On another note

CRAZY AND ALCOHOL/RECREATIONAL DRUGS DON'T MIX!!!!!!!!I'm going to need everyone to shout that from a mountain top at least twice a month. My reciting it everytime I encounter a patron who mixes 2 or all three of those things isn't working. The other thing I announce at least once a day is, "I NOW UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE SHOULD JUST SAY NO TO DRUGS!"

So it seems that I spoke too soon!

Yesterday we were short staffed, almost everyone had to work an extra hour on the reference desk. Lucky me, my extra time was spent at the International Reference desk. I was at there at 2pm, and then again at 4pm.

Well, Mr. McCreepy spotted me at the reference desk. At first he walked past without saying anything, and I thought I was safe. Nope, I need to stop hoping and praying that he will leave me alone. My prayer every time I spot him on the floor is that he will decide to like someone else. Another creepy person staring at me is the last thing I need in LIFE.

So, he walked pass me twice. The third time he came my way, was to use the print station. I kept thinking that somehow I was spared. After he retrieved his print job, he stopped and just stared. I spotted him, I was conducting a search on the computer and never looked his way. So the fool walks pass me and says high. I gave the driest "Hi," I could muster up.

Sometimes, my patience doesn't exist

There's this one patron who annoys me. My boss teases me and says, "Oh, is that another member of the Nexgrl Fan Club?"
He will stand in line and wait until I'm available. The other thing he does, is stand near the pillar by the reference desk and stare at me. He tries to use one of internet computers that face the reference desk, so that he can stare at me. How do I know these things? Everytime I look up, he is staring at me. He will ask me the same questions over and over again.
My breaking point came about 3 weeks ago. He waited to ask me to help him with a computer that was on the opposite side of the room. It was the side that my co-worker was covering. I spoke to the guy sharply and said, "OH, YOU COULD'T JUST ASK MY CO-WORKER TO DO IT?". To my surprise, that was all it took. I didn't see him for about 1 1/2 wks. Last week, I saw him talking to one of the librarians on the internation side of the floor. The day after that, I saw him using a computer near the reference desk, but he left without bothering me. I am hoping that this lasts forever!

Hoodwinked

Yeah, I hate to admit, but she got me good. What she doesn't realize, is that I won't let it happen again.

Last Wednesday, I was at my desk talking on my cell, when one of the supervisors(not mine) approached me. I told my friend that I'd call her back.
So, MsAbsentMinded asks me if I would come to work an hour later Thursday and work until 8pm. My first answer was no, because I made a deal when I began working in this department. I work Sundays, so I never have to work a weeknight. Ms.A.M.(Absent Minded) said okay, but went on to whine, "But I don't know if NeverCome2Work will show up. She returns from LA in the morning.". The whole time, I'm looking at Ms.A.M.and thinking that isn't my problem.
Since I was looking at her with a strange look, she asked, "Do you have plans? If you say no, I'll just ask 1 of the pages to sit at the reference desk with me." After about 7 mintes, I finally agreed.
Thursday, NeverCome2Work was scheduled to arrive at 12:30pm. I decided that I would just tell her to work the last hour and go home early. About 1:20pm, I see NeverCome2Work walking up the stairs toward our floor. The only librarian on my floor who looks like me is going down the stairs. He stopped, said something to NeverCome2Work; she turned around and left.
I found out later that afternoon that MsA.M. told NeverCome2Work that she didn't have to show up.
My supervisor said,"You are so good, the favor will be returned to you.". My response, "Funny how MsA.M. waited until after you left for the day to talk about changing my schedule.

Nothing new just another odd interaction

Wednesday afternoon, I arrived at the reference desk and there was a man standing there. He said he was looking for pg. 502. Now you'd think, that question would have made me turn around, but no, I tried to figure out what he was talking about.

I asked the man what type of book the page was located in. He kept repeating the page number and telling me that he found it at the other library. After about 2 minutes, I finally got some useful information out of him. The problem was, in between the regular questions/statements, he would blurt out, "Breaker, Breaker, 19," or he would start mumbling about female serial killers.

In the end, what he wanted was the Chronicle Yearbook for the 20th Century. We had a copy, but he was upset because he couldn't find the latest edition of the book.

Thursday, I found out how female serial killers became an addition to the man from Wednesday's ramblings. There were two African American Women who were doing research on female serial killers. One of the women had returned and I told her that I hoped she didn't bring that man with her. She said, she and her film partner were in the education room, and he heard them talking about female serial killers.

Look what I found

Yesterday, a patron approached the desk, he complained that a man was eating near him and the chewing was irritating him. As I was walking the aisle, to see what/who the problem was, I found something similar to this

Everything was plugged in and it looked as if it had been used. I was so stunned, that when I returned to the reference desk, I told my co-worker, "I could explain it to you, but I wouldn't do it justice. You have to go see if for yourself." She walked over there and returned to inform me that she was going in the staff area to inform my boss. He came out and asked the guy(by that time the patron had returned) how he was able to bring the computer inside.

Ordering Areas

For the past three years, my selection area for the library has been 800's. This means poetry, plays, American literature, and foreign translated literature. Well, as of June 1st, my order area has changed. I now handle selections for education( 370-379,) and occult, self-help, astrology (100-199, basically the area where the books go missing.)

At first, I thought, my boss suggested this so that I could have a change of pace. This week, I began exploring my new order areas. There is an Education Center attached to whoever handles that call number section. Well, it has been taken over by some strange folks. To ensure that the center is all theirs, they intimidate whoever goes in there to actually do research. I've gone in there a total of three times this week to re-stock the pamphlets. The first two times, the men were giving me crazy looks and I returned the same crazy looks, all the while I kept doing my thing. Yesterday, a couple was in there arguing. Well the guy threatened that if he left, he wasn't coming back. Since he was getting ready to use his cellular telephone, I had to burst both of their bubbles. I told him, "If you going to use that, you can't do it in here. You have to go out to the elevator area to use your cell phone." They both looked at me as if I had just spoken out of the left side of my head.

My cubicle is now crowded with education materials. I told my boss that I couldn't have that. He told me to store everything in the storage closet. I went into the closet Wednesday and discovered that I would have to clean it out in order to use it. There were boxes and boxes of education documents from two years ago. The past selector, opted not to clean the closet and to store everything at her desk. I began tossing boxes of stuff into the recycle bin. I had to stop, put on a dust mask and plastic gloves because it was so dusty and dirty.

Yesterday, I told my boss that he gave me those order areas because he wanted me to clean them up. You see, three years ago, I cleaned up the 800's. Yesterday, I began to look at job openings in my field in other parts of the country. He asked me if I was considering moving. I told him that I have to do something.

Holiday in lieu pay

Well folks, once again the end of our physical year is nearing and I found myself having to scramble. I received notice at the end of April that I had 64 hours of Holiday In Lieu pay that must be used by 6/30/2009, or I will loose them.

I checked the vacation datebook, and there were no consecutive days available. Since I hate getting up for work on Monday(I don't know why, because it's my 2nd day of the work week,) I have scheduled 3 Mondays in June off. In addition, I have taken two Sundays off as well.

I must say, it feels real good to have a short work week.

Arguing over 15 minutes

Last Wednesday was a doozy. After two yelling and shoving incidents, we called security because it sounded like it was about to go down. They arrived, told one man to leave, he walked away no problem. The other guy, well, he refused to leave. They had to restrain him with those plastic handcuffs. He had the nerve to yell and scream as they were shoving him into the elevator.

As soon as the floor was clear and quiet, lo and behold the first guy resurfaced. We then found out that he was the trouble maker. Once again, there was shouting and shoving. We called security again and were told that they were still dealing with the other guy.
It seems that homey was walking around the 15-minute express terminals
exposing himself. As if that wasn't bad enough, he had crabs and they were
visable.

Splash Award

I was given this award a few months ago and I never got around to posting it. I actually forgot about it and I'm sure that she has been wondering what happened.

I was nominated by Doret also know as The Happy Nappy Bookseller. I am supposed to nominate 9 people, but I'm not going to do that.

Doret, I am appreciated the nomination. I am honored that you think of my blogs when it comes to things of this nature. Really and truly, I'm always surprised to find that more than my friends and brother read my blog.

***Doret, my links to you blog aren't showing. I have triple checked and from what I can see, I typed correctly. I don't know what happened.

That librarian over there was talking down to me

That's what a patron yelled when he walked away from me. And, my co-worker said, "You do talk down to people, we(meaning him) are surprised that you haven't gotten slapped." I said, "I don't think I talk down to patrons." My co-worker did admit that in this instance, I was not in the wrong.

The patron approached me at the desk and said, " I would like a bibliography of Johnny Appleseed." Now, somehow, I knew that he meant biography. I conducted a keyword search and found that we only had one adult biography in the system, it was unavailable, but there were plenty in the children's room.

I said to the patron, "The is one biography, but it isn't available, you'll have to place a hold on it. It was checked-in today, at a branch, and it is in the process of being returned here."

The patron then said, " I want something that I can check-out today."

I said, "Well, the adult biography is unavailable, but there are a lot in the children's room."

The patron walked away and returned with a call number for the book that I had just told him about, but he said, " I want a bibliography on Johnny Appleseed and here is the call number for what I'm looking for."

I said, "That is the call number for the book I just looked up, and it is a biography. That title is unavailable, but there are plenty in the children's room."

The patron repeated himself, so I repeated myself slowly, so that he would be able to hear every word that I was saying.

The patron repeated what I said and walked away. Once he got over to the online catalogs, he began yelling, "THAT LIBRARIAN OVER THERE IS TALKING DOWN TO ME!!!
WHY DO ALL OF THESE BOOKS ABOUT JOHNNY APPLESEED SAY jB. I CAN'T FIND THE AREA WHERE THE BOOKS ARE. HE WAS A REAL PERSON AND I WANT A BOOK THAT TALKS ABOUT HIS LIFE."
I just let him talk, because he obviously didn't want my help. My co-worker finally said, "Let me go over and help him because he isn't understanding what he is doing."

Reference desk stories

Sunday, a patron approached me at the reference desk and said, " I lost 5 minutes of my time, can I get extra time." I ignored that statement and asked her where the computer was that she was using. As we are walking toward the computer, she says again, " I was told that if I lost computer time, I could get extra time. Well, I lost 5 minutes, can I get extra time?" Once again, I ignored her and rebooted the terminal. Each time she told me about the 5 minutes, I was hoping that she realized how stupid that question was. I was not going to give and extra hour because she lost 5 minutes. I never found out if she realized how stupid she sounded, but she didn't ask me anymore.

My co-worker was reading a food blog that she likes and she asked me if I had ever made pizza dough. I told her no. She then went on to ask me if I thought she would have to make the dough 24 hours in advance. I told her to call her local/favorite pizza parlour and ask them. I also told her that we get those types of questions all day long, she should not feel odd about calling a pizza parlour and asking. She kept saying how she felt that was a stupid question to call about. Finally, I said, "Why don't you just look it up. You shouldn't feel bad, people call us all day long with questions about something that they could very easily look up, but they don't feel like it."

Negotiations

Our union is negotiating with the city and county to amend our contract. We are due our cost of living increase of 8%. They have proposed that we give up all paid holidays, and floating holidays, for two years. They will give us an 3.75% increase in pay, and 9 paid days off to be used over a two year period.

Our floor union representative(the one who forgot to come to work,) said that this is in lieu of layoffs.

I suggest that they encourage those who are close to retirement and don't do any work anyway to retire. I think they should also get rid of all of the others who don't do their job. The employees on each floor of the main and in each branch, should be able to submit names anonymously. If we are able to do this, the budget will definitely decrease for the library salaries. On my floor alone, we would eliminate 4 librarians and 1 clerk.

Laptops, Wi-fi, and patrons

Last Thursday, one of the regulars(who hears voices and acts out,) sat down at one of the laptop tables. He had what appeared to be a square T.oshiba cardboard box. My co-worker said, "He has a brand new laptop."

Me, being hopeful, said, "No, maybe it's just an empty box."

No ladies and gentlemen, he had a brand new laptop. He sat down, opened the box and removed the computer. He pulled out the instructions and began reading them. I thought that we were in for a long afternoon of his non-stop questions. He didn't ask us any questions.

After about 35 minutes of him trying to read and understand the instructions, and yelling in frustration, he called customer service. He spoke to them for a while. After about 1 1/2hr, he left the library. While waiting for the elevator, we heard him yell at himself and slap his hand(REALLY HARD.)

Today, a woman approached me at the reference desk, and asked, "Do you know how to work a Ma.cbook?" I told her no, and went about my duties(We have instructions, but they're only for Ethernet connections.) Two hours later, as she was packing up to go, I noticed that she had a brand new M.acbook Pro. As I was leaving the reference desk, I whispered to my co-worker, "How are you going to purchase one of the most expensive M.acbook's out there and not know how to use it?"

Cover-ups or just plain old erasing

Sundays, we have a bare minimum staff of librarians. Because of this, the floor manager and the supervisors rotate Sundays. This past Sunday, the scheduled supervisor did a no show, no call. My co-worker whom we can never depend on to show up, was there and trying her best to find excuses for the supervisor's behavior. I told her to chalk it up and we'd just have extra hours on the reference desk.

This wasn't going to work for her, because she didn't want to do any extra hours. Although, on the days when she decides to call in "sick," that is what we do. We work around the missing person. So, she called the person who was in charge of the whole building and informed him. He tried to call the supervisor. He told us that she had given the wrong number as her home contact number.

Monday arrives and I discovered that the official desk schedule hadn't been changed to reflect how we actually covered the two reference desks. My co-worker(librarian who looks like me) told me that I should change the original. I went in search of the altered copy, and it was no where to be found. The supervisor in question had entered the staff area from the direction of where the copy was filed. Instead of accusing, I simply made the changes from memory. As I'm doing this, the supervisor with the floor manager in tow, walks over to where I was, and said, "I forgot to come to work yesterday." I said, "WE KNOW!" I walked away. She then says in frustration, "I guess that I'll work today, and I'll take two of Nexgrl's hours. Is that okay." My response was, "Yea, okay." In addition to this, she changed Tuesdays schedule, so that I would only have one hour on the desk.

Catalog/reference headaches

A lot of times, after 1 hour on the reference desk, I need to talk a walk, go outside, something, just get away. The following interaction is an example of what I'm referring to.

Patron: Can you help me find out if the library has a book?

Me: Sure, do you know the title?

Patron: No.

Me: Do you know the author's name?

Patron: No.

Me: Do you know the any of the subjects, that the book might fall under?

Patron: No. Can you just show me how to find a book?

Me: Do you want me to show you how to locate a book on the floor, or in the library
catalog?
Patron: Can you show me how to find a book online?

Me: Do you want to know how to locate a book in our system, or on the computer itself?

Patron: Yes, can you show me how to find a book in your system?

Me: Is there any particular topic that you are interested in?

Patron: (She is with her husband) No, we just want to find a book.

This went back and forth for about 5 minutes, before I took them over to the online catalogs. I had the woman sit down, and showed them the basics. I then gave them a schedule of the free computer training classes offered by the library. I also pointed out to her that they need to take the Basic Online Catalog class.

Appearances can be deceiving

1:00pm, as I approached the reference desk, a hot pink mohawk caught my attention. The owner of the mohawk, a guy in his twenties sitting in front of a laptop, with buds in his ears. Nothing odd or unusual about anything I described, right....He was KNITTING a scarf.

This one had folks laughing this afternoon

This patron yelled, and motioned with his hands, "Hey Miss! Can you come here please? I need help." (I gave him a pass because he has OCD and some other type of disorder.) I walk over there and he says, "I want to go to you.tube and the computer isn't responding."

He had already typed the web address in the browser, so I simply pressed the enter key, and walked away. As I approached the reference desk, he yelled, "Hey, how did that happen, what did you do?" With my back turned, I said, "I pressed the enter key." The other librarian and the other patrons who were paying attention began laughing.

He was salty because my response wasn't timely

Midway into my shift, I usually get a mild stress headache. It always seems to lift once I return to my cubicle.

So this patron who was using a computer two tables away from the reference desk, yells, "Hey, um yeah. Hey. I'm not on the phone, I'm talking to you."

I looked at him, turned my head, paused for a minute, and then decided to get up. I go over to where he is and he's complaining about the government websites being too slow. Well the computer was frozen, and I decided to reboot it. The patron said, "Well, I was through using it anyway!"

Tuesday's biggest missed moment

I was told by my co-workers, that just before I came to the reference desk, a patron had punched another patron in the face. He was punched in the face because he refused to let the other man use his cell phone. The man decided that he wanted it anyway, grabbed the other man, reached for the phone and punched him in the face.

The victim chose not to report the incident to security, or file a police report. He felt that his attacker had mental issues.