Monday, May 15, 2006
 

Leave Your Human Decency at the Door

Pet peeve of mine? People who say, "oh, your job must be so easy!"

It's not. Ask any one of the longtime employees, all of whom suffer from chronic knee pain, back pain, and more. The business of moving books, even on a day-to-day basis, kills your body.

Ask the people who catalog. Ask them about the 999 fields in a MARC record for a single book. Ask them how long it took them to learn how to catalog in the first place.

Ask a systems administrator. Ask about how they are saddled with all the computer problems created by employees, patrons, virus-makers in Seoul, and general network and hardware failure.

Ask a director. If you can find one who's not on the point of exploding over budget, board, employee, etc. issues.

Ask the people at the front desk. They think we sit on our butts and read or something all day, and that everyone is sweet and polite.

HAH. If a day went by when I didn't get cussed out, I'd have to pinch myself to see if I were dreaming. And I never sit, unless you count whatever time I manage to squeeze in (usually a maximum of 45 minutes at the end of the workday) to repair books or sort donations (wanna come help me go through those, one by one? then carry them in boxes to cataloging or the to-be-sold area?).

People are positively foul, even when they're not swearing. Everything is yoru fault, every rule (and oh, there are rules) is stupid, you're a bitch for enforcing the rule, your superior (or the county, or the state, or the library board) is a moron for creating it. And even if you stayed open 24/7, people would STILL complain about your hours (Bible Belt problem: If you're not open on Sundays, people complain that you're not open enough. If you ARE open on Sundays, people complain because that's "unChristian").

A few weeks ago, a woman kindly informed me that I was "getting fat." I went to the back and cried.

Was that before or after the bomb threat? I can't even remember. At least the evacuation was on a nice day.

Oh, and when the state trooper came to the library to arrest some people today, at least he got them to go out into the parking lot. It's quite disruptive when the arrests happen inside.

I have been solicited in ways that make me wonder how these people would talk to a prostitute, if this is how they talk to a library employee.

People are also big on throwing things (library cards, pens, books, change, whatever) at you.

And fines are never, ever their fault. EVER. I guess we just randomly assign fines so we can have the joy of haggling with people who are openly hostile.

Verily, our incident report form folder groweth every day.

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On a personal note of complaint (well, not really a complaint, just a gripe or something), I've been shifting alllll of fiction when two new ranges of shelves came open. I'm in the Cs (finally! after starting with Z), and space is getting tight. If I don't have enough room in the end, I'll have an aneurysm. Everything looks soooo nice and tidy right now; I don't want to mess with a thing. After moving Z-C, though, my back is seriously killing me. You pick up the books from their old place, put them on a cart, push them to their new place, take them all off the cart and reshelve them. Lather, rinse, repeat. It's a lot of lifting, bending, and stretching. I'm too much of a type-A control freak to pass this job onto anyone else, and I actually like going through the whole fiction section, anyway (I also shelve fiction, so I guess I feel that it's "my" area), so I really don't have a right to complain. But that's never stopped me before, has it?

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On a final note: A patron informed me last Friday that it's "[expletive of the "F" variety deleted] stupid to have to have a library card to use the library."

Excellent point. As circulation director, I have taken that insightful observation under advisement. From now on, we're just going to stand on the curb and throw random books at passing cards. No sense in wasting people's valuable time with all that checking in and out, now, is there? God forbid we try to run an orderly operation and keep records. We must be the only library that does that.

Reading: a Cold Case files book and a two-volume encyclopedia of genetic disorders
Listening: John Prine
Current Obsession: my big fat butt (and thighs, and arms, etc.)
Alice: Found a stuffed animal on the floor and proceeded to rub her head all over it (in the way she does when she's showing affection) and to bathe it. She then cuddled up next to it, I guess to snuggle. The stuffed animal? Alice Snuffleupagus (I love Mr. Snuffleupagus; don't tell) from Sesame Street. Apparently, she can recognize a kindred spirit. I've got to get a digital camera one of these years so I can capture this stuff on film. Or on whatever.

Elvisette philosophized at 9:14 PM