Last Day
01.31.04 (2:40 pm) [edit]I'm winding down to the last hour that I'll be stationed here at this branch. Today has been so busy and so filled with idiotic people that I feel like I'm being punished for being transferred. My shoulder is so knotted up right now that it's actually turning into a stabbing pain. :cry:
As an example of the kind of patron that I was dealing with today - aside from the kids with their homework questions, who I really don't mind if they can at least articulate their questions in a manner that I can understand - I give you (drumroll please):
[b]YAHOO MAN![/b]
This blowhard was loud and disruptive from the minute he came in and demanded help to get on the internet. After being helped by several people, staff and patrons, he got signed onto the self-service internet terminals. He then proceeded to try to get into Yahoo Games, but was so stupid that he kept typing his library card number in as his Yahoo ID. Then he marched out of the lab and butted in while I was helping a kid with a homework reference question to demand help to get into the games.
I couldn't believe that he thought that his entertainment should take priority over a reference question or a child's educational needs, regardless of the fact that he was not the first person in line. :roll: When I finally did get there to his station to help him and saw what he'd been typing in, I knew that he was a complete moron. Then I explained several times what he needed to do - get a Yahoo ID - which he then told me he already had, but had forgotten what it was. I explained that he'd need to sign up for another one, but then after going through the explanation of how to sign-up for an ID, I thought he might have gotten it. So he started again and I walked away. :roll:
Five minutes later, he's standing at the door of the computer lab, waving and whistling for me to come help him again. This time, he can't figure out why it won't accept the Yahoo ID he wants - probably because it's the one that he already had and forgot the password to - and he's getting mad because "someone else" has already taken "his" Yahoo ID. :roll:
I walked away after that and hoped he'd go away when his time was up, but no such luck. :x When he got finished with his allotted time on the computer, he decided that he needed the latest books on astronomy (in Spanish of course) and specifically about the latest extrasolar planets that have been discovered. I couldn't get it through this moron's head that we're a small branch library and we don't have current astronomy books in English. It was a major struggle to get this wunderkind to understand that if he wanted the "latest" info on this subject, that he'd need to go down to our main branch and look at the reference astronomy journals down there, or to look online for the info rather than playing virtual pool for two hours. :roll:
Let's see, what else happened? Several dozen warnings to patrons on cell phones; dozens of patrons without a clue how to sign in on our computers (despite having the current system for about 9 months now); one of our local cranks have a meltdown at the staff and patrons because we wouldn't wait on her hand and foot; more kids running than I can count; dozens of inarticulate and insanely hard homework questions; intermittent computer and internet problems all day long. :evil:
I don't care what I have to deal with at the new branch; it can't be as crazy as this place.
On a lighter note. I had my daughter with me all day yesterday and we had a good time together. Ironically, we took a trip to the big library downtown. She had a blast and made a new little friend there. :D
And tonight, I'm on my own - no cares, no agenda and several bottles of cask conditioned ale to sample. :D
As a postscript: Tblog has stopped allowing pictures on their blogs without a monthly fee. :( I guess I just got my new header up before they made the switch. :) Now I need to decide whether or not it means enough to me that I want to pay for the ability to put pictures up on my blog. Hmmn . . . it's not like it's a lot, but is my blog worth spending $1.99/month on?
Back to Work
01.29.04 (10:34 am) [edit]I'm back at work today. Feeling a lot better than yesterday. I slept a lot and that seems to have done the trick as far as knocking out this cold pretty fast. My nose is still running a little, but at least my face doesn't feel like it's 3X as big as normal and my teeth aren't aching today. :D
I'm on my second to last day here at this branch and all I seem to be doing is tying up loose ends. A lot of kids are off today though for mid-semester break, or exams, or some other such nonsense. Needless to say, I'm not getting as many things done as I could . . . :(
I guess the new staff coming here to replace me will just have to deal with it. :o
I have my daughter with me again tonight and all day tomorrow, as I have off the whole day tomorrow because I'm working on Saturday. I just hope I have enough energy left tonight to keep up with her. And I hope that we don't have a repeat of the intense cold that we've had last night and this morning. She want's to go out and play in the snow so bad, but it's been below 0 and far below with the windchills here. I just checked and the local paper's webpage says it's 1 degree right now at 12:30 PM. I'm not sure I'm up to sledding, especially with it being that cold, but maybe just playing in the backyard will satisfy her. At least that way, we could get inside quick and warm up with some hot chocolate fast. :)
Home Sick Today.
01.28.04 (11:40 am) [edit]I've caught the whopping cold that afflicted my daughter this past weekend. Woke up with an earache from sinuses and now have sinus pressure all over my face. Uck! :cry:
Maybe after I take a little nap, I'll feel like blogging some more, but there isn't much going on here except a dripping nose and sneezing.
Training & Tutoring
01.27.04 (12:26 pm) [edit]The snow's finally stopped falling, but not before I had to shovel again this morning. I'm sure when I get home tonight there'll be another inch or two on the driveway. I'm not complaining though, since I know that people to the East and West of here got hit so much harder than we did. I actually don't mind Winter all that much.
After shoveling out again this morning, I went to a training session at our main branch. The training was for our new vendor for ordering books and materials for the library. The demonstration was put on by two of the sales reps for the company, so it was geared more for the administrators who would be purchasing the access to the system, rather than lowly users like me. Most of what was demonstrated was way over my head or way above the level of use that I'm passworded for and have access to. :roll:
For limited amount of ordering that I do, our main selector creates a list of titles, creates a "shopping" cart from those titles, and then emails out a notice that the list is ready. Then staff like me picks out the titles that we want for our branch (within our monthly budget), marks up the list and sends a copy back to the selector. She then collates the lists and sends out the order.
Much of today's training was on creating the carts and lists and all of these "administrator" features that 90% of the staff will never use. :roll:
I'm not saying the training was entirely useless, just that they should have been more selective about who needed to attend the session.
Other than that, things have been really quiet today. Things are somewhat subdued because of the snow and the fact that the kids are in school.
There's only been one exception to the quiet and that came from a really loud, obnoxious student and her cell phone. :evil:
We are a site for tutoring adult GED students. Our volunteer tutoring coordinator matches students up with volunteer tutors to help them with GED subjects and sometimes ESL. We provide the space for the tutors and students to meet and generally there's no problems.
Today however, a woman came in stomped past my desk on the way to the small conference room, which is about 20 ft off the corner of my station at the reference desk. Almost as soon as she got her coat off, her cell phone rang and the sound was amplified by the room and directed towards my desk. :x I got up and walked over to towards the room and politely asked the woman to please turn off her phone in the building, or at least take it out into one of the two lobbies.
She started to yell at me that I was hassling her and that she was turning the phone off. I just turned and walked away, back to my desk. But she kept yelling into her phone in the room and getting louder. She was berating the person on the other end for calling her and using foul language, including the word "motherfucker" more than a few times. There were several adults with small children at the kids computers, which are right off the end of my desk and close by the conference room. They started to look dismayed by this woman's volume and language, as was I. So I went back over again and asked her to keep her voice down and to watch her language in the library - especially so near the children's area. She got more agitated and kept yelling at me that she wasn't disturbing anyone. :roll: Obviously she didn't think that disturbing me counted for anything, even though I have the authority to eject her for her inappropriate behavior. :twisted:
Two things really struck me about this woman: Why would you behave in such a manner when you're coming into a public library to meet with someone who's volunteering their time to help you to improve yourself? And why would you berate someone calling you on your cell phone for calling you wherever or whenever, as if they knew your whereabouts and what you were doing.
It was like she was mad at them for not being psychic. Um, hello . . . if you don't want to get calls, turn your phone off. :roll:
Anyhow, two and a half more hours to go and then I can go home and play with my little girl. :D
Taxes & More Snow
01.26.04 (8:52 pm) [edit][image]ArcadeAttendant_13 26587536.jpg[/image]
It was starting to snow really hard again by the time I got to work this morning. We didn't open till noon today, but I was there at 8:30 to put out the tax forms. By 10:00, it was snowing so hard that it was hard to see the Rent-A-Center across the street from the library. But despite the snow and being closed, I had people knocking on the door all morning because they either thought we were open due to my being visible in the lobby, or because they wanted tax forms, or both. I had one little old lady almost start crying because I didn't want to let her in to get the forms she needed and she'd walked all the way there in the snow for them. Um m'am, have you ever heard of a little invention called the telephone? Then you wouldn't have walked all the way up here in the snow for something that you've got more than 2 months to do and turn in. :roll:
Okay, so I'm a big softy. I did give her the form she wanted, only because she did look so pathetic. :?
Anyway, the taxes took me over 2 hours to get done because I had to clear out all the flyers in the lobby first and then inventory the forms before they went out. My branch manager wanted me to inventory them so that the next person to get assigned the tax forms would be able to do the job easier - kind of wish I'd had that kind of head start when I got the job two years ago. :roll:
I wouldn't have minded it so much if the forms just came in their own individual well-labeled boxes, but they don't; especially the state ones. They come sometimes 3 different forms in one box and I had to take them out, do a rough count and then stick them back in for easy storage. It was complicated by the fact that my back has been acting up again from shoveling the past two days in a row, so hefting 20+ boxes of paper around this morning wasn't really a fun thing to be doing anyway. I did get to listen to some good music while I was working on the forms though. I had burned a copy of this CD to take with me this morning while I drank my morning tea - I don't drink coffee or soda but am a terrible caffiene addict, for those inquiring minds who need to know these things. :P
At least now they're done. Someone else is going to have to deal with them now since I'm out of there after Saturday. :)
Let's see, what else happened today? Oh yes, when it was time to open up today there had to have been 15 people waiting outside the door to the tax form lobby. I actually had to ask them not to run me over in their blind haste to get at the forms when I opened the door at noon. :roll:
We had a staff meeting today, which wasn't really too important to me since I'm not going to be there.
We also had some real winners on the computers today. And we had some really obnoxious kids in the library earlier than usual because of testing going on at the nearby highschool.
I spent most of the rest of the day emailing a friend between patrons - I hope I was coherent.
Then I drove home through the slushy streets and rush hour traffic, so that I could eat a "nutricious" meal of a beef stick, some leftover rice-a-roni, and a piece of pita bread with red pepper hummus on it.
:roll:
Not a great day, not a really bad one . . .
:?
At least now I've got an Uff-da open and I'm going to play my latest computer game until my eyeballs fall out.
Saturdaze
01.24.04 (11:34 am) [edit]Working today. :? I'm not sure if I'm happy or not about it. It's not a particularly hard day today because we have 3 reference librarians on instead of the usual 2. Things started off very slow this morning as they almost always do on Saturdays. It was quiet until about 11:30 when the volume started to pick up with groups of bored kids who have pissed off their parents enough to get kicked out of the house and with adult stragglers who are looking through what remains of our picked over video collection - since they didn't make it in earlier in the week when we might have had something they'd want to watch. :roll:
Just managed to avoid two of our local crazies who are double-teaming one of the other librarians. I really should go over to help, but I just can't muster the energy to deal with either one of these insane, snaggle-toothed, body odor offenders. One of them is the guy I had to call an ambulance for a month or two ago, because he was about to pass out on the reference desk. I think he's still wearing the same filthy rags that he was wearing that day . . . :shock:
The other one is our local Serbian agent for the CIA, who knows all kinds of secrets especially about the President and has people trying to kill him all the time. This guy is an absolute crank - a deluded elderly man with rotten teeth, a thick accent and a moldy fur coat and hat. He usually wants the phone number or address for the Serbian embassy, or wants us to look up phone numbers of people he thinks are trying to kill him or are slandering him - like his doctor, who he says is trying to have him involuntarily committed. :roll:
Now if I can just avoid the rest of the crazies for today and the rest of the week, I'll probably never have to see this library's particular set of them ever again. :D
I'll have a whole new set to deal with at the new location, but at least they'll be new . . . :roll:
Yesterday, we had a lot of snow and it was pretty miserable driving around. Unfortunately, I had to go out in the snow to run errands. I had to take my daughter back to her mothers, get a haircut, take some pants to a tailor to be hemmed and pick up a prescription so that my gouty toe won't act up on me. I managed to get all four things done, shovel, cook dinner, do laundry and work on my class reunion's web page.
I know it's got an offensive Indian head symbol on it, but that's what it was when I attended there and the reunion committee voted to put it on the web page - kind of ironic especially in light of where we're holding the reunion. :roll:
Committees & New Bloggers
01.22.04 (2:00 pm) [edit]Just had my first committee meeting - for Adult Programming. Now that my library system started relying more on paraprofessionals such as myself to plug the many staffing holes in our system, they've started to put us on committees that used to be the exclusive province of the librarians. So consequently, I've been put on this committee which is supposed to come up with ideas for citywide adult programming. I actually came up with an idea which everyone liked, but one person (a senior librarian) in particular jumped on and expanded and then took all the credit for . . . Oh well, they ended up being assigned all the work to get the proposal ready, so I'm not too upset about losing the credit for the idea. :roll:
While I was away at the meeting, the email was sent out about my transfer date. I'm out of here one week from Monday. :D Now I just have to make it through next week . . .
Finally, I found out yesterday that two other librarians from my system are blogging - at least intermittently. Please check out their blogs and tell them to keep it up, so I won't be the only one from here doing it. :)
[b]Check them out here:[/b]
A Day In The Life & Library Tales
Since neither one has a comments feature on, I'll be more than happy to forward any comments on to them from here. :)
Calm before the storm
01.21.04 (12:54 pm) [edit]The kids are due in at any moment now, but since the news of my transfer, I feel so much better. I really feel like I can face the patrons here with a smile, because I know I'm not going to have to deal with them for much longer. I still haven't heard the exact date of the transfer, but it'll either be a week from this coming Monday (beginning of the new pay period) or two weeks after that.
I know from working at that branch as emergency help that they don't have half the problems that we have here. I think that's mainly because they don't have half the people coming through the doors. They do circulate many more books than this branch though, as they actually have patrons who read. That's going to be a nice change.
I think the best part is that they have two children's librarians there and I'll be primarily dealing with teens and adults - who can be (hopefully) reasoned with. :)
They don't have as many public computers there, so I think I might have to change my name from ArcadeAttendant to something else. I'm sure something will come to mind when I get established at the new location. :)
Transferred!
01.20.04 (3:47 pm) [edit]I called our personnel office today asking about transfer opportunities and the head of personnel told me, "It's funny that you called because you're being transferred."
I must be psychic. :D
And best of all, I'm going to one of my "dream" locations. It's quieter, middle class, almost fully staffed and perfectly located for me as far as child care. :D
I feel like a great weight has been lifted off of me - though pragmatist that I am, I can't get too overjoyed until I see how my duties will change at the new location. I'd really like to keep ordering the adult paperbacks, but I think they're going to try to make me into a YA librarian. Good thing I'm still just a big kid who loves graphic novels and computer games.
:)
More on this later, when all the details are ironed out . . .
Adventures in Sledding
01.20.04 (10:54 am) [edit][image]ArcadeAttendant_13 83554148.jpg[/image]
Today seems like it's going to be a pretty easy and slow day at work (said with both fingers crossed while knocking on the laminate covered particleboard that makes up my desk). :wink: Especially since I stayed up way to late last night playing a game on my computer.
So, instead of ranting about work, I'll regale everyone with tales of my adventures in sledding over the past few days. :)
I had my daughter with me Friday night, all day and night Saturday, and Sunday morning. :D
Saturday, in order to get her out of the house and to get her some exercise I decided to take her sledding. The weather was fairly warm (around 35F) and we'd had some more wet heavy snow Friday night, which brought our total on the ground back up to about 3-4 inches. We left the house and went over to one of the little hills that I used to go to as a kid, but that hill was too crowded. :( People were forming lines at the top, in order to go down 2 at a time for safety. Unfortunately, my daughter being 2&1/2 wouldn't have been very patient about taking turns, so we decided to push on to another hill that I used to sled at. This one was about a mile away on a golf course and was one of my favorites as a kid. It was wide and steep and could accommodate large numbers of people at the same time. However, in the intervening years between my last sledding excursion and the present, the park system has fenced off that hill to grow wildflowers on. Not that I have any problem with wildflowers, but the park system has now deprived a whole generation of the thrills of this once great sledding hill. :( We pushed on and went to another overcrowded hill, but this time decided to get out and give it a try. As we got out of the car, my daughter announced that she needed to go potty. (We're in the midst of potty training) I asked her to hold it for a little while, because she's at the stage where any time she feels anything in her bladder, she thinks she needs to go and she'd gone right before we left to go sledding. We went down that hill 3 times and it was a blast, but we kept having to dodge people coming up as we were going down and vice versa, so I decided to head out to another hill. We drove to my last resort hill which was on another golf course and had to park about 3 blocks away and walk across a snow covered field to get to the hill. We went up to the top and had the whole place to ourselves. Daughter went down alone once, wiped out and just layed there not moving. I was yelling to her, asking if she was okay, because she wasn't screaming or flailing around or anything, but I could see that she was conscious. All of a sudden, her face contorted and she started screaming, "I peed Daddy! I peed!" :oops:
[b]OOPS![/b]
She wasn't hurt, she was just extremely upset that she'd had an accident. And dumb old daddy didn't think things through enough before leaving the house for an extended period to put on some training pants. :roll:
Hot chocolate, dry pants and a snuggle did a lot to cure her of her embarrassment. :)
Sunday, my brother, nephew and brother's step-son, came over to go sledding with my daughter and I again. This time we decided to go immediately to the last hill, since it was off the beaten path and it was empty again when we got there. Unfortunately, the temperature had dropped severely since Saturday and when we went it had reached a high of 5 degrees Fahrenheit. The winds were fierce too and in retrospect, I had no business taking a toddler out in that kind of cold, but on the other hand, I did bundle her up really well (better than myself) and she loved it. She didn't want to sled at first - I think due to the psychic residue of her accident the day before, but soon was having a blast taking turns riding down with daddy, uncle and cousin. :D The real problem was that we only had 3 sleds and 5 people, so we needed to take turns and one of the sleds was just one of those cheap plastic sheet "toboggans". Also with the intense cold, the snow had become so hard that it was a really bumpy and fast ride down the hill, especially on the plastic sheet sled. Hence the image at the top of this entry. I'm still suffering two days later from riding down that hill on my ass and other tender portions of my anatomy. :oops: Despite the cold, the pains (another sure sign I'm getting old), and the first trip's little accident, we had a blast this weekend and I'm really looking forward to the next sledding excursion. :D
Yesterday, I had off from work due to the Martin Luther King holiday. I had to "babysit" my daughter for my wife to go to an appointment in the morning, but after that I had some time off from responsibility and even ended up finally seeing the Return of the King at a cool theater that serves beer and food and has couches instead of regular seating. :D
Now, if only I hadn't stayed up so late last night . . . :oops:
Heading For Purgatory And Making My Way Towards Paradise
01.16.04 (11:36 am) [edit]From my last blog, I was banished to the 8th circle of Hell by the Dante's Inferno Test. And it really seemed like I was already there while working. Things were [b]THAT[/b] crazy for the past couple of days. :cry:
Today is more like purgatory. I'm at the other branch today because my own is closed. In fact, I'm the only staff member from my branch who had to go elsewhere today. The rest of my co-workers got to stay at our regular location and work uninterrupted while closed to the public. I'd normally say that things were pretty paradisical at this location but I'm working with my boss here today, so my guard has to be up most of the day. :?
I am however now going to be off for the next three days and I'm going to have my daughter for about half that time. :D We're going to try to go sledding again tomorrow, if the snow holds out that long without melting or being coated by ice. (We're expecting some freezing rain later today) I get the best of both worlds then; getting to spend some time with her for the first part of this three day weekend and then having some time off from everyone and everything for the second part. Maybe, I'll even get to play my latest computer game for a while. :)
What Circle of the Inferno Will You Be Banished To? Or Are You There Already?
01.14.04 (4:03 pm) [edit]Curiously enough, it sounds like I work there already. :twisted:
The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Eigth Level of Hell - the Malebolge!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
| Level | Score |
|---|---|
| Purgatory (Repenting Believers) | Very Low |
| Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers) | Moderate |
| Level 2 (Lustful) | High |
| Level 3 (Gluttonous) | Very High |
| Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious) | High |
| Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy) | Very High |
| Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics) | Very High |
| Level 7 (Violent) | Moderate |
| Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers) | Very High |
| Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous) | Low |
Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test
Level 8- the Malebolge
------------------------- ------------------------- ------------------------- -----
Many and varied sinners suffer eternally in the multi-leveled Malebolge, an ampitheatre-shapped pit of despair Wholly of stone and of an iron colour: Those guilty of fraudulence and malice; the seducers and pimps, who are whipped by horned demons; the hypocrites, who struggle to walk in lead-lined cloaks; the barraters, who are ducked in boiling pitch by demons known as the Malebranche. The simonists, wedged into stone holes, and whose feet are licked by flames, kick and writhe desperately. The magicians, diviners, fortune tellers, and panderers are all here, as are the thieves. Some wallow in human excrement. Serpents writhe and wrap around men, sometimes fusing into each other. Bodies are torn apart. When you arrive, you will want to put your hands over your ears because of the lamentations of the sinners here, who are afflicted with scabs like leprosy, and lay sick on the ground, furiously scratching their skin off with their nails. Indeed, justice divine doth smite them with its hammer.
Getting hit again
01.14.04 (12:43 pm) [edit]It's 2PM and we've been open since noon.
Already I feel as though I've been a prize fight. :(
We opened the doors at noon and a quick head count at 12:01 revealed 20+ patrons in the library. By 12:10 there were double that in here; mostly on the computers or trying to get on the computers by registering for a library card.
The other librarian had to do a MLK program today because the regular children's librarian (who's part-time) is having to deal with some family stuff related to her ailing father. I certainly can sympathise with her on that and I'm not going to complain about someone having to take time off to deal with personal stuff. I've done enough of that recently.
But on the other hand, it's just crazy trying to cover an entire library alone, particularly this branch where the patrons are so willfully helpless. We can't get emergency staffing help because things are so tight everywhere in our system that if we have two reference staff listed on the schedule (even if only on paper) we don't qualify for help.
In the past two hours, I've actually sat down at the reference desk for less than 15 minutes total. The rest of that time I spent helping patrons and chasing down the 43 paged items that were supposed to go out in our daily delivery to other libraries this morning, before any of our staff arrived to find them. :x
I need a transfer . . . there are so many times when I think about whether or not I want to remain working for any library. I keep thinking about whether or not I should go back to school to earn my MLS. If I had it, I'd at least be free to move to another library in the suburbs or another community if the opportunity arose. I wouldn't be "wedded" to the city, since I work for a city that requires it's employees to live in the city (the only way to prevent us all from fleeing to the 'burbs).
At last it's quieting down . . . just in time for the big afterschool rush to begin. :(
I'm off to take a short break to meditate and prepare myself for the churning waves of latchkey kids about to break across my desk. :roll:
Lather Rinse Repeat and Repeat and Repeat
01.12.04 (4:44 pm) [edit]For a recap of how today went, look at my last entry under the section about hell breaking loose. I feel like I'm stuck in that Star Trek episode where they kept re-living the same day over and over again. :? I feel physically beat up from dealing with the patrons today - or maybe it's just that I'm old and taking my daughter and nephew sledding yesterday has caught up with me today. :oops: One last note: today we opened at noon and by 12:05, there were 35 patrons in the library. It went downhill from there . . . :(
Feeling Lazy Today
01.09.04 (12:28 pm) [edit]After yesterday, when all hell broke loose at the library*, I don't feel particularly ambitious today. I'm at another branch today, with more staff than usual and far less patron traffic (it's usually very slow here, but it's snowing too).
I did get some work done this morning on a database training exercise. I'm a tester for our head trainer, so I get these worksheets several weeks before anyone else in order to work out the bugs in the questions. It's actually pretty fun and helps me to learn how to do my job better - not that I'm ever going to use these databases at my regular location. I have almost all the shelving locations and call numbers memorized for helping with the 25 or so "regular" questions that we get asked on a daily or weekly basis. Still it's good for when I do go somewhere and have to answer a reference question outside of the usual.
I've got a new paperback order to work on and it's due in a few days, but I think I'll put it aside for a while today to get caught up on my blog reading. I've been on something of a forced hiatus for the past couple days as things have just been too busy at work for me to even get my normal amount of work done, let alone anything done purely for pleasure.
Of course working on the paperback ordering is one of the most pleasurable things I get to do here in the library. Even though I'm just doing the paperbacks and many of them are reprints, it's great to get paid to read reviews and help shape the collection. Besides, a lot of sci-fi, fantasy and horror novels only come out in paperback form, so I feel like I'm keeping up with those genres without having to read everything out there.
I know I'm going to sound like I'm bragging, but since I took over the adult paperback ordering for my branch, their circulation has been up nearly 30%. I'm not sure if it's what I'm ordering, or just the fact that I'm out there everyday straightening, shelving and organizing the racks that accounts for the increase, but it's still nice to have had the manager comment on how they've noticed the change. :)
Note for other managers out there: a little praise can do a lot to erase bad feelings and job dissatisfaction.
* Yesterday was particularly bad because we close early on Thursdays. Fridays seem to be the day that all the school kids projects are due and it happens that we're closed as well on Fridays. So yesterday, we had a lot of kids wanting either reference help or computers for typing and or research, along with the regular patrons who monopolize the terminals for games, gambling, chat or porn. In fact, from the moment the school across the street let out, the other librarian and myself were outnumbered at least 50 to 1 in the stacks. For most of the time between 3:30 and 6 PM, both of us had 3-4 patrons waiting for assistance. Many times patrons gave up and left in disgust because we couldn't help them [b]RIGHT NOW[/b], as we raced from one end of the building to the other leading patrons to materials. (Our patrons don't and won't get the Dewey system ever and can never find anything on there own.) :evil:
After a few hours here today, it all seems like a bad dream. Sometimes I wish I could get transferred to a branch like this one, but I think the slowness would drive me insane faster than the stress of being overly busy. :?
Believe it or not . . .
01.08.04 (1:26 pm) [edit]I've been too busy actually working at work to blog about how busy it's been. :roll: Tomorrow though, I'll be working at a different library than usual and it's always slower there and there are three reference staff on, including myself. But, for once I have something to work on there, so I won't be sitting around just twiddling my thumbs. (Sigh) No rest for the wicked . . . :wink:
Much better day
01.06.04 (3:47 pm) [edit]Today was quieter, less busy, less stressful, more productive and generally better than yesterday. (Big Sigh of Relief) :) And despite numbing cold last night and today, my mighty Geo Metro managed to start this morning. (Another Big Sigh of Relief) :D
The manager was not in the building today, there was only one group of unruly kids (regulars who got the boot fast) and three reference people on (including myself) instead of the usual two. This meant that I could finally focus on my area of the collection: the adult paperbacks. I managed to weed off of the "new paperback" carousels all 142 of the ones that are no longer "new" and fit them into the regular paperback area. Now I'm going to have to weed and relabel those carousels in order to clean things up again. That's something that I really enjoy doing, much more than dealing with the public, but don't get to do often enough.
There were only a couple of computer problems/problem users today for a change; one of them was a guy I booted off of the terminal for installing an instant messaging program on the terminal. I told him that he had broken the use agreement that he'd signed when getting on the computer and was done for the day, and that if he did it again, he'd be banned permanently from computer use at the library. Harsh, I know, but on a daily basis, we have to have our automation department dial in and clean up all the crap that people have installed on the Internet terminals. This guy was stupid enough to ask me how to configure the program's preferences. :roll:
Also making me very happy these days is that we now have a new Circulation Manager after a year and a half (he's filling my old position here). Now I don' t have to be the answer guy for circulation problems like fines and overdue items, even though that wasn't my job anymore. Yay! :D
Finally, my daughter is doing great with potty training. :D Out of the blue, on New Year's Eve, when she was at her mother's house, she announced that she didn't want a diaper on and wanted to use the potty like a big girl. Ever since, we've been working on it and there have been only a few accidents - mainly when she's been overtired or distracted by the television. :wink:
Tired and Crabby
01.05.04 (4:58 pm) [edit]It's been one hell of a day again. :x
It's been crazy busy again. There have been a ton of people in here since the doors opened today . . . which would be great for us if they were actually doing something besides milling around being disruptive. Something like Dawn of the Dead's mall walking zombies . . .
Actually that's not fair for me to say. There have been a lot of patrons on the computers, or needing help to get on the computers. As much as I've come to despise what most people do on our internet terminals, (games, chat, music videos, porn) at least they have a purpose in coming here besides breathing the air and making noise.
It's not just that it's busy, but this afternoon, the other librarian had to leave for a meeting and our branch manager stayed in the back working on her paperwork, so I was the only reference person on the floor. Also, because of scheduling/staffing, there wasn't anyone here this morning, when we were closed to the public, to hunt down the paged items for other branches. So I had to deal with all the patrons and find 69 items that were supposed to go out in our daily delivery which went out 10 minutes before I got in today. And the topper is that this week is one of those where we have to keep track of the statistics on patron transactions.
I don't know how many of you other library people out there have to do this, but every month we have to do one type or another of these statistical reports - most of which is fudged or made up in one way or another. The transactions stat is really outdated and doesn't in any true sense reveal how it is that the reference staff spends it's time.
For ours, we have to determine whenever we interact with a patron, whether or not it's a reference transaction, or a directional transaction. The main criteria for this determination is whether or not reference skills were used in helping the patron. There are a couple of crazy rules for this though . . . For example, helping someone to get on the computer or to get to a web page counts as a directional transaction - even though it's taken training and skills for me to learn how to do this too. :? Also counted as directionals are such things as: bathroom directions, copy machine instruction and general "shushing." One thing to note is that many of our patrons count for more than one directional at a time, especially when you have to tell them the same thing multiple times, minutes apart.
Reference transactions basically include anything else that takes more than 30 - 60 seconds to do for/with/to a patron. Although this doesn't take into account the fact that most of the directionals take more than that allotted time due to language and or attitude problems (in the case of many kids or teens) to conclude. :roll:
Obviously, the directionals generally outnumber the reference transactions something like 5 to 1. In the hour immediately following our opening, I had 15 directionals and 2 reference. This afternoon between 1 PM and 5 PM, I had 48 directionals and 16 reference - a little better. Now that it's slowing down for the night, it's getting better still - 25 directional to 16 reference. Maybe that's an indication that our smarter patrons come in later in the day? :wink:
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Okay. It's just taken me something like an hour and a half to write that first part because of being interrupted by patrons and now that it's slowing down, I'm revising and editing. (probably not enough)
I'm not complaining about the length of time it took to post though, because most of the interruptions tonight have been kids doing homework and really needing help. I like helping them, even if sometimes I sound cranky about it. But tossed in there with the good kids were a bunch of rowdy teens who were just here to socialize loudly. I ended up throwing them out after repeated warnings. It's amazing how quiet things got after that - it was almost like being in a library. :wink:
Just one last observation for the day. I noticed a lot of new faces today after school let out. A lot of really disruptive kids with shiny new CD players cranked up really loud; a lot of kids who didn't seem to have any clue how to behave in a library, or in any public place for that matter. We had lots of eaters today and lots of kids with cell phones. I'm guessing that Santa was good to many of these kids, Lord knows why? They should already be on his "lump of coal" list for the way they behave in here. :twisted:
Crazy busy
01.03.04 (12:49 pm) [edit]Okay, it's been crazy busy here today. Just goes to show that if the library has been closed for three days that you get three times as many patrons as usual the first day open again. :shock:
Also, just a brief question for other librarians out there. How many times a day do you have someone ask you for something and when you offer to get it from another library for them, they decline? Personally, I have this happen on an hourly basis. I don't know if it's something in the Hispanic culture, or something about the patrons here in general, but if it's not here and we don't own it, they decide that they don't need it. Why ask for it in the first place then. It's not like it costs them anything. I don't think a lot of our patrons pay taxes to begin with . . .
It's just so frustrating to have millions of items for the public to use and to see the patrons here depriving themselves of them because they're shy(?) about asking.
:(
Back to work
01.03.04 (10:14 am) [edit]Vacation has ended and I don't feel particularly "vacated." :roll:
It's weird starting back to work on a Saturday. Things are always different Saturdays than on a regular weekday. I didn't really need any help with having the usual "bad" attitude about coming back to work after being off for so long, but I got it anyway when I arrived today.
Sometime between 5:00 yesterday and 8:30 today, someone dropped several raw eggs down one of our bookdrops. I can only assume that it was someone who was pissed off that this branch wasn't open to the public yesterday. Though it's kind of weird that they waited until after what would have been our normal open hours, before the budgetary hour cuts, to drop these eggs in. I mean, to me that smacks of a deliberate act of vandalism and not just some kind of opportunistic/impulsive act. The person would have had to be carrying around raw eggs and walked about 50 feet from the main sidewalk to drop these in the bookdrop. In any case, no materials were damaged, just a mess made. Thank goodness they weren't rotten eggs.
All it made me think was that the people in this neighborhood, who actually do need a library more than many in other neighborhoods, don't deserve one. With all the abuse that this building, materials and staff gets from the patrons in this neighborhood, one would tend to think that they don't want the library here either.
[b]****** Warning Rant Ahead! ******[/b]
At least I have had some decent reference questions today though to balance out the bad feelings from the vandalism. I don't say this enough, but I do love helping people to find what they need. It's just frustrating that we often don't have what they need, or want. And it's sometimes mindboggling how the people come into the library without even the basic idea of how to start to locate whatever information they need.
I had a prime example of this today, with a girl that was looking for a book on New Hampshire for a school report. I told her that off the top of my head, I didn't know if we had anything on the shelf and that I'd have to look in the catalog first. (She gave me a blank stare as the implication was that she should know this) I know where the state books are without looking them up. I get questions on them all the time, but I didn't want to just lead this girl over there and search the stacks for the specific books, even if we had them. So, I lead her first to the catalog and explained to her as we walked to the bank of catalog terminals that if either of us wanted to know if we had any specific books or items on the shelf, that we'd need to look them up here first. She continued staring blankly at me, so I ended up doing the search for her and leading her directly to the items.
I've really given up trying to do bibliographic instruction, even though that's supposed to be a big part of my job. At this branch, no one wants to learn how to do anything for themselves. Everyone wants everything handed to them on a platter and that's what my job really entails.
I guess they don't teach kids how to find information in the schools anymore. I'm not sure what they really do teach these days. From the kinds of homework questions that we get from the kids, they aren't getting much in the way of instruction in the basics anymore. Things are getting so specialized that they can't read, write or do 'rithmetic, but they can tell you all about some extremely trivial thing that their teacher had them do a "googled" report on. (At least they can for a brief moment, until it fades from their consciousness and is replaced by the latest popular tripe from MTV, etc.)
Just had another girl (today seems to be the day for girls doing homework - I read an essay once about how in immigrant cultures, it's the girls who do better in school) who came up to the desk and needed pictures of Ladybird Johnson put on her disk. I showed her how to sign in, how to search for the images on the internet, how to insert her disk into the computer, how to save the images, how to pull up her document from the disk (don't know how she managed to have it typed and saved already if she didn't know how to put the disk in the drive, but that's a whole other matter), and how to insert the pictures into her report document. At this point I told her that I wasn't going to help her further because I wasn't going to do her work for her - though I guess I already had. :evil: At least she was nice enough to thank me for helping her . . . :)
How can these kids be successful if they don't have the training to do these kind of things on their own? Answer: because we'll do it for them. ARGH! :x
Okay, enough ranting for today. Thanks to all you kind people who didn't make fun of my pictures up there on the last blog. I don't think posting them up there will really get me in trouble because, as I was thinking about it, unless someone who knows my face is looking at this blog, I'm still pretty anonymous. I put clues in about where I'm located (Midwest) and other stuff, but I'm careful not to put specific names in and such that could be tracked by a search engine. Besides, they won't be up there for long . . .
Resolutions
01.01.04 (7:59 am) [edit]Okay, after 5 minutes of consideration this morning, while rubbing more sleep out of my eyes and looking at Sulky's latest picture post, I decided to resolve to not worry about crap like being completely anonymous on my blog. I need to stop being afraid of doing little shit like that because of some fear about reprimands at work . . . as if I was so important that the administration at my library would even notice. Duh, they have so many other things to worry about that I'm just a small fish in a big pond - easily lost and forgotten. So anyway, I've decided to post for comparison and contrast, my current picture and what I looked like in high school and college.
Just a quick note: the two past pictures were scanned from my high school ID and my college ID. I keep them with me to remind me of when I had hair. ;) The current one is one that I took about 2 weeks ago with my digital cam.
This first picture is from my freshman year of high school, which was I believe 1981. I was still into heavy metal and Led Zeppelin at the time. Notice the terry cloth shirt which was pretty stylin' at the time.
[image]ArcadeAttendant_28 5817297.jpg[/image]
The second one is from 1984 when I graduated from high school and started in college. Somehow I thought I'd be attracting lots of cool college women by wearing an "English Beat" "wife beater" tee shirt and having the sort of "New Romantic" comb over one eye hairstyle. Didn't work . . . obviously. :wink:
[image]ArcadeAttendant_10 9070657.jpg[/image]
And now, drumroll please . . . my current photo - old, fat, balding and boring. I did wear glasses back in high school too, but just kept taking them off for pictures. Ah Vanity, thy name is ArcadeAttendant. :roll:
[image]ArcadeAttendant_11 3459856.jpg[/image]
So there you have it. Three goofy shots of yours truly. :shock:
Please don't sue me if you've gone blind after viewing these . . . of course by now it's too late for me to put this caveat in since you've already seen the Medusa's face, or something like that. :wink: