as yourself should be rewarded with a live and very vociferous conversation about the very same thing they already left on your voice mail. Why should you listen to a message when you can interrogate the library staff and totally disturb the entire building? Please, do us all a favor and just deactivate the voice mail so that we may have the pleasure of these intelligent and practical encounters. Please.
Once the screaming lady checked her voice mail and found out that the message was regarding something she ordered that we were unable to obtain for her, she smiled and loudly announced she had her answer and could leave now.
Bummer. I was starting to hope I’d have to yell at her all afternoon and pretend not to be irritated with her inability to use her head.
Then I was greeted with one of my least favorite patrons, Bertha. Bertha is one of those women who is sizable as well as malicious, which makes her quite intimidating and difficult to get rid of. Last week she infuriated a coworkers who is probably one of the most unflappable of our staff, all because Bertha saw her helping another patron, walked right up to her, interrupted her, and asked her to find something for her. She was in the middle of speaking, and Bertha touched her and started talking over her, to stop her so she’d answer her question instead. Well, it didn’t work, and she told Bertha to wait until she was done. Bertha was so offended that she wasn’t helped immediately, that she stood next to her with her arms crossed over he chest, sighing and shifting her weight impatiently. Bertha is not someone who takes no for an answer.
My first encounter with Bertha almost resulted in having to call the police because she would not accept that her card had fines on it and wasn’t usable until she cleared up her bills. She had her two very sizable and malicious sons with her, and the three of them were leaning on my desk, yelling at me, calling me names, telling me I was too stupid to be of any use to anyone. She was asked to leave and she had a few choice words to shout as she walked out, too.
I’m no fan of hers.
So, when she approached my desk today, I knew I was probably going to need backup.
Bertha said, “Honey, I need a phone. Where can I use a phone?”
I recommended the pay phone in the lobby, but Bertha swore she hadn’t a penny to use it. Then I suggested she make a collect phone call.
She got animated and said, “Look, I don’t have a cell phone or any money to call anyone, but I just got this email from someone about a job, and I need to call about this job so I can work! Okay? Do you understand how important this is? I can’t be calling a future boss collect! Who would hire me?”
I told her I understood, but that the telephone at my desk was strictly for library staff to use, and only in an emergency could someone else use it.
Bertha insisted, “This is an emergency! I need a job!”
I apologized and said that it was actually a personal call, not an emergency, and I couldn’t let people use my phone for their personal calls. I asked if she had a friend, family member, neighbor, or anyone who had a phone she could use, and she insisted that she had to make this phone call right that minute or risk losing this job opportunity.
This is when the battle in my head began.
Would I deny this phone use to anyone else, or is it because it’s Bertha that I’m so staunchly opposed to letting her use it?
Would it do me more good to let her use the phone and go away than to deny it and fight with her, possibly having to bring in someone else who might just let her use the phone and make me look like a vulvahead?
Am I overstepping myself and trying to teach her some kind of lesson about her expectations of limitless services offered by the library and its staff?
Would someone else let her use the phone for this reason?
When I broke it down, I figured there was SOMEONE on staff who would likely agree to let her make the phone call, so it might as well be me. And that’s what did it, surprisingly: the refusal to be overridden by someone who is a spineless pushover. So, dummy that I am, I let myself be the biggest pushover because I didn’t want to be the biggest bitch.
I sternly cautioned, “I’m going to let you do it this time, and only this time, and the call must be very brief. Don’t expect anyone else on staff to ever do anything like this for you, either, because I guarantee it won’t happen.”
She thanked me and I dialed her number.
Then I sat there and listened to a 3-minute job interview over the phone, which involved Bertha telling this man on the phone, who she repeatedly called “Honey”, “Sweetie” and “Dear,” what a wonderful worker she is. She talked up all her extensive office experience and people skills, which caused me to have to turn my back quickly so as not to laugh loudly enough for her interviewer to hear. She didn’t even set up a real interview with the man. It seemed she had overreacted to the email and called right away to thank him for responding to her. He must have said he’d contact her to set up an interview, and she assured him that the phone number she provided belonged to her nephew, but that he would relay any message to her quickly. She thanked him and called him a pet name again.
As she was ending the phone call, she said, “I really look forward to hearing from you. I think it would be so wonderful to work at O’Hare Airport and I hope you call soon.”
Yeah, she’s exactly the type of person we need at O’Hare. The unfriendly skies are about to get unfriendlier, I fear. Between the craziness of all the reports of family members who PICK UP or DROP OFF a traveler to be required to have all of their proper immigration papers on them just for stepping into the airport itself, and ridiculous rules about nail clippers and three ounces of fluid, with constant flashing signs about the terrorism alert levels being high, why the hell not hire Bertha to work there too? It’s not like traveling by plane is a pleasant experience anyway. Why not just require passengers to hack off an appendage so that they are duly miserable during their flight? Break a rib, voluntarily sodomize yourself with a rolled up newspaper, or deal with Bertha in some capacity on your way to your destination – it’s all the same. Bertha could actually cut out some body fluid cleanup by just inflicting herself on people, and then more people would hate to fly. That sounds like a fabulous idea. That’s what the airlines are trying to do, right? Yeah, Bertha will fit right in.
In a year, Chicago will be the Leader of Staycations.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Saturday, Bloody Saturday
It was one of those Saturdays when the library could have run itself. Maybe 40 patrons wandered in and out of the building throughout the day, but only five approached a staff member for help, while the rest were self-sufficient. Eight hours of sitting in an uncomfortable chair, looking up enthusiastically at each and every face that approached the desk, only to greeted with a smile as everyone rounded toward the public computers or found their own material. It was suitably a day when I worried about job security and the obsolescence of my position. On top of that, there were two of us sitting there for those eight hours, trying very hard to stay awake.
It’s days like this that I think the little things are going to make me lose my mind.
One of the first people through the door that morning was a young man of about 19 who frequently parks himself in front of a public computer for most of the day, and it was no different yesterday. However, either he had a cold or ragweed season has officially plunged him into runny-nose misery, because the silence of a Saturday morning library was interrupted every five seconds by his thick, mucus-y sniffling. He was using the back of his own hand to wipe snot from his nose at regular intervals, after a handful of viscous sniffles, and the chorus of nasal activity was starting to develop a pattern. This went on for an hour and a half before I had to excuse myself from the desk to escape the maddening desire to bean him with a box of Kleenex.
I strolled out to the circulation desk and told my tale of sniffly woes to the clerks, who trumped me straight away, as usual.
A woman had just walked up to one of the clerks with her library card in her mouth, and then plucked the contaminated device from her dark, wet, germ-hole to hand to the clerk.
This is so common an occurrence that each clerk has his/her their own way of dealing with it. Some try hard to touch the card only where it wasn’t touched by the mouth, and others will just suggest the patron set the card down on the desk, whereupon any library card number can be read and typed into the computer by hand. The clerk who received the mouth card yesterday morning was so sick of people doing this to her that she reached around behind her and grabbed a tissue, which she used to hold the card.
The patron was not embarrassed by the position she put the clerk in -- she was actually offended that the clerk would refuse to touch her wet card.
“What are you doing that for?” she demanded.
The clerk replied, “Well, you had it in your mouth, and I didn’t really want to touch it.”
The indignant patron then shocked everyone by saying, “So what? I’m just going to put it into my wallet and pull it back out next week, and you think it’s going to get clean between now and then? No. I’m going to hand it to you, and it will still have been in my mouth a few days earlier, and you think you’re going to be any safer if you didn’t see me put it in there?”
These are the patrons you wish to put some kind of flag on their accounts so that others will know to put on biohazard suits before dealing with them, but the rub is that you have to touch and scan their cards before you will reach the flag on the account.
No one knew quite what to say to this rude patron, who happened to be right, because we all know disgusting people are, with little or no regard for the rest of the world.
After lunch, two of our regulars paid us a visit. They are the quintessential embodiment of what you would picture if siblings had sex and produced offspring. 21-year-old twin girls, with some mental, physical and maturity handicaps, dirt poor, uncouth, uneducated, unwashed, and unaware that we call them The Beasts.
They asked for two computers, and because they owe the library so much in fines, I had to put them on the temporary computers five feet from the reference desk. With so few other patrons in the building, they were able to use these computers for about two hours before we finally booted them off. What caused us to boot them off had nothing to do with demand for the machines, either.
Somehow, they always have money for snacks, and they bring bags of candy and potato chips, along with their preferred soda brand out to the computers. The twin nearest our desk was grazing steadily from the moment she arrived, and each time she took a swig of her pop, she let out this manly, vulgar belch, and then promptly said, “Excuse me.” It was as if she’d given herself license to behave in any ill-mannered way in public, as long as she excused herself afterward. In a library where patrons were scarce and the loudest noise we could hear was the hum of the air conditioning, the frequent burping was starting to get on my nerves.
I have a relatively short fuse when it comes to the little things, but I can deal with a huge crisis in a state of calm and clear-headedness, and never worry I’m going to have a meltdown. The Beasts were by no means a crisis, but I could feel my tension building as I looked around for some office supplies I could maim them with.
My partner at the desk, who sat closer to them than I did, sent me a quick email stating that he’d had enough of them, that he found their behavior to be so fucking disgusting that he was kicking them off the computers. I wrote back and thanked him for acting, explaining that I was worried they were only driving me nuts and no one else. He jotted an email back that said he could smell the odor every time Beast #1 burped, and it was making him sick.
With that, he put reserves on their computers that would time-out their sessions in just a few minutes, and he announced he had to step away from the desk for a few minutes. I told him to take his time, and then proceeded to turn on the fan, because the most recent burp’s odor was wafting my way now.
The Beasts were oblivious to the offense they caused, and when their computers ran out of time, they simply left.
I swear, for the remainder of the day I still smelled the stench of their post-chewed food, mixed with gastric juice, belched up and shared with the world.
Saturdays like these are uncommon, and given that school starts on Monday, I’m assuming we won’t see another for about ten months.
Good riddance!
It’s days like this that I think the little things are going to make me lose my mind.
One of the first people through the door that morning was a young man of about 19 who frequently parks himself in front of a public computer for most of the day, and it was no different yesterday. However, either he had a cold or ragweed season has officially plunged him into runny-nose misery, because the silence of a Saturday morning library was interrupted every five seconds by his thick, mucus-y sniffling. He was using the back of his own hand to wipe snot from his nose at regular intervals, after a handful of viscous sniffles, and the chorus of nasal activity was starting to develop a pattern. This went on for an hour and a half before I had to excuse myself from the desk to escape the maddening desire to bean him with a box of Kleenex.
I strolled out to the circulation desk and told my tale of sniffly woes to the clerks, who trumped me straight away, as usual.
A woman had just walked up to one of the clerks with her library card in her mouth, and then plucked the contaminated device from her dark, wet, germ-hole to hand to the clerk.
This is so common an occurrence that each clerk has his/her their own way of dealing with it. Some try hard to touch the card only where it wasn’t touched by the mouth, and others will just suggest the patron set the card down on the desk, whereupon any library card number can be read and typed into the computer by hand. The clerk who received the mouth card yesterday morning was so sick of people doing this to her that she reached around behind her and grabbed a tissue, which she used to hold the card.
The patron was not embarrassed by the position she put the clerk in -- she was actually offended that the clerk would refuse to touch her wet card.
“What are you doing that for?” she demanded.
The clerk replied, “Well, you had it in your mouth, and I didn’t really want to touch it.”
The indignant patron then shocked everyone by saying, “So what? I’m just going to put it into my wallet and pull it back out next week, and you think it’s going to get clean between now and then? No. I’m going to hand it to you, and it will still have been in my mouth a few days earlier, and you think you’re going to be any safer if you didn’t see me put it in there?”
These are the patrons you wish to put some kind of flag on their accounts so that others will know to put on biohazard suits before dealing with them, but the rub is that you have to touch and scan their cards before you will reach the flag on the account.
No one knew quite what to say to this rude patron, who happened to be right, because we all know disgusting people are, with little or no regard for the rest of the world.
After lunch, two of our regulars paid us a visit. They are the quintessential embodiment of what you would picture if siblings had sex and produced offspring. 21-year-old twin girls, with some mental, physical and maturity handicaps, dirt poor, uncouth, uneducated, unwashed, and unaware that we call them The Beasts.
They asked for two computers, and because they owe the library so much in fines, I had to put them on the temporary computers five feet from the reference desk. With so few other patrons in the building, they were able to use these computers for about two hours before we finally booted them off. What caused us to boot them off had nothing to do with demand for the machines, either.
Somehow, they always have money for snacks, and they bring bags of candy and potato chips, along with their preferred soda brand out to the computers. The twin nearest our desk was grazing steadily from the moment she arrived, and each time she took a swig of her pop, she let out this manly, vulgar belch, and then promptly said, “Excuse me.” It was as if she’d given herself license to behave in any ill-mannered way in public, as long as she excused herself afterward. In a library where patrons were scarce and the loudest noise we could hear was the hum of the air conditioning, the frequent burping was starting to get on my nerves.
I have a relatively short fuse when it comes to the little things, but I can deal with a huge crisis in a state of calm and clear-headedness, and never worry I’m going to have a meltdown. The Beasts were by no means a crisis, but I could feel my tension building as I looked around for some office supplies I could maim them with.
My partner at the desk, who sat closer to them than I did, sent me a quick email stating that he’d had enough of them, that he found their behavior to be so fucking disgusting that he was kicking them off the computers. I wrote back and thanked him for acting, explaining that I was worried they were only driving me nuts and no one else. He jotted an email back that said he could smell the odor every time Beast #1 burped, and it was making him sick.
With that, he put reserves on their computers that would time-out their sessions in just a few minutes, and he announced he had to step away from the desk for a few minutes. I told him to take his time, and then proceeded to turn on the fan, because the most recent burp’s odor was wafting my way now.
The Beasts were oblivious to the offense they caused, and when their computers ran out of time, they simply left.
I swear, for the remainder of the day I still smelled the stench of their post-chewed food, mixed with gastric juice, belched up and shared with the world.
Saturdays like these are uncommon, and given that school starts on Monday, I’m assuming we won’t see another for about ten months.
Good riddance!
Monday, August 11, 2008
You Can Smell the School Year Starting Soon
Last week I found a 7-year-old using one of the unfiltered computers in the adult department.
I approached him and said, “Hi there. Can I ask you a question? How old are you?”
He said, “Seven.”
I shook my head knowingly and said, “I’m sorry, but you have to be 14 to use the computers here. You can use the computers in the youth area, though, even if you don’t have a library card with you.”
He said, “Aw hell! I can’t just use this computer?”
“No, sorry. When you’re 14 you can.”
“Shiiiiiiiiiit.”
This was when I noticed he had a tattoo. Seriously, a big black anchor tattooed on his neck. It started at the bottom of his neck, spread out down across his collarbones, and the tip dipped down into his little-boy chest. This was no lick-on tattoo, nor was it a sketch with a Sharpie. It was perfect, and a professional did it, and it actually was drawn so that the tiny lumps of his collarbones didn’t distort the image. I was in disbelief: this boy had a fucking tattoo on his neck, and on top of that, he used language as bad as my own.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that he was with a group of teens and not a parent. The teens were so irritating to me that I was considering kicking them out, even though they hadn’t done anything truly disruptive or dangerous. One girl had a horrible habit of laughing in this explosive way. It seemed she’d start off biting her lips to try to keep from making the outburst, but it would burst out anyway, and sound like BUH-haaaaaaaaaaah! Each time she did it, I asked her to keep her voice down and she would look right at me and deny doing it, even though I watched her do it. And they were runners. Excitable kids who felt the need to constantly run from one to the other, and when I told them to walk, they’d slow down to a walk, and on the return, would be sprinting past again. It was nothing overtly belligerent, just extremely irritating, and I could feel my blood pressure rising.
Not long after I announced to my partner that I was about to throw the group out, they started screaming threats to fight with another group of teens, who were quietly sitting at a computer, holding a baby. My partner called the police and I made sure the obnoxious group with the tattooed little boy left the building and did not return.
Teens with babies in the library. Other teens with a younger sibling, tattooed on his neck. Fights. Police. And it’s still summer vacation.
How do you prevent the school year from starting?
I approached him and said, “Hi there. Can I ask you a question? How old are you?”
He said, “Seven.”
I shook my head knowingly and said, “I’m sorry, but you have to be 14 to use the computers here. You can use the computers in the youth area, though, even if you don’t have a library card with you.”
He said, “Aw hell! I can’t just use this computer?”
“No, sorry. When you’re 14 you can.”
“Shiiiiiiiiiit.”
This was when I noticed he had a tattoo. Seriously, a big black anchor tattooed on his neck. It started at the bottom of his neck, spread out down across his collarbones, and the tip dipped down into his little-boy chest. This was no lick-on tattoo, nor was it a sketch with a Sharpie. It was perfect, and a professional did it, and it actually was drawn so that the tiny lumps of his collarbones didn’t distort the image. I was in disbelief: this boy had a fucking tattoo on his neck, and on top of that, he used language as bad as my own.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that he was with a group of teens and not a parent. The teens were so irritating to me that I was considering kicking them out, even though they hadn’t done anything truly disruptive or dangerous. One girl had a horrible habit of laughing in this explosive way. It seemed she’d start off biting her lips to try to keep from making the outburst, but it would burst out anyway, and sound like BUH-haaaaaaaaaaah! Each time she did it, I asked her to keep her voice down and she would look right at me and deny doing it, even though I watched her do it. And they were runners. Excitable kids who felt the need to constantly run from one to the other, and when I told them to walk, they’d slow down to a walk, and on the return, would be sprinting past again. It was nothing overtly belligerent, just extremely irritating, and I could feel my blood pressure rising.
Not long after I announced to my partner that I was about to throw the group out, they started screaming threats to fight with another group of teens, who were quietly sitting at a computer, holding a baby. My partner called the police and I made sure the obnoxious group with the tattooed little boy left the building and did not return.
Teens with babies in the library. Other teens with a younger sibling, tattooed on his neck. Fights. Police. And it’s still summer vacation.
How do you prevent the school year from starting?
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Scissor Thief
There are days when people rub me wrong, for reasons that aren’t necessarily in some kind of written etiquette guide.
For instance, recently I was at the reference desk cutting out images for a display, and a man walked past the desk, saw me using the scissors, and immediately asked if he could use them.
Does he not see that I’m in the middle of using them? No, he sees. Does he think that I’m supposed to stop mid-cut and hand him my scissors because he’s suddenly struck by the idea that he needs to borrow them for something he wasn’t even approaching me for? Yep.
This caused me to freeze and stare at him, eyes wide, scissors open and in the middle of splaying a sheet of paper. My hesitation caused him to reach across the desk, without waiting for me to respond by handing him the very utensils I was in the middle of using, without question. If my partner at the desk hadn’t reached into the drawer to offer up a different pair of scissors, I firmly believe this man would have peeled my fingers off the handle and taken the instrument from me, with me sitting there silently, slack-jawed, unable to react.
Even children know to ask if they can borrow something when I’m finished using them, or ask if I have a spare pair of scissors. This makes me wonder just how far people will go with their I-come-first demands from us.
Would they ask for the glasses off my face if their pair broke and they needed to see something?
If they spilled something on their shirt, would they ask for mine?
Could I expect someone to peel the Band-aid off my finger to place on their own in the event that they receive a papercut?
These might sound extreme, even creepy, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
I’ve had complete strangers ask if they can have a drink from my bottle of pop because they’re thirsty, or ask me for money, or for a ride somewhere. They have no qualms about violating my personal space or asking for inappropriate favors or services. Not just that, but they have actually asked me to not only break rules for them, but commit what I would consider a crime by pretending I found something on the shelf so I can waive their fines, or asking if I’d give them an item and pretend like it was damaged enough to withdraw it and give it away. They frequently ask if they can just copy a cassette or CD from another library’s set, to replace the piece they lost from an audiobook. We’re not talking about the people who take CDs home just to burn them, but people who are trying to get out of paying for damage by illegally making copies to cover it up. As if no one would notice the solitary, silver Memorex CD among eight others, with human scrawl declaring it part of the set. Why not? More than once we’ve received torn books returned to us with DUCT TAPE holding the pages together, as if this was some kind of reasonable way to mend a book without us noticing.
Just last week one of the clerks had a patron screaming at her for so long that she ended up in tears because this patron insisted vehemently that she returned an audiobook. Everyone knew she didn’t because she had so often used this tactic before, and then found the item she swore she returned, and had to fess up and pay her fine. So when the woman came into the library a few days later and was visibly hiding something and looking around suspiciously, one of the clerks followed her out to the stacks, where she was witnessed putting an audiobook onto the shelf. The clerk could see it was the very audiobook that had caused such a ruckus just a few days before, and she swiped it back off the shelf to confront the patron. The woman had scurried off to the circulation desk to demand someone check the shelves again, but the cynical clerk rounded the corner with the audiobook in hand, quick to confront her about the deception. Even though she’d been followed and someone witnessed her putting the item on the shelf, she stood there denying it, accusing the clerk of waiting for her to come in again so they could frame her like this. It’s scary what people will say and do to our employees to avoid responsibility. If three people hadn’t been involved in watching her, with one following her, I wonder if management might have actually believed this patron.
Another woman claimed that the fines on her account were not her own, but those of her bad twin sister who fraudulently used her card.
At one point last week, there was a mother and adult daughter pair who came into the library claiming they’d never lived in the area and wanted to obtain new library cards. A quick search turned up records on them from a few years earlier, with the daughter owing over $80 and the mother owing $30. Due to the hefty amount, every effort was made to verify that these were in fact the same people. The birthdays matched, the parent name in the daughter’s account matched, and the names matched, down to the unusual spelling. One of the pair had a mugshot still in the system from her last card, and the picture even matched. Still this pair claimed to have never lived in the area and to not owe anything on existing accounts. For reasons that were unclear, this pair put up such a huge fuss, screaming, swearing, demanding management, and totally disrupting the entire building, yet no one asked them to leave. They eventually left on their own, only to return shortly thereafter with a police officer. The officer wasn’t quite sure why his presence was required, and in no uncertain terms told the women that he had no authority over our records and alleged library fines, but his presence was still a bit comforting to the staff, who thought these women were nuts. For even more elusive reasons, they issued a new card to the mother only, and this pair then checked out a heap of material. Later, when the manager had all the information, she barred the new account laid down the law about these two being responsible for their previous fines.
While all these assaults are clearly serious signs of something being wrong with mankind, I do believe the man who was ready to pry my scissors out of my hand for his own personal use is somehow a greater offense. Screaming, shouting and lying are almost more normal and expected than someone who would take the very item out of your hand, without your approval. I’m not quite sure why, but that’s one of the most shocking and offensive things I’ve experienced in the library. More so than the poo. More so than the stalkers. And more so than raving lunatics.
Thankfully my partner was there to rescue us both by providing this man with his own scissors to use.
He might not have tried this if he knew about all the deaths I’ve plotted with office supplies.
For instance, recently I was at the reference desk cutting out images for a display, and a man walked past the desk, saw me using the scissors, and immediately asked if he could use them.
Does he not see that I’m in the middle of using them? No, he sees. Does he think that I’m supposed to stop mid-cut and hand him my scissors because he’s suddenly struck by the idea that he needs to borrow them for something he wasn’t even approaching me for? Yep.
This caused me to freeze and stare at him, eyes wide, scissors open and in the middle of splaying a sheet of paper. My hesitation caused him to reach across the desk, without waiting for me to respond by handing him the very utensils I was in the middle of using, without question. If my partner at the desk hadn’t reached into the drawer to offer up a different pair of scissors, I firmly believe this man would have peeled my fingers off the handle and taken the instrument from me, with me sitting there silently, slack-jawed, unable to react.
Even children know to ask if they can borrow something when I’m finished using them, or ask if I have a spare pair of scissors. This makes me wonder just how far people will go with their I-come-first demands from us.
Would they ask for the glasses off my face if their pair broke and they needed to see something?
If they spilled something on their shirt, would they ask for mine?
Could I expect someone to peel the Band-aid off my finger to place on their own in the event that they receive a papercut?
These might sound extreme, even creepy, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
I’ve had complete strangers ask if they can have a drink from my bottle of pop because they’re thirsty, or ask me for money, or for a ride somewhere. They have no qualms about violating my personal space or asking for inappropriate favors or services. Not just that, but they have actually asked me to not only break rules for them, but commit what I would consider a crime by pretending I found something on the shelf so I can waive their fines, or asking if I’d give them an item and pretend like it was damaged enough to withdraw it and give it away. They frequently ask if they can just copy a cassette or CD from another library’s set, to replace the piece they lost from an audiobook. We’re not talking about the people who take CDs home just to burn them, but people who are trying to get out of paying for damage by illegally making copies to cover it up. As if no one would notice the solitary, silver Memorex CD among eight others, with human scrawl declaring it part of the set. Why not? More than once we’ve received torn books returned to us with DUCT TAPE holding the pages together, as if this was some kind of reasonable way to mend a book without us noticing.
Just last week one of the clerks had a patron screaming at her for so long that she ended up in tears because this patron insisted vehemently that she returned an audiobook. Everyone knew she didn’t because she had so often used this tactic before, and then found the item she swore she returned, and had to fess up and pay her fine. So when the woman came into the library a few days later and was visibly hiding something and looking around suspiciously, one of the clerks followed her out to the stacks, where she was witnessed putting an audiobook onto the shelf. The clerk could see it was the very audiobook that had caused such a ruckus just a few days before, and she swiped it back off the shelf to confront the patron. The woman had scurried off to the circulation desk to demand someone check the shelves again, but the cynical clerk rounded the corner with the audiobook in hand, quick to confront her about the deception. Even though she’d been followed and someone witnessed her putting the item on the shelf, she stood there denying it, accusing the clerk of waiting for her to come in again so they could frame her like this. It’s scary what people will say and do to our employees to avoid responsibility. If three people hadn’t been involved in watching her, with one following her, I wonder if management might have actually believed this patron.
Another woman claimed that the fines on her account were not her own, but those of her bad twin sister who fraudulently used her card.
At one point last week, there was a mother and adult daughter pair who came into the library claiming they’d never lived in the area and wanted to obtain new library cards. A quick search turned up records on them from a few years earlier, with the daughter owing over $80 and the mother owing $30. Due to the hefty amount, every effort was made to verify that these were in fact the same people. The birthdays matched, the parent name in the daughter’s account matched, and the names matched, down to the unusual spelling. One of the pair had a mugshot still in the system from her last card, and the picture even matched. Still this pair claimed to have never lived in the area and to not owe anything on existing accounts. For reasons that were unclear, this pair put up such a huge fuss, screaming, swearing, demanding management, and totally disrupting the entire building, yet no one asked them to leave. They eventually left on their own, only to return shortly thereafter with a police officer. The officer wasn’t quite sure why his presence was required, and in no uncertain terms told the women that he had no authority over our records and alleged library fines, but his presence was still a bit comforting to the staff, who thought these women were nuts. For even more elusive reasons, they issued a new card to the mother only, and this pair then checked out a heap of material. Later, when the manager had all the information, she barred the new account laid down the law about these two being responsible for their previous fines.
While all these assaults are clearly serious signs of something being wrong with mankind, I do believe the man who was ready to pry my scissors out of my hand for his own personal use is somehow a greater offense. Screaming, shouting and lying are almost more normal and expected than someone who would take the very item out of your hand, without your approval. I’m not quite sure why, but that’s one of the most shocking and offensive things I’ve experienced in the library. More so than the poo. More so than the stalkers. And more so than raving lunatics.
Thankfully my partner was there to rescue us both by providing this man with his own scissors to use.
He might not have tried this if he knew about all the deaths I’ve plotted with office supplies.
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