Two weeks ago I got the “okay” from my internist to start a low-carb, high-protein diet when my own low-cal, low-fat diet had stalled for 6 months. I’d maxed out at 81 pounds lost, which sounds like I should be done, but I’m not goddammit. She ran a battery of tests to make sure it was simply a plateau and not something more serious causing stagnation in the weight loss (we also had a short argument about how much more I had to lose, me insisting on a lot more and her insisting on not that much), and suggested I try South Beach instead of Atkin’s simply because it was much easier to maintain. Well, those were the magic words, but not the ones she imagined. Knowing that Atkins was more hardcore and harder to maintain, that’s the one I chose. Also, instead of limiting myself to 20g of carbs per day, I deprived myself extra and hovered around 5g. On top of that, I switched out a meal for protein shakes, too.
People, when you ride your bike 10 – 20 miles per day and work out at the gym, and restrict your calories to 1,000 - 1,500 per day while eating only protein, something unbelievable happens to your muscles. They grow. Like fast. Like really fast. But when you’re burning more than you’re taking in, that seems to go straight to bulking up the muscles that propel you and you have little to live on, so you get tired. Like really tired. And those big new muscles start to ache like you’re coming down with the flu. And the combination of losing too much water and not consuming enough calories turn you into a zombie with dry skin, dry eyes, and a pasty mouth. Not fun. So, I now eat more carbs. More of everything, actually.
Marina, who is trying an all-carb diet, has been horrified with my lack of carbs and the volume of eggs I’m forced to eat. It doesn’t help that I have been prone to burst into tears when I see someone eat a banana in my proximity, and another coworker brought in bagels yesterday, which caused me to wail and moan in the agony of my depravation. I shut myself up by eating some cheese curds and organic pepperoni. (Didn’t know such a creature existed, did you!?)
Marina’s biggest beef (ahem) with my no-carb existence is that I cannot have bread. In her world, no bread would simply mean life wasn’t worth living.
She said with consternation, “Bread and I are very best friends. And I don’t give up on my friends like that!”
And so we forge on with our opposite diets, and she sympathetically listens to me bemoan how much I’d love to have a really hot guy roll around in some liquid chocolate so I could sprinkle him with raisins and Rice Krispies and then lick him clean. Or the detailed descriptions of my favorite cake: chocolate with buttercream and strawberry filling. Or just the random tantrum where I fling myself upon my desk dramatically and whine, “Bananas…” Her diet doesn’t cause her so much pain, and this, I fear, is what my doctor was warning me about.
However, in addition to developing these extraordinary muscles in places I just used to have a firm collection of subcutaneous fat, I’m dropping pounds. Whew. It’s always good when you make a huge sacrifice and it pays off rather than it just costs.
* * *
I had a patron ask me today if we have reading glasses we lend out.
* * *
Hissy fits are the absolute worst when they come from middle-aged men. I don’t know why. I’ll take a hissy fit from anyone else, but a whining middle-aged man who can’t figure out some of life’s simplest tasks will cause my patience to evaporate and my self-control to shudder under the pressure of my frustration.
He was computer literate, seemingly. He managed to get himself a reservation and log into the computer without any instruction from me, though he’d never done it before. But about 10 minutes later he came up to me having his hissy fit and I very nearly chucked a box of Kleenex at him.
“I can’t get online! It opens up on your website, and when I type an address in the address bar, there’s no Go button to click and I can’t go anywhere!”
These words were spoken drawn out, in whines, and he stomped his foot for emphasis when he uttered “anywhere”. If his lip had quivered, I would’ve just decked him.
I suggested he hit Enter after typing the address.
“Enter?! I’m supposed to hit Enter?!”
I assured him that this would direct his browser to change pages if everything was entered in the proper location.
“Why did you take the Go button off? I mean, people use the Go button and when you take it away, how are we supposed to get to other websites?”
Enter. Really, who lifts up their hand and uses the mouse to click the Go button? Just one guy: Mr. Hissy Fit.
He stormed off, completely infuriated that he would now have to hit Enter instead of clicking Go.
Sorry I ruined your day, bub. Try being me for a shift.
* * *
There’s a woman who frequents the library with her husband, and my nearest guestimation is that she was hit by a train. Nothing is right on her body – nothing. She looks like a Picasso painting. Also, it’s impossible to understand what she says through the grunting, which is just like Karl Childers in Sling Blade. Where she gets brand-new-looking 70s rock band T-shirts, I’ll never know. She is a mystery. But if she asks for some biscuits, I may lose it. Mmmmm-hm
* * *
A man asked me where the Ann-himes are.
My look must have said it all because he tried again.
Ann-hymees. Ann-hymms. Ann-himates. Those movies!
Anime movies.
* * *
People who bring in handfuls of pencils to borrow our sharpener periodically creep me out. How can you be so devoted to wooden pencils but against purchasing your own little, plastic, hand-held sharpener?
* * *
Boyfriend Extraordinaire is flying in tonight and staying for 2½ weeks so I’m not sure how much I’ll be around to post things. Not that I’ve been posting all that much anyway. Perhaps another camping adventure might inspire some written observations of the foibles of amateurs venturing out in nature or the intersecting of irritating people with the perfectly reasonable pair we are. We shall see.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
A Day In the Life
A teenage girl walked up to the desk and we had the following conversation:
Girl: Do you have scary movies?
Me: Are you looking for the series of movies called Scary Movie, or are you looking just for scary movies in general?
Girl: Scary movies.
Me: Um… the series, Scary Movie 1, 2, 3 and 4?
Girl: Uh… scary movies.
Me: Soooooo, just movies that are scary.
Girl: You know? Scary movies?
NO! I DON’T KNOW! PLEASE TELL ME!
Later, a handsome black guy walked up, and he was walking with a limp and a cane, but all I could see were those gorgeous braids in his hair – I get severe braid envy – and I tossed him a really big smile.
Guy: Hey there. I’m looking for books on magic.
Me: Oh, well, okay, so do you mean books on how to do magic tricks, or books on the card game Magic: the Gathering, or just novels with magic as a theme, like wizards and stuff like that?
Guy: Well, like, magic. Just books on magic.
Me *blink, blink*: Yes [deep breath], but what kind of magic?
Guy: Um, the regular kind of magic.
Not irregular magic. Thanks for that clarification.
Me: Okay, let’s narrow this down. You’re not looking for stuff on the card game Magic, right?
Guy: I don’t think so.
Me: Are these books for you or someone else?
Guy: For me.
Me: Okay, so you don’t play the game Magic, right? We can get rid of those from the equation, correct?
Guy: I guess so.
Me: Well, that leaves us with books that teach you how to do magic tricks. Is that what you want? Or do you want fantasy books about magic and dragons and things like that?
Guy: Just, whatever you have on magic.
Me: Okay. I can show you samples of both. But what are you hoping to get out of these books? Do you want to learn magic?
Guy: I don’t know.
THEN NEITHER DO I!
I walked him over to the learning magic tricks section and said that if this was not what he was looking for, then to come back and see me and we’d hit the novels. He browsed for about 5 minutes and then left empty-handed, didn’t come back for more help or even make eye contact on his way straight out the door. Now really, I can only take the blame for so much. Clearly if you don’t know how to communicate what you’re looking for, my ability to mind-read a blank canvas is almost nonexistent.
As if it were a full moon, more irritations continued.
**Update**
Done deal.
Girl: Do you have scary movies?
Me: Are you looking for the series of movies called Scary Movie, or are you looking just for scary movies in general?
Girl: Scary movies.
Me: Um… the series, Scary Movie 1, 2, 3 and 4?
Girl: Uh… scary movies.
Me: Soooooo, just movies that are scary.
Girl: You know? Scary movies?
NO! I DON’T KNOW! PLEASE TELL ME!
Later, a handsome black guy walked up, and he was walking with a limp and a cane, but all I could see were those gorgeous braids in his hair – I get severe braid envy – and I tossed him a really big smile.
Guy: Hey there. I’m looking for books on magic.
Me: Oh, well, okay, so do you mean books on how to do magic tricks, or books on the card game Magic: the Gathering, or just novels with magic as a theme, like wizards and stuff like that?
Guy: Well, like, magic. Just books on magic.
Me *blink, blink*: Yes [deep breath], but what kind of magic?
Guy: Um, the regular kind of magic.
Not irregular magic. Thanks for that clarification.
Me: Okay, let’s narrow this down. You’re not looking for stuff on the card game Magic, right?
Guy: I don’t think so.
Me: Are these books for you or someone else?
Guy: For me.
Me: Okay, so you don’t play the game Magic, right? We can get rid of those from the equation, correct?
Guy: I guess so.
Me: Well, that leaves us with books that teach you how to do magic tricks. Is that what you want? Or do you want fantasy books about magic and dragons and things like that?
Guy: Just, whatever you have on magic.
Me: Okay. I can show you samples of both. But what are you hoping to get out of these books? Do you want to learn magic?
Guy: I don’t know.
THEN NEITHER DO I!
I walked him over to the learning magic tricks section and said that if this was not what he was looking for, then to come back and see me and we’d hit the novels. He browsed for about 5 minutes and then left empty-handed, didn’t come back for more help or even make eye contact on his way straight out the door. Now really, I can only take the blame for so much. Clearly if you don’t know how to communicate what you’re looking for, my ability to mind-read a blank canvas is almost nonexistent.
As if it were a full moon, more irritations continued.
We have the usual creepy crowd of pathetic, older men who peruse singles ads online, as well as porn sites, looking to hook up. Some are guys who won’t ever get their foot in the door, and others might hide some of their creepiness in the first couple of exchanges before it becomes a full-on, heebie-jeebies fest for the receiver. One of these guys I’ve caught on those barely-legal porn sites, advertising teenage girls for your sick pleasure, so I keep my eye on him. The second I see something illegal, he’s going down.
My first encounter with him was when he ran up to my desk, completely frantic, on the verge of tears, voice cracking and wild panting, wanting me to help him find someone he’d had three email exchanges with on Craigslist, and now his emails weren’t going through to her inbox. He wanted me to figure out a way to find her, a phone number, an address, an alternate email address, something he could use to continue communicating with her because suddenly he can’t get any email through to her account. Things had been going so well, too. He needed to know if she was okay and he had to find a way to talk to her still. All the while, he was sniffling and fighting back complete loss of emotional control.
My absolute favorite commercial out right now is this one.
And I had, at that moment, a fantasy about calling him a jackwagon and chucking a box of Kleenex at him. Seriously. Get your ass back from mamby-pamby-land and get a clue, crybaby.
Ugh. Teen porn and online stalking: he’s a winner.
Anyway, I was working in the office while Marina was at the reference desk and she sent me an IM.
Marina: Creepy Guy just asked me for a camera.
I laughed really, really hard and turned to my boss and shared this gem.
Boss: Did he want a web camera? Ewwww.
Me (typing to Marina): Web cam or digital camera?
Marina: Digital camera I think, but I didn’t ask. I don’t want to know.
Me (to Marina): Did he say why? Did he want to use it here or take it home?
Marina: He started to tell me why he wanted it and then stopped himself in the middle and quit explaining.
I roared with laughter and shared this bit with my boss as well.
Me (to boss): So, when are those volunteers coming back? The ones who clean the keyboards and stuff?
Boss: Not soon enough!
Me (to Marina): Whose turn is it to clean the computer stations?
Marina: The good news is he’s been here ALL DAY but I just keep giving him extensions on the computer he’s at, so he’s only touched one computer the whole time he’s been here.
Me (to Marina): Uh… good? Hey, [Coworker] comes back from vacation tonight. We could suggest she wipe down the computers when she’s looking for busywork.
Marina: That’s exactly what I was thinking!
Me (to Marina): Great minds think alike.
I later did not suggest to our beloved coworker that she wipe-down computers. I like her too much.
And to prove her worth, she came up with the most brilliant idea I’ve yet heard.
There’s been a world of controversy swirling around our library and our cherished security guard, Arms, has received some bad PR by a group of idiots who dubbed him a thug. It’s hysterical to me, but then again I don’t have to deal with the fallout, so I can afford to laugh.
Anyway, I was telling our recently-returned-from-vacation coworker about the mess, and she too was experiencing gut-busting laughter about it all, but she got me thinking that we needed to show our appreciation to Arms for all that he does, to stand by him. All week I’ve been saying we love our thug, and our thug can take your thug any day of the week. My boss even added, “Bring it on. It’ll make his day.”
Coworker: Someone said we were going to get him a t-shirt?
Me: Yeah, it should say something like “Have you hugged your thug today?” and have handprints on the back. Can you imagine how much Arms would freak out if we hugged him? Particularly you and me?!
We both laughed hard about that one because we pick on him a lot.
Coworker: “Thugs need hugs too!”
Me: “Thug love!”
Coworker: OH GOD, we should do a DISPLAY!
My tiny little brain began turning and a smile slowly spread across my face until I erupted with a scream of enthusiasm.
Me: YEAH!!!! I have so many thug-titled books in the street lit collection! We could subtly throw them all on a display and call it Thug Lovin’ or something like that, our homage to Arms!
Coworker: Do you think the director would get mad?
Me: Oh c’mon! I put his big, life-sized head in the middle of a display and he looked at it for a while and didn’t even realize it was his picture! He’ll never notice!
Coworker: Do you think we’ll get some heat? Will we get in trouble?
Me: Why would we?! It’s a mini street lit display, right? It’s not like we’ll put his picture on it. OR SHOULD WE? Would that be going too far?
Coworker: Oh, we should! We should put his big head right in the middle of the Thug Lovin’ part!
Me: Most people would have no idea what it was about. It would be pretty much an inside joke. Do you think we could get away with that?
Coworker: I don’t know.
Me: Maybe I’ll just do a subtle Thug display and if that floats, I’ll stick Arms’ head in it later. That is the single best display idea you’ve ever come up with. You are my absolute favorite person right now! I may love you more than my thug!
We laughed for a long time, and other staff members started finding their way to our desk wanting to know why we were having such a good time. We did not share. They will find out soon enough.
And that’s a typical day at my library.
My first encounter with him was when he ran up to my desk, completely frantic, on the verge of tears, voice cracking and wild panting, wanting me to help him find someone he’d had three email exchanges with on Craigslist, and now his emails weren’t going through to her inbox. He wanted me to figure out a way to find her, a phone number, an address, an alternate email address, something he could use to continue communicating with her because suddenly he can’t get any email through to her account. Things had been going so well, too. He needed to know if she was okay and he had to find a way to talk to her still. All the while, he was sniffling and fighting back complete loss of emotional control.
My absolute favorite commercial out right now is this one.
And I had, at that moment, a fantasy about calling him a jackwagon and chucking a box of Kleenex at him. Seriously. Get your ass back from mamby-pamby-land and get a clue, crybaby.
Ugh. Teen porn and online stalking: he’s a winner.
Anyway, I was working in the office while Marina was at the reference desk and she sent me an IM.
Marina: Creepy Guy just asked me for a camera.
I laughed really, really hard and turned to my boss and shared this gem.
Boss: Did he want a web camera? Ewwww.
Me (typing to Marina): Web cam or digital camera?
Marina: Digital camera I think, but I didn’t ask. I don’t want to know.
Me (to Marina): Did he say why? Did he want to use it here or take it home?
Marina: He started to tell me why he wanted it and then stopped himself in the middle and quit explaining.
I roared with laughter and shared this bit with my boss as well.
Me (to boss): So, when are those volunteers coming back? The ones who clean the keyboards and stuff?
Boss: Not soon enough!
Me (to Marina): Whose turn is it to clean the computer stations?
Marina: The good news is he’s been here ALL DAY but I just keep giving him extensions on the computer he’s at, so he’s only touched one computer the whole time he’s been here.
Me (to Marina): Uh… good? Hey, [Coworker] comes back from vacation tonight. We could suggest she wipe down the computers when she’s looking for busywork.
Marina: That’s exactly what I was thinking!
Me (to Marina): Great minds think alike.
I later did not suggest to our beloved coworker that she wipe-down computers. I like her too much.
And to prove her worth, she came up with the most brilliant idea I’ve yet heard.
There’s been a world of controversy swirling around our library and our cherished security guard, Arms, has received some bad PR by a group of idiots who dubbed him a thug. It’s hysterical to me, but then again I don’t have to deal with the fallout, so I can afford to laugh.
Anyway, I was telling our recently-returned-from-vacation coworker about the mess, and she too was experiencing gut-busting laughter about it all, but she got me thinking that we needed to show our appreciation to Arms for all that he does, to stand by him. All week I’ve been saying we love our thug, and our thug can take your thug any day of the week. My boss even added, “Bring it on. It’ll make his day.”
Coworker: Someone said we were going to get him a t-shirt?
Me: Yeah, it should say something like “Have you hugged your thug today?” and have handprints on the back. Can you imagine how much Arms would freak out if we hugged him? Particularly you and me?!
We both laughed hard about that one because we pick on him a lot.
Coworker: “Thugs need hugs too!”
Me: “Thug love!”
Coworker: OH GOD, we should do a DISPLAY!
My tiny little brain began turning and a smile slowly spread across my face until I erupted with a scream of enthusiasm.
Me: YEAH!!!! I have so many thug-titled books in the street lit collection! We could subtly throw them all on a display and call it Thug Lovin’ or something like that, our homage to Arms!
Coworker: Do you think the director would get mad?
Me: Oh c’mon! I put his big, life-sized head in the middle of a display and he looked at it for a while and didn’t even realize it was his picture! He’ll never notice!
Coworker: Do you think we’ll get some heat? Will we get in trouble?
Me: Why would we?! It’s a mini street lit display, right? It’s not like we’ll put his picture on it. OR SHOULD WE? Would that be going too far?
Coworker: Oh, we should! We should put his big head right in the middle of the Thug Lovin’ part!
Me: Most people would have no idea what it was about. It would be pretty much an inside joke. Do you think we could get away with that?
Coworker: I don’t know.
Me: Maybe I’ll just do a subtle Thug display and if that floats, I’ll stick Arms’ head in it later. That is the single best display idea you’ve ever come up with. You are my absolute favorite person right now! I may love you more than my thug!
We laughed for a long time, and other staff members started finding their way to our desk wanting to know why we were having such a good time. We did not share. They will find out soon enough.
And that’s a typical day at my library.
**Update**
Done deal.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Wish Book
In March I bought a bike. It was my first bike since I was a teenager and the billowing nostalgia washed over me as I instinctively got into my car and drove to the department store that represented all of my childhood wants: Sears.
If you’re old enough, you remember the Sears Wish Book, which was a catalog that Sears published annually, pre-Christmas, and it rivaled the size and heft of the most daunting tome my juvenile eyes had ever beheld.
Hours and hours of my life were spent pouring over each page in that behemoth, mentally drooling over every single thing any human could possibly want or need save for food, water and air. Every toy, every article of clothing, every electronic, every appliance, every tool, every THING anyone I knew could possibly crave was in that book. Until I was about nine, that Wish Book was completely mine, and every circled item description on each dog-eared page marked an item that I desperately wanted. When my brother was old enough to share in the mental drooling, we color coordinated the pens we used to circle items so that Santa would know who wanted what. Whether anything we ever dreamed of was purchased at Sears is a mystery to me. The gifts on the wish lists we compiled were likely purchased at any store where it was sold the cheapest, which was fine by us because as far as we were concerned, the Wish Book from Sears was merely a catalog of everything. It was the Amazon of my youth, hard copy.
Someone recently told me the largest seller of bicycles is Walmart, which makes sense, but I hate Walmart and only shop there when all else fails. There are pros and cons in dealing with large department stores. What you give up in skill, service and knowledge you bank on with apathetic employees who are more willing to accept returns and exchanges without questions or receipts because they’re not personally invested in the store’s success. Neither of these are selling points to me, but I hoped and anticipated that no matter how lacking the help at Sears could be, at least they’d be better than Walmart.
My $200 bike from Sears presented with problems immediately, and what frightened me was that my model wasn’t even a bike listed on Schwinn’s website as one they offered, so how proud were they of this product bearing their name? The seat was a veritable torture device, which was replaced after my very first ride, and then I immediately had to buy gloves with gel cushions because the grips on my handlebars were hard plastic. That was only the beginning. Quickly, my $200 bike was growing into a $300 bike, and no one could explain why my kickstand was way too short for the frame and would never hold it up or why I have to fill the tires with air each and every time I ride it. It must have taken four full months for me to finally find comfort on that bike, accessories and upgrades essential in making it a ridable vehicle. Bikes were not this complicated when I was a kid, and the difference between riding as an adult and riding as a child were so stark, it was a whole new experience to me.
Once I found my groove, felt as if the bike was finally where I needed it to be, and I could ride 10 – 20 miles at a time, I started experiencing problems with the gear shifting. Initially it was just violent shifting that would jolt me on the bike so hard, my feet would fly off the pedals and I’d momentarily lose balance. My brother kept promising to help me adjust my derailleurs, but it never happened. On a 20-mile ride last week, halfway into it, fifth gear would not hold at all and slipped harshly and continually into another gear, up and down, randomly. I ended up riding back to my car 10 miles in smaller gears, pedaling my glutes off, utterly exhausting myself trying to keep pace with the person I was riding with. The next day my brother attempted to adjust my derailleurs and discovered that sixth gear, not even the gear I had trouble with, had a quarter of the teeth missing. They did not look like fresh breaks, either, and though I hadn’t had any trouble riding in sixth gear, the fact that the teeth were broken did not give me confidence to test it.
Bike riders I know were incensed on my behalf over my very young bike being such a problem child already, and many times I was snapped at to return the lemon and get a real bike. However, my receipt only allowed for a refund within 90 days of purchase, which expired in mid-June, and as far as I could tell, I was stuck with it.
Boyfriend Extraordinaire, in an impressive showing of assertion and support, got on the phone and began making phone calls on my behalf, both to Sears and to Schwinn. By Monday, he had arrangements at Sears for me to drop the bike off, where a manager would take a look at the damage and decide whether they would replace the cassette or simply switch out the wheel with another bike, but they would do right by me and fix the problem for free. In the event that they failed, B.E. also secured a promise from Schwinn that they would send me a replacement part free of charge and all I had to do was get it installed. Plan A took place yesterday and I dropped the bike off at Sears, where The Bike Guy and The Manager would put their heads together today and fix my problem for me. I was told I’d receive a call in the morning with their decision.
My impatience was killing me. I couldn’t sleep last night at all, woke up far too early this morning, and managed to hold off until 11 am to call Sears about my bike when I, of course, had heard nothing from them.
This is when my lemon of a bike turned into a lemon of customer service.
The phone number listed for the Sears store where I took my bike was on an automated system. I spoke to the machine that I wanted the Repair Department, and I was forwarded to a new series of choices, none of which suited my needs, so I asked for Customer Assistance. A woman with an Indian-sounding accent answered the phone and I was immediately sifting through a cacophony of white noise of a call center surrounding her. When I spoke my problem to her, wanting to find out the status of my bike repair, she could not hear me. I repeated loudly and she still could not make out my words. Shouting at an uncomfortable volume was the only way she was able to discern the words I spoke, multiple continents away. When she finished taking my information, she transferred my call, and that line rang and rang and rang. Eventually someone picked it up and immediately hung the phone up on me.
Sigh… back to square one.
Called Sears again. Spoke that I wanted Repair. Spoke that I wanted Customer Assistance. Was immediately disconnected before anyone in India could answer.
Deep breath.
Called Sears again. Spoke that I wanted an Operator, hoping that this would give me a live person in the store itself. A man answered, I explained what I was looking for, he forwarded me to a department that forwarded me to another department, that never picked up the phone and I was disconnected for being on the line too long. Or so it seemed – the ringing stopped dead and the line disconnected.
Called Sears again! Spoke that I wanted Repair! Spoke that I wanted someone in Parts! Got another woman in India who also could not hear me unless I screamed myself hoarse, and she could not find a record of my purchase or me in Sears’ system, so I had to feed her all of my personal information at eardrum-puncturing volume, after which she said she’d transfer me to a store nearest my address. I managed to stop her before the transfer went through and explained that the local store was merely an outlet for tools, and I had taken my bike to the Sears Grand at the mall. This I had to repeat because I wasn’t screaming loud enough, though I felt as if she might have been able to hear me in India better if we hadn’t been holding up phones/headsets to our ears. She transferred me, someone answered after about five minutes of ringing and hold music, and they said I had to be transferred elsewhere, which resulted in another disconnection.
CALLEDSEARSAGAIN! It was now 11:30 and I’d been having conversations with machines and people in India for a half hour, with a mix of ringing, hold music, and disconnections to keep the conversations lively. I’d had it! I did not ask for Repair. I did not ask for Customer Assistance. I opted for the choice at the very end of the menu for someone in no particular department to handle my unclassifiable problem. It was a woman! And she sounded at least within 2,000 miles of me! And she spoke English without an accent! And she could hear me speak in my normal voice! Though now I felt a lot like screaming at someone! And I felt myself start to unload on her the horror of dealing with their automated system, India, screaming, being transferred all over the world, and disconnected more times than I even cared to count – would she please help me find someone at the store I went to just yesterday who had my bicycle?! In a very practiced, scripted voice she apologized for the inconvenience I’d experienced and promised to stay on the line with me until someone picked up the phone where she transferred me this time. Part of me wanted to hit her just because she was there, and another part of me wanted to French kiss her for finally being a person who pretended like she cared enough to get someone else on the line.
The man who took in my bike yesterday answered the phone and I explained who I was and why I was calling. Has there been a decision on what to do with my bicycle? That’s all I wanted to know. Nearly 40 minutes of fighting my way through a maze of dead-ended extensions and I could ask the question burning deep into my soul, and ask someone who was actually in a position to know.
Well, The Bike Guy isn’t in yet, and he only works on Fridays, but no one knows when he’ll show up. The Manager who was going to decide what to do hadn’t responded to the repeated attempts to get him to take a look at the bike and make the decision, and attempts had been made all day yesterday and were starting over today. If The Manager doesn’t make a decision before The Bike Guy leaves today, my bike will not be serviced and will have to wait until The Bike Guy returns sometime next Friday, at his leisure. But The Phone Guy promised to call me today with an answer, even though this Sears doesn’t do any bike repairs, which are usually sent 60 miles south of here to a bigger store that will take roughly 35 years to ship, fix, and ship back my bike. He was quite clear that they were doing me a favor by taking in my bike and considering fixing it themselves. And oh what a favor it was to indefinitely hold it hostage and create a myriad of puzzles one must solve in order to get through on the phone to find out if my bike has even been looked at by anyone who is kind enough to bless me with their attention. They sure do a helluva job avoiding being reachable. You’d think they didn’t want to deal with people. Who gives them business if not people?
The department store bike purchase has now become one of those epic mistakes I’ve made in my life, on par with dating a pro-wrestling fan, and one I will stand at every podium and climb upon every soapbox to warn people against following in my footsteps. Much as it causes parts of me to die a little bit, I can’t help but wonder if I should’ve gone to Walmart after all. No, no I shouldn’t have. That was a correct choice. I’d be in the same boat, except that I’d be able to get through to people at Walmart without having to call India twice, and find that they were equally apathetic about helping me get what I paid for.
On the verge of a nervous breakdown, feeling a lot like there was some kind of conspiracy taking place in the universe to keep me off of a bicycle, I called the local mom-and-pop bike shop, who have done right by me selling me the myriad of accessories and upgrades my lame bike has necessitated. Quickly I explained that I have a Schwinn that has broken teeth, Schwinn will send me a replacement cassette for free, which is so much easier than dealing with the numbskulls at Sears, and how much would they charge to install it. She did some mental math out loud, wheel off, change cassette, wheel on, and replied that the charge would run about $15.
Fifteen. Dollars.
How many gray hairs did I just get from dealing with Sears and how much will it cost to color those hairs for the rest of my life? More than $15.
How much is my time worth: driving to the mall, dropping off the bike, driving home, waiting around all morning for a call-back that would never occur, calling all around the globe for answers for nearly an hour, calling other places to fulfill Plan B, then returning to the mall to break my bike out of Sears prison and driving home again? More than $15.
How much is my sanity worth? Well, what little is left might be worth $15, but not much more.
So, it’s 3 pm and I’m on my way to retrieve my bike so that I can spend $15 and have it fixed by the people I should’ve bought a bike from to begin with!
Long gone are the Rockwellian days of the Wish Books and Sears love. Outsourced, no doubt.
If you’re old enough, you remember the Sears Wish Book, which was a catalog that Sears published annually, pre-Christmas, and it rivaled the size and heft of the most daunting tome my juvenile eyes had ever beheld.
Hours and hours of my life were spent pouring over each page in that behemoth, mentally drooling over every single thing any human could possibly want or need save for food, water and air. Every toy, every article of clothing, every electronic, every appliance, every tool, every THING anyone I knew could possibly crave was in that book. Until I was about nine, that Wish Book was completely mine, and every circled item description on each dog-eared page marked an item that I desperately wanted. When my brother was old enough to share in the mental drooling, we color coordinated the pens we used to circle items so that Santa would know who wanted what. Whether anything we ever dreamed of was purchased at Sears is a mystery to me. The gifts on the wish lists we compiled were likely purchased at any store where it was sold the cheapest, which was fine by us because as far as we were concerned, the Wish Book from Sears was merely a catalog of everything. It was the Amazon of my youth, hard copy.
Someone recently told me the largest seller of bicycles is Walmart, which makes sense, but I hate Walmart and only shop there when all else fails. There are pros and cons in dealing with large department stores. What you give up in skill, service and knowledge you bank on with apathetic employees who are more willing to accept returns and exchanges without questions or receipts because they’re not personally invested in the store’s success. Neither of these are selling points to me, but I hoped and anticipated that no matter how lacking the help at Sears could be, at least they’d be better than Walmart.
My $200 bike from Sears presented with problems immediately, and what frightened me was that my model wasn’t even a bike listed on Schwinn’s website as one they offered, so how proud were they of this product bearing their name? The seat was a veritable torture device, which was replaced after my very first ride, and then I immediately had to buy gloves with gel cushions because the grips on my handlebars were hard plastic. That was only the beginning. Quickly, my $200 bike was growing into a $300 bike, and no one could explain why my kickstand was way too short for the frame and would never hold it up or why I have to fill the tires with air each and every time I ride it. It must have taken four full months for me to finally find comfort on that bike, accessories and upgrades essential in making it a ridable vehicle. Bikes were not this complicated when I was a kid, and the difference between riding as an adult and riding as a child were so stark, it was a whole new experience to me.
Once I found my groove, felt as if the bike was finally where I needed it to be, and I could ride 10 – 20 miles at a time, I started experiencing problems with the gear shifting. Initially it was just violent shifting that would jolt me on the bike so hard, my feet would fly off the pedals and I’d momentarily lose balance. My brother kept promising to help me adjust my derailleurs, but it never happened. On a 20-mile ride last week, halfway into it, fifth gear would not hold at all and slipped harshly and continually into another gear, up and down, randomly. I ended up riding back to my car 10 miles in smaller gears, pedaling my glutes off, utterly exhausting myself trying to keep pace with the person I was riding with. The next day my brother attempted to adjust my derailleurs and discovered that sixth gear, not even the gear I had trouble with, had a quarter of the teeth missing. They did not look like fresh breaks, either, and though I hadn’t had any trouble riding in sixth gear, the fact that the teeth were broken did not give me confidence to test it.
Bike riders I know were incensed on my behalf over my very young bike being such a problem child already, and many times I was snapped at to return the lemon and get a real bike. However, my receipt only allowed for a refund within 90 days of purchase, which expired in mid-June, and as far as I could tell, I was stuck with it.
Boyfriend Extraordinaire, in an impressive showing of assertion and support, got on the phone and began making phone calls on my behalf, both to Sears and to Schwinn. By Monday, he had arrangements at Sears for me to drop the bike off, where a manager would take a look at the damage and decide whether they would replace the cassette or simply switch out the wheel with another bike, but they would do right by me and fix the problem for free. In the event that they failed, B.E. also secured a promise from Schwinn that they would send me a replacement part free of charge and all I had to do was get it installed. Plan A took place yesterday and I dropped the bike off at Sears, where The Bike Guy and The Manager would put their heads together today and fix my problem for me. I was told I’d receive a call in the morning with their decision.
My impatience was killing me. I couldn’t sleep last night at all, woke up far too early this morning, and managed to hold off until 11 am to call Sears about my bike when I, of course, had heard nothing from them.
This is when my lemon of a bike turned into a lemon of customer service.
The phone number listed for the Sears store where I took my bike was on an automated system. I spoke to the machine that I wanted the Repair Department, and I was forwarded to a new series of choices, none of which suited my needs, so I asked for Customer Assistance. A woman with an Indian-sounding accent answered the phone and I was immediately sifting through a cacophony of white noise of a call center surrounding her. When I spoke my problem to her, wanting to find out the status of my bike repair, she could not hear me. I repeated loudly and she still could not make out my words. Shouting at an uncomfortable volume was the only way she was able to discern the words I spoke, multiple continents away. When she finished taking my information, she transferred my call, and that line rang and rang and rang. Eventually someone picked it up and immediately hung the phone up on me.
Sigh… back to square one.
Called Sears again. Spoke that I wanted Repair. Spoke that I wanted Customer Assistance. Was immediately disconnected before anyone in India could answer.
Deep breath.
Called Sears again. Spoke that I wanted an Operator, hoping that this would give me a live person in the store itself. A man answered, I explained what I was looking for, he forwarded me to a department that forwarded me to another department, that never picked up the phone and I was disconnected for being on the line too long. Or so it seemed – the ringing stopped dead and the line disconnected.
Called Sears again! Spoke that I wanted Repair! Spoke that I wanted someone in Parts! Got another woman in India who also could not hear me unless I screamed myself hoarse, and she could not find a record of my purchase or me in Sears’ system, so I had to feed her all of my personal information at eardrum-puncturing volume, after which she said she’d transfer me to a store nearest my address. I managed to stop her before the transfer went through and explained that the local store was merely an outlet for tools, and I had taken my bike to the Sears Grand at the mall. This I had to repeat because I wasn’t screaming loud enough, though I felt as if she might have been able to hear me in India better if we hadn’t been holding up phones/headsets to our ears. She transferred me, someone answered after about five minutes of ringing and hold music, and they said I had to be transferred elsewhere, which resulted in another disconnection.
CALLEDSEARSAGAIN! It was now 11:30 and I’d been having conversations with machines and people in India for a half hour, with a mix of ringing, hold music, and disconnections to keep the conversations lively. I’d had it! I did not ask for Repair. I did not ask for Customer Assistance. I opted for the choice at the very end of the menu for someone in no particular department to handle my unclassifiable problem. It was a woman! And she sounded at least within 2,000 miles of me! And she spoke English without an accent! And she could hear me speak in my normal voice! Though now I felt a lot like screaming at someone! And I felt myself start to unload on her the horror of dealing with their automated system, India, screaming, being transferred all over the world, and disconnected more times than I even cared to count – would she please help me find someone at the store I went to just yesterday who had my bicycle?! In a very practiced, scripted voice she apologized for the inconvenience I’d experienced and promised to stay on the line with me until someone picked up the phone where she transferred me this time. Part of me wanted to hit her just because she was there, and another part of me wanted to French kiss her for finally being a person who pretended like she cared enough to get someone else on the line.
The man who took in my bike yesterday answered the phone and I explained who I was and why I was calling. Has there been a decision on what to do with my bicycle? That’s all I wanted to know. Nearly 40 minutes of fighting my way through a maze of dead-ended extensions and I could ask the question burning deep into my soul, and ask someone who was actually in a position to know.
Well, The Bike Guy isn’t in yet, and he only works on Fridays, but no one knows when he’ll show up. The Manager who was going to decide what to do hadn’t responded to the repeated attempts to get him to take a look at the bike and make the decision, and attempts had been made all day yesterday and were starting over today. If The Manager doesn’t make a decision before The Bike Guy leaves today, my bike will not be serviced and will have to wait until The Bike Guy returns sometime next Friday, at his leisure. But The Phone Guy promised to call me today with an answer, even though this Sears doesn’t do any bike repairs, which are usually sent 60 miles south of here to a bigger store that will take roughly 35 years to ship, fix, and ship back my bike. He was quite clear that they were doing me a favor by taking in my bike and considering fixing it themselves. And oh what a favor it was to indefinitely hold it hostage and create a myriad of puzzles one must solve in order to get through on the phone to find out if my bike has even been looked at by anyone who is kind enough to bless me with their attention. They sure do a helluva job avoiding being reachable. You’d think they didn’t want to deal with people. Who gives them business if not people?
The department store bike purchase has now become one of those epic mistakes I’ve made in my life, on par with dating a pro-wrestling fan, and one I will stand at every podium and climb upon every soapbox to warn people against following in my footsteps. Much as it causes parts of me to die a little bit, I can’t help but wonder if I should’ve gone to Walmart after all. No, no I shouldn’t have. That was a correct choice. I’d be in the same boat, except that I’d be able to get through to people at Walmart without having to call India twice, and find that they were equally apathetic about helping me get what I paid for.
On the verge of a nervous breakdown, feeling a lot like there was some kind of conspiracy taking place in the universe to keep me off of a bicycle, I called the local mom-and-pop bike shop, who have done right by me selling me the myriad of accessories and upgrades my lame bike has necessitated. Quickly I explained that I have a Schwinn that has broken teeth, Schwinn will send me a replacement cassette for free, which is so much easier than dealing with the numbskulls at Sears, and how much would they charge to install it. She did some mental math out loud, wheel off, change cassette, wheel on, and replied that the charge would run about $15.
Fifteen. Dollars.
How many gray hairs did I just get from dealing with Sears and how much will it cost to color those hairs for the rest of my life? More than $15.
How much is my time worth: driving to the mall, dropping off the bike, driving home, waiting around all morning for a call-back that would never occur, calling all around the globe for answers for nearly an hour, calling other places to fulfill Plan B, then returning to the mall to break my bike out of Sears prison and driving home again? More than $15.
How much is my sanity worth? Well, what little is left might be worth $15, but not much more.
So, it’s 3 pm and I’m on my way to retrieve my bike so that I can spend $15 and have it fixed by the people I should’ve bought a bike from to begin with!
Long gone are the Rockwellian days of the Wish Books and Sears love. Outsourced, no doubt.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Back Talker
A man walked up to my desk and mumbled something to me, which I could not make out. All I heard was something about signing up for something. Given that our newsletter just landed in the mailboxes of all our residents, he could’ve been asking to sign up for any number of things.
Me: Excuse me? You’d like to sign up for what?
He rolled his eyes at me, turned his back to me and leaned against my desk facing away, and mumbled again, “[Mumble]...sign up...[mumble]...library card...[mumble]...for a few minutes.”
I know why old people are cranky. I’m getting there way before my time already. Patience with rude, inconsiderate and stupid people runs very thin somewhere around the age of 35, if you’ve been dealing with the public. The more you deal with the public, the quicker it runs out.
Surmising from the three phrases I managed to understand, and completely jumping to conclusions about the mumbles that interspersed the intelligible portion of his conversation with me, I not so patiently replied to him.
Me: I’m sorry but it’s hard to understand you when you’re not even talking TOWARD me. Are you asking for a reservation for an Express computer because you don’t have your library card?
Him (glancing over his shoulder, rolling his eyes again): YES, a COM-PEW-TUR!
This guy was not a punk 14-year-old. He was easily in his late 20s, judging by his receding hairline and slight acne still upon his skin. And by the way, he needed to wash his thinning hair. Even though there wasn’t much, it was greasy-gross. I should also mention I might not have noticed how clumpy and sticky his shiny hair was if that wasn’t the part of his head he insisted on presenting to me.
So I made the reservation, tore off the reservation slip, and held my hand out to his back. Still he would not turn around and face me, and eventually he noticed out of the corner of his eye that I had my arm extended to hand him the slip. With maximum effort -- I kid you not -- he twisted his arm around backward so that he wouldn’t have to actually move his body at all, and just opened his hand up so I could put the slip into it.
I did not gracefully and delicately place it into his hand, lets just say.
From there, things did not improve. Though I was helping other people, in the middle of explaining something with words flowing freely from my informative lips in the direction of patrons standing before me, FACING ME, he would yell to me from the computer, “MISS! MISS! THIS ISN’T WORKING!”
“This” being his brain? Sorry, I’m not trained in handling that kind of problem.
I grew tired of looking at him in the middle of my conversation and giving him the finger.
Not that finger. Thought I very much wanted to.
The hold-one-minute finger.
Eventually I quit bothering with the finger and just kept talking. He would sigh and get the point, though it didn’t stop him from continually doing this throughout his stay.
What it turns out he needed was something from his mortgage company that had his address on it. A simple bank statement wouldn’t work. Apparently, in order to register his child for school, he had to prove not only his address with formal ID, but ownership of property. I’m guessing he was mistaken but this was what he insisted upon, and logging into his online account did not include the physical address of the property anywhere in the account, so he was frantically demanding I figure out what he could do.
I asked if another item would suffice: utility bill, car insurance card, etc.
He looked at me with incredulity.
Guy: They’ll take a car insurance card?
Me: Well, I don’t know. You’d have to ask them. What I’m asking YOU is if you asked them if they’ll take anything else with your address on it.
Guy: I don’t know. Why would they take my car insurance card?
Me: Because some have an address printed on them, which may or may not be enough proof that your car is registered to that address. That’s something else with an address -- car registration. I mean, there are a number of options, but I can’t tell you what the school will accept.
Guy: But why doesn’t the mortgage put my address on my online account?
Me: I don’t know that either, but it’s probably a security measure. You log into your credit card account and, at least with mine, they don’t put the account number on it. Sometimes the last four digits, but mostly you just have to know it’s yours and recognize the rest of the information. It’s for your protection.
Guy: So how am I supposed to get this information?!
Me: Call your mortgage company and see if they can print something out for you. Or call the school and see if they’ll take something else.
Guy: But what else would they take?!
I was tempted -- oh so tempted -- to turn my back on him and mumble my repeat of suggestions, rolling my eyes. If he can dish it out he should certainly be able to take it, but that is almost never the case.
Instead I paused and repeated. He was realizing that his problem wasn’t going to be immediately solved and so he stormed out.
Good riddance, I say.
Or...
[Mumble] riddance...
Me: Excuse me? You’d like to sign up for what?
He rolled his eyes at me, turned his back to me and leaned against my desk facing away, and mumbled again, “[Mumble]...sign up...[mumble]...library card...[mumble]...for a few minutes.”
I know why old people are cranky. I’m getting there way before my time already. Patience with rude, inconsiderate and stupid people runs very thin somewhere around the age of 35, if you’ve been dealing with the public. The more you deal with the public, the quicker it runs out.
Surmising from the three phrases I managed to understand, and completely jumping to conclusions about the mumbles that interspersed the intelligible portion of his conversation with me, I not so patiently replied to him.
Me: I’m sorry but it’s hard to understand you when you’re not even talking TOWARD me. Are you asking for a reservation for an Express computer because you don’t have your library card?
Him (glancing over his shoulder, rolling his eyes again): YES, a COM-PEW-TUR!
This guy was not a punk 14-year-old. He was easily in his late 20s, judging by his receding hairline and slight acne still upon his skin. And by the way, he needed to wash his thinning hair. Even though there wasn’t much, it was greasy-gross. I should also mention I might not have noticed how clumpy and sticky his shiny hair was if that wasn’t the part of his head he insisted on presenting to me.
So I made the reservation, tore off the reservation slip, and held my hand out to his back. Still he would not turn around and face me, and eventually he noticed out of the corner of his eye that I had my arm extended to hand him the slip. With maximum effort -- I kid you not -- he twisted his arm around backward so that he wouldn’t have to actually move his body at all, and just opened his hand up so I could put the slip into it.
I did not gracefully and delicately place it into his hand, lets just say.
From there, things did not improve. Though I was helping other people, in the middle of explaining something with words flowing freely from my informative lips in the direction of patrons standing before me, FACING ME, he would yell to me from the computer, “MISS! MISS! THIS ISN’T WORKING!”
“This” being his brain? Sorry, I’m not trained in handling that kind of problem.
I grew tired of looking at him in the middle of my conversation and giving him the finger.
Not that finger. Thought I very much wanted to.
The hold-one-minute finger.
Eventually I quit bothering with the finger and just kept talking. He would sigh and get the point, though it didn’t stop him from continually doing this throughout his stay.
What it turns out he needed was something from his mortgage company that had his address on it. A simple bank statement wouldn’t work. Apparently, in order to register his child for school, he had to prove not only his address with formal ID, but ownership of property. I’m guessing he was mistaken but this was what he insisted upon, and logging into his online account did not include the physical address of the property anywhere in the account, so he was frantically demanding I figure out what he could do.
I asked if another item would suffice: utility bill, car insurance card, etc.
He looked at me with incredulity.
Guy: They’ll take a car insurance card?
Me: Well, I don’t know. You’d have to ask them. What I’m asking YOU is if you asked them if they’ll take anything else with your address on it.
Guy: I don’t know. Why would they take my car insurance card?
Me: Because some have an address printed on them, which may or may not be enough proof that your car is registered to that address. That’s something else with an address -- car registration. I mean, there are a number of options, but I can’t tell you what the school will accept.
Guy: But why doesn’t the mortgage put my address on my online account?
Me: I don’t know that either, but it’s probably a security measure. You log into your credit card account and, at least with mine, they don’t put the account number on it. Sometimes the last four digits, but mostly you just have to know it’s yours and recognize the rest of the information. It’s for your protection.
Guy: So how am I supposed to get this information?!
Me: Call your mortgage company and see if they can print something out for you. Or call the school and see if they’ll take something else.
Guy: But what else would they take?!
I was tempted -- oh so tempted -- to turn my back on him and mumble my repeat of suggestions, rolling my eyes. If he can dish it out he should certainly be able to take it, but that is almost never the case.
Instead I paused and repeated. He was realizing that his problem wasn’t going to be immediately solved and so he stormed out.
Good riddance, I say.
Or...
[Mumble] riddance...
Monday, July 26, 2010
The Bitch Principle
Thank you so much to my anonymous commenter for reminding me of this post. I wrote it when I worked for another director, in another department, and the reminder was both painful and jarring. I needed it, thanks. It's part of the defunct Happyville Library archives and no longer published, but I figured I should re-publish it for nostalgia's sake. And my own. So here it is.
Warning: I wrote this post after reading (and re-reading, because it was so damn funny) an entire book of Dilbert comics. When I finished, I had an abundance of crazy manager memories flooding my brain and I wrote this with many of my past jobs in mind. Happyville is NOWHERE near this bad, but I've been places that are and this is not an exaggeration of some workplace philosophies. Read it with the humor it was written with.
The Bitch Principle
You are owned by the taxpayers of this community. This means you are their bitch. They pay your meager salary and begrudge you every penny.
Corollary 1
A bitch’s job is to keep the patrons happy, at all costs. Some will be satisfied that you have done your job if you merely answer their question about the library’s hours; others will be dissatisfied with your output if you call in favors, pull strings, hack a government computer and sell your personal possessions to pay for the bribe used to acquire information you seek on behalf of a patron. It is recognizable that you may eventually find your resources have reached a limit. When this occurs, find another bitch with greater resources and tell the patron you are referring them to someone with more authority in that area.
Corollary 2
If you are off the clock and shopping in a local store, you are still their bitch. Whenever possible, without regard for your personal situation, do your best to serve their needs.
Corollary 3
Find someone else’s bitch for them. Sometimes patrons get attached to the work done by a particular bitch on staff. If Joe is Mr. McCarty’s favorite bitch and Mr. McCarty is on the phone looking for Joe, find Joe immediately. Patrons don’t like to leave voice mail messages for staff because it feels less like their bitches are at their beck and call, so you must track that staff member down or take a message, thereby taking personal responsibility for Joe getting the message. Bitchdom is transferable like that so it is preferred that you find the bitch in question.
Corollary 4
Never forget you’re their bitch. No matter how harsh, offensive or brutally critical a patron is, show them their proper respect. Only when a patron breaks a law and infringes on the rights of other patrons can you act in defense of the other patrons. Your honor is not important and if they belittle you, that is their right. If it weren’t for them, you wouldn’t have a job. It is only through their generosity that you are able to put food in your mouth. Show some gratitude.
Behavior Principles and Management Noninvolvement
Patrons are unpredictable and you should predict their behavior accordingly, without aid of your supervisors.
Corollary 1
Try to diffuse a belligerent patron’s temper before they take their complaint to management. Managers sought promotions to get themselves away from the positions of serving the public because they were terrible at it and they hated it. Do not remind your boss of his or her shortcomings by bringing them a raging patron.
Corollary 2
Inebriated patrons should be refused service. There are no repercussions because if they are as drunk as they seem, they won’t remember it anyway. If the inebriated patron raises suspicion that they might be dangerous or driving, the police should be alerted. If you are feeling apathetic on this particular day, remember that they are parked in the same parking lot as your own vehicle, and they might have lagged on their liability insurance.
Corollary 3
Mothers with children are like ticking bombs and should be given an enormous amount of leeway. Some prefer you to discipline their children for them; others don’t care if their child has eaten the first three volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and they do not want you to say a negative word in the direction of their children. You have to figure out which type of mother you are dealing with and then be prepared for the fallout. Again, “diffuse” the situation accordingly and avoid management if at all possible.
Corollary 4
Patrons will deny responsibility for any and all offenses they commit, no matter how obvious it is that they are guilty. If you cannot convince them that they must be accountable for their actions and the matter is presented to management, be prepared for the manager to exhibit his/her spinelessness and give the patron what they want, not backing you up and not standing by the written and formal policy. Managers suppress their confrontational abilities until they wield the pent-up confrontation on an underling. If you are the patrons’ bitch, your manager is an upper echelon bitch and held to an even higher standard of devotion and servitude to the patrons. Do not expect your manager to take your side or uphold your decisions.
Corollary 5
When all hell breaks loose, call the police instead of management. Though there will be a delay in the time it takes for officers to arrive, it will be much faster than locating an effective member of management. Order must be restored as quickly as possible, and often that can only be accomplished by those with guns. Choose wisely and keep in mind that the library will remain open regardless of fatalities, so minimize the mess because it will be you working among the splattered blood.
Emergency Principles
The only thing that should close the library is the building itself being blown to smithereens. Your emergency kits should suffice in rescuing you from any situation, with the exception of the building being blown to smithereens. If you and the building are blown to smithereens, you may officially close the library.
Corollary 1
If there is a fire, gather the patrons and rescue them first. Your life is less valuable and without the patrons, you wouldn’t have a job anyway. Then you may rescue the library pets. Once the important ones have been evacuated safely, you may leave the building. Don’t forget to sign out (you won’t be paid for your time of evacuation), log off the computers, turn on your voice mail, leave a note for your boss saying you left early and why, and get it signed by a fireman on scene (preferably the first one in the building so that they don’t force you to leave before you have finished your duties). The library should reopen immediately unless otherwise indicated by the fire department.
Corollary 2
In the event of a tornado, patrons should be gathered and led to the shelter areas in the building. Some will refuse to evacuate to a safe place – leave them where they are because that is an effective “diffusing” of a problem patron, no doubt. Remember to bring the emergency kits located at each reference desks and the circulation desk. You should then nominate a staff member to check outside to see if the tornado has passed and it is safe to come out. If that staff member doesn’t return, wait a while longer, nominate a new staff member and repeat. If the building collapses on you due to the tornado’s damage, you will be glad you have the emergency kits handy.
Corollary 3
If a bomb threat is made, follow the same instructions given in Corollary 1, but remember to call the police and have them sign your note to management. We do not have bomb alarms and if a board member or the director happens upon an empty library with all the patrons and staff running for their lives and no police or other law enforcement present, it will be assumed you have abandoned your position and you will be fired. This is particularly important if the bomb threat was a hoax and the building was not blown to smithereens.
Corollary 4
With frequently erupting cases of violence and mass murder occurring in workplaces and public buildings, a domestic or non-domestic terrorist threat should be handled as exhibited in the following passage:
Corollary 5
If a patron has an accident, becomes ill, or shows symptoms of ill health, call an ambulance immediately. If you are unable to prevent a bodily fluid spill from occurring, it is up to the staff member nearest the spill to clean it up, regardless of their job description. Supplies are scattered about the building haphazardly, and you will probably have to cordon off the hazardous area until the supplies can be gathered. No matter how enormous the spill, the library should not be closed. A biohazard suit is available, as well as anti-tuberculosis wipes and individual alcohol swabs in case contact is made. The janitors should be notified immediately and contaminated material should be set aside to be determined if it is in need of being destroyed. It is preferred that contamination should be contained and only staff exposed. Innocent patrons should be spared first and foremost, and management spared second.
Corollary 6
Miscellaneous emergencies such as gas leaks, flooding, building damage, power outage, water shutoff, etc., should not result in evacuations unless advised by the fire or police department, and the library should remain open. Keep in mind one steadfast word: smithereens. If the building is not in eminent danger of being blown to smithereens and valuable patrons are not in danger, you should continue doing your job and the library should remain open.
Remember: smithereens! Don’t stop doing your job unless the library is blown to smithereens!
Warning: I wrote this post after reading (and re-reading, because it was so damn funny) an entire book of Dilbert comics. When I finished, I had an abundance of crazy manager memories flooding my brain and I wrote this with many of my past jobs in mind. Happyville is NOWHERE near this bad, but I've been places that are and this is not an exaggeration of some workplace philosophies. Read it with the humor it was written with.
The Bitch Principle
You are owned by the taxpayers of this community. This means you are their bitch. They pay your meager salary and begrudge you every penny.
Corollary 1
A bitch’s job is to keep the patrons happy, at all costs. Some will be satisfied that you have done your job if you merely answer their question about the library’s hours; others will be dissatisfied with your output if you call in favors, pull strings, hack a government computer and sell your personal possessions to pay for the bribe used to acquire information you seek on behalf of a patron. It is recognizable that you may eventually find your resources have reached a limit. When this occurs, find another bitch with greater resources and tell the patron you are referring them to someone with more authority in that area.
Corollary 2
If you are off the clock and shopping in a local store, you are still their bitch. Whenever possible, without regard for your personal situation, do your best to serve their needs.
Corollary 3
Find someone else’s bitch for them. Sometimes patrons get attached to the work done by a particular bitch on staff. If Joe is Mr. McCarty’s favorite bitch and Mr. McCarty is on the phone looking for Joe, find Joe immediately. Patrons don’t like to leave voice mail messages for staff because it feels less like their bitches are at their beck and call, so you must track that staff member down or take a message, thereby taking personal responsibility for Joe getting the message. Bitchdom is transferable like that so it is preferred that you find the bitch in question.
Corollary 4
Never forget you’re their bitch. No matter how harsh, offensive or brutally critical a patron is, show them their proper respect. Only when a patron breaks a law and infringes on the rights of other patrons can you act in defense of the other patrons. Your honor is not important and if they belittle you, that is their right. If it weren’t for them, you wouldn’t have a job. It is only through their generosity that you are able to put food in your mouth. Show some gratitude.
- Exclusion
If you are a member of the community in which you work, a taxpayer to the library where you are employed, you are not your own bitch. Being everyone else’s bitch overrides any entitlement you might have. If you would like to have a library full of your personal bitches, you must move out of the library district in which you work. You automatically forfeit your rights to having library bitches when you live and work in the same library district.
Behavior Principles and Management Noninvolvement
Patrons are unpredictable and you should predict their behavior accordingly, without aid of your supervisors.
Corollary 1
Try to diffuse a belligerent patron’s temper before they take their complaint to management. Managers sought promotions to get themselves away from the positions of serving the public because they were terrible at it and they hated it. Do not remind your boss of his or her shortcomings by bringing them a raging patron.
- Explanation
By “diffuse” we mean to use any means necessary. A shovel and dolly are in the receiving room and the property is adjacent to some dense woods. Use your resources wisely. A dead taxpayer is preferable to a disgruntled taxpayer.
Corollary 2
Inebriated patrons should be refused service. There are no repercussions because if they are as drunk as they seem, they won’t remember it anyway. If the inebriated patron raises suspicion that they might be dangerous or driving, the police should be alerted. If you are feeling apathetic on this particular day, remember that they are parked in the same parking lot as your own vehicle, and they might have lagged on their liability insurance.
Corollary 3
Mothers with children are like ticking bombs and should be given an enormous amount of leeway. Some prefer you to discipline their children for them; others don’t care if their child has eaten the first three volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and they do not want you to say a negative word in the direction of their children. You have to figure out which type of mother you are dealing with and then be prepared for the fallout. Again, “diffuse” the situation accordingly and avoid management if at all possible.
Corollary 4
Patrons will deny responsibility for any and all offenses they commit, no matter how obvious it is that they are guilty. If you cannot convince them that they must be accountable for their actions and the matter is presented to management, be prepared for the manager to exhibit his/her spinelessness and give the patron what they want, not backing you up and not standing by the written and formal policy. Managers suppress their confrontational abilities until they wield the pent-up confrontation on an underling. If you are the patrons’ bitch, your manager is an upper echelon bitch and held to an even higher standard of devotion and servitude to the patrons. Do not expect your manager to take your side or uphold your decisions.
Corollary 5
When all hell breaks loose, call the police instead of management. Though there will be a delay in the time it takes for officers to arrive, it will be much faster than locating an effective member of management. Order must be restored as quickly as possible, and often that can only be accomplished by those with guns. Choose wisely and keep in mind that the library will remain open regardless of fatalities, so minimize the mess because it will be you working among the splattered blood.
Emergency Principles
The only thing that should close the library is the building itself being blown to smithereens. Your emergency kits should suffice in rescuing you from any situation, with the exception of the building being blown to smithereens. If you and the building are blown to smithereens, you may officially close the library.
Corollary 1
If there is a fire, gather the patrons and rescue them first. Your life is less valuable and without the patrons, you wouldn’t have a job anyway. Then you may rescue the library pets. Once the important ones have been evacuated safely, you may leave the building. Don’t forget to sign out (you won’t be paid for your time of evacuation), log off the computers, turn on your voice mail, leave a note for your boss saying you left early and why, and get it signed by a fireman on scene (preferably the first one in the building so that they don’t force you to leave before you have finished your duties). The library should reopen immediately unless otherwise indicated by the fire department.
Corollary 2
In the event of a tornado, patrons should be gathered and led to the shelter areas in the building. Some will refuse to evacuate to a safe place – leave them where they are because that is an effective “diffusing” of a problem patron, no doubt. Remember to bring the emergency kits located at each reference desks and the circulation desk. You should then nominate a staff member to check outside to see if the tornado has passed and it is safe to come out. If that staff member doesn’t return, wait a while longer, nominate a new staff member and repeat. If the building collapses on you due to the tornado’s damage, you will be glad you have the emergency kits handy.
- Explanation
These emergency kits will save your life. In the rare event that a sharpened pencil, some scratch paper, a flashlight, some glow sticks, a whistle, band-aids, and a battery-operated radio cannot be utilized to save your life, their presence will absolve the library of liability and prevent your next of kin from filing frivolous civil suits. If you do not know how to save your lives with the whistle, a sharpened pencil and some glow-sticks, then that is your problem.
Corollary 3
If a bomb threat is made, follow the same instructions given in Corollary 1, but remember to call the police and have them sign your note to management. We do not have bomb alarms and if a board member or the director happens upon an empty library with all the patrons and staff running for their lives and no police or other law enforcement present, it will be assumed you have abandoned your position and you will be fired. This is particularly important if the bomb threat was a hoax and the building was not blown to smithereens.
Corollary 4
With frequently erupting cases of violence and mass murder occurring in workplaces and public buildings, a domestic or non-domestic terrorist threat should be handled as exhibited in the following passage:
- Evacuate as outlined in Corollary 1. Inform the director immediately so that she might sit in her chair observing a storytime session, staring off into space, ignoring the threat for a good hour or so. Employees will be ordered back to work right away and the director will protect the public from future attacks by posting a color-coordinated Library Terror Alert system, which instructs everyone to be watchful but continue with their lives, regardless of color warning. Paranoia will be the key to convicting the suspects and the library faction behind it will be chased, without being caught, for all eternity. Dissidence will be considered anti-patronotic and a Patronage Act will be passed that allows the library to revoke library privileges from anyone, at any time, holding their library card hostage and forcing people relinquish their library books indefinitely, without a defense. Terrorists will not get away with harming our library. Well, they might, but we’ll look busy trying to fix it.
Corollary 5
If a patron has an accident, becomes ill, or shows symptoms of ill health, call an ambulance immediately. If you are unable to prevent a bodily fluid spill from occurring, it is up to the staff member nearest the spill to clean it up, regardless of their job description. Supplies are scattered about the building haphazardly, and you will probably have to cordon off the hazardous area until the supplies can be gathered. No matter how enormous the spill, the library should not be closed. A biohazard suit is available, as well as anti-tuberculosis wipes and individual alcohol swabs in case contact is made. The janitors should be notified immediately and contaminated material should be set aside to be determined if it is in need of being destroyed. It is preferred that contamination should be contained and only staff exposed. Innocent patrons should be spared first and foremost, and management spared second.
Corollary 6
Miscellaneous emergencies such as gas leaks, flooding, building damage, power outage, water shutoff, etc., should not result in evacuations unless advised by the fire or police department, and the library should remain open. Keep in mind one steadfast word: smithereens. If the building is not in eminent danger of being blown to smithereens and valuable patrons are not in danger, you should continue doing your job and the library should remain open.
- Reminder
If a patron knifes/shoots/maims one of your coworkers, you should not suspend your duties or accompany that coworker to the hospital. Should that person die, you are advised to mourn their loss on your off time.
Remember: smithereens! Don’t stop doing your job unless the library is blown to smithereens!
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
A Little Understanding Goes a Long Way
It’s nice to have a boss I can complain to and follow up my complaint by saying, “Some days I go home and pat myself on the back because I didn’t kill anyone today. They may have deserved it, but I let them live. Good job!” He agreed, good job, and there was no call to 9-1-1 to have me taken away. He gets me, thankfully.
The patron I was complaining about is quickly becoming one of the most hated people we deal with, not just by me, but by anyone who has to help him. First, he comes in right before we close and has extensive research he wants us to do. Secondly, he has no idea what he’s looking for and requires a ridiculous amount of digging to discover what he’s looking for, and then we must try to locate it. He’ll know a song, but not remember the name or the band. It’s always Christian rock too, so don’t even get me started on that crap. The song may be by this band or that band and he’ll know it when he sees it, so he needs us to look up each band, every album they’ve made, so he can look at the song lists until he recognizes the one he’s looking for. Some of these bands have 20 albums, and because they’re obscure, unpopular Christian rock, maybe 10 libraries in the world might have it. I have gotten to the point where I’ve said he has to sit down and figure out the album and artist himself – Google or Amazon can deliver the information – because I just don’t have time or patience enough to have him leaning over my desk so he can see my monitor as he tells me, “Scroll down, no, not that one, down, more, wait, maybe, no, not that one, keep going, is that it?, no, okay, next album.” I won’t do it anymore. I make him get on a computer and scroll through the albums himself until he finds what he needs. There is no leaning over my desk, breathing in my face, giving me orders to scroll anywhere. Not anymore.
But he does this to other people, though I think many of them have followed my lead and tell him to find the album first and then see us.
Yesterday he came in and wanted to make a resume for his daughter, who has only worked at the local arcade. Why a high school student needs a resume I’m not sure, but that’s his problem – he has to make it. Well, evidently he thought he didn’t. Rude awakening! I’m not writing your daughter’s resume, moron!
So, I sit him down at a computer, get him to open Word, show him where the templates are, explain it’s fill-in-the-blanks and I can’t do that for him so he can get to work on it.
He said, completely seriously, “So, if I have a question, what do I do? Yell out ‘HEY YOU’?”
*blink*
I replied, with a definite air of irritation, “Uh, nooooooo, you walk up to the desk and ask whoever is available to help you.”
Why do I have to teach this man basic rules of etiquette?
Later he walked up behind me, behind my desk, and said near my ear, “I need help!”
When I shook off the fact that he scared the shit out of me, I wanted him dead. Not quickly dead of an aneurysm or stroke, but slowly, losing parts of his body one by one, with time in between to wallow in the agony, and then another comes off. To the pain. Then to the death.
I walked over to discover he had 2 minutes left until the computer shut down, which is irreversible and not extendable when we’re closing – it’s automatic. So, instead of being able to teach him how to save a document, I jumped to action and saved it quickly to the computer so I could log in again after it shut him out. Oh, and he also wanted a PDF as well as a DOC, even though the document wasn’t complete. And he wanted it burned on a CD, not emailed to himself, free of charge. And he then had to go purchase a CD from Circulation. I kept thinking about his deserved death and the injustice of not being able to give it to him myself, but I managed to get through it.
As we were finishing and the CD was burning, he wadded up a piece of paper as garbage and tried to hand it to me, saying, “Here.”
This was too much. There was no nice left in me. WHO DOES THIS!?
Cold as ice I said, “There’s a garbage can right there. You can put it in yourself.”
He laughed a stupid and unfriendly laugh and responded, “Yeah, you don’t get paid to do that, huh?”
I said, “That’s not the point. You can throw away your own garbage. The can is 5 feet away.”
He didn’t say anything after that and I just walked away in disgust.
On his way out he thanked me and said he’d be back the next day to keep working on it, would likely need more help, just so we knew.
I nodded. I knew I wouldn’t be closing tonight so I figured it was up to the next crew to not kill him. And if they did, I’d completely understand. And I’d testify on their behalf. And I’d dance on his grave.
He never showed up tonight. Maybe someone else did the deed for us. He can’t be that rude and shitty just to us – this has to be a trait he practices all the time. To be this good at being an asshole takes a lot of work.
But it takes more work to let him walk out the door without shedding a drop of his blood.
I’m glad I have a boss who understands and appreciates this.
The patron I was complaining about is quickly becoming one of the most hated people we deal with, not just by me, but by anyone who has to help him. First, he comes in right before we close and has extensive research he wants us to do. Secondly, he has no idea what he’s looking for and requires a ridiculous amount of digging to discover what he’s looking for, and then we must try to locate it. He’ll know a song, but not remember the name or the band. It’s always Christian rock too, so don’t even get me started on that crap. The song may be by this band or that band and he’ll know it when he sees it, so he needs us to look up each band, every album they’ve made, so he can look at the song lists until he recognizes the one he’s looking for. Some of these bands have 20 albums, and because they’re obscure, unpopular Christian rock, maybe 10 libraries in the world might have it. I have gotten to the point where I’ve said he has to sit down and figure out the album and artist himself – Google or Amazon can deliver the information – because I just don’t have time or patience enough to have him leaning over my desk so he can see my monitor as he tells me, “Scroll down, no, not that one, down, more, wait, maybe, no, not that one, keep going, is that it?, no, okay, next album.” I won’t do it anymore. I make him get on a computer and scroll through the albums himself until he finds what he needs. There is no leaning over my desk, breathing in my face, giving me orders to scroll anywhere. Not anymore.
But he does this to other people, though I think many of them have followed my lead and tell him to find the album first and then see us.
Yesterday he came in and wanted to make a resume for his daughter, who has only worked at the local arcade. Why a high school student needs a resume I’m not sure, but that’s his problem – he has to make it. Well, evidently he thought he didn’t. Rude awakening! I’m not writing your daughter’s resume, moron!
So, I sit him down at a computer, get him to open Word, show him where the templates are, explain it’s fill-in-the-blanks and I can’t do that for him so he can get to work on it.
He said, completely seriously, “So, if I have a question, what do I do? Yell out ‘HEY YOU’?”
*blink*
I replied, with a definite air of irritation, “Uh, nooooooo, you walk up to the desk and ask whoever is available to help you.”
Why do I have to teach this man basic rules of etiquette?
Later he walked up behind me, behind my desk, and said near my ear, “I need help!”
When I shook off the fact that he scared the shit out of me, I wanted him dead. Not quickly dead of an aneurysm or stroke, but slowly, losing parts of his body one by one, with time in between to wallow in the agony, and then another comes off. To the pain. Then to the death.
I walked over to discover he had 2 minutes left until the computer shut down, which is irreversible and not extendable when we’re closing – it’s automatic. So, instead of being able to teach him how to save a document, I jumped to action and saved it quickly to the computer so I could log in again after it shut him out. Oh, and he also wanted a PDF as well as a DOC, even though the document wasn’t complete. And he wanted it burned on a CD, not emailed to himself, free of charge. And he then had to go purchase a CD from Circulation. I kept thinking about his deserved death and the injustice of not being able to give it to him myself, but I managed to get through it.
As we were finishing and the CD was burning, he wadded up a piece of paper as garbage and tried to hand it to me, saying, “Here.”
This was too much. There was no nice left in me. WHO DOES THIS!?
Cold as ice I said, “There’s a garbage can right there. You can put it in yourself.”
He laughed a stupid and unfriendly laugh and responded, “Yeah, you don’t get paid to do that, huh?”
I said, “That’s not the point. You can throw away your own garbage. The can is 5 feet away.”
He didn’t say anything after that and I just walked away in disgust.
On his way out he thanked me and said he’d be back the next day to keep working on it, would likely need more help, just so we knew.
I nodded. I knew I wouldn’t be closing tonight so I figured it was up to the next crew to not kill him. And if they did, I’d completely understand. And I’d testify on their behalf. And I’d dance on his grave.
He never showed up tonight. Maybe someone else did the deed for us. He can’t be that rude and shitty just to us – this has to be a trait he practices all the time. To be this good at being an asshole takes a lot of work.
But it takes more work to let him walk out the door without shedding a drop of his blood.
I’m glad I have a boss who understands and appreciates this.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Pockets
Pockets are not attractive. I realize they are very important, essential possibly, for many people to have built into their attire. It’s why we love marsupials so much – pocket envy. We need to have stuff with us. Given the size of women’s purses, the number of pockets in cargo pants, and the inability to get rid of silly little breast pocket on shirts, pockets are clearly here to stay. However, they are ugly and they distort the shape of our silhouettes, weigh down our clothes with stuff, and no matter how neatly they are sewn into the designs, they still look bulky and droopy, and the more you have, the bulkier and droopier you look.
That said, women, your bra is not a pocket.
If you’re going to walk around in microscopic shorts, a tank top and a bra, your bra does not become a place to keep your cell phone, reminder notes, money, lipstick, or other necessities. Get a purse like the rest of us. And if you pull a library card out of your sweaty bosom, you might as well put it right back in there because we are not going to handle that biologically contaminated tit-card. Your girls are round, they are pretty, they are soft and they should be treated with respect. If you put 53¢ in change in your bra, along a wad of bills and your credit card, those breasts end up looking like a refrigerator decked out in too many magnets. I can only imagine what your boobies look like at the end of the day, the indentations, maybe even the paper cuts, and nothing you can wiggle or jiggle will make them look nice when there’s an imprint of a quarter and the large, rectangular fossil of your cell phone visible on that soft flesh. It doesn’t matter if it says Samsung or Blackberry backwards on your melon – that’s just trashy. Get your shit out of your bra, ladies.
Also, men, your underwear do not qualify as a pocket.
If some smart designer started putting pockets in boxers (for surely there’s no comfortable place to put them in briefs), the pocket wouldn’t be right down the center of your waistband. When you reach down there to pull something out – anything out – you should be prepared to be either arrested or ridiculed because nothing down there is something you want to show to a librarian, even if it’s just your library card. Unless your full-time job is at a male strip club, you moonlight doing stripper-grams, and you’re in really high demand, leave it in your pants, you perv. If it’s touched a part of your skin that is warmer than room temperature, we don’t want anything to do with it. I know there’s a long-standing tradition of stuffing socks down there, and that’s fine so long as you don’t whip out that sock and hand it to me. In fact, stuff whatever you want down there, but whatever it is has to stay. You’re stuck with it. Money, credit cards, cell phone, hamster, tapioca, Brilo pad, or whatever your heart (ahem) desires to have down your underwear is between you and your underwear, literally. Keep it to yourself.
So, while I admit I use pockets, though I dislike any more than one or two in my clothing, I don’t like people creating pockets where none exists. And what baffles me the most is why don’t these people put pretend pockets somewhere that isn’t R-rated?
I swear, I don’t know why I serve the public. The public is so creepy.
That said, women, your bra is not a pocket.
If you’re going to walk around in microscopic shorts, a tank top and a bra, your bra does not become a place to keep your cell phone, reminder notes, money, lipstick, or other necessities. Get a purse like the rest of us. And if you pull a library card out of your sweaty bosom, you might as well put it right back in there because we are not going to handle that biologically contaminated tit-card. Your girls are round, they are pretty, they are soft and they should be treated with respect. If you put 53¢ in change in your bra, along a wad of bills and your credit card, those breasts end up looking like a refrigerator decked out in too many magnets. I can only imagine what your boobies look like at the end of the day, the indentations, maybe even the paper cuts, and nothing you can wiggle or jiggle will make them look nice when there’s an imprint of a quarter and the large, rectangular fossil of your cell phone visible on that soft flesh. It doesn’t matter if it says Samsung or Blackberry backwards on your melon – that’s just trashy. Get your shit out of your bra, ladies.
Also, men, your underwear do not qualify as a pocket.
If some smart designer started putting pockets in boxers (for surely there’s no comfortable place to put them in briefs), the pocket wouldn’t be right down the center of your waistband. When you reach down there to pull something out – anything out – you should be prepared to be either arrested or ridiculed because nothing down there is something you want to show to a librarian, even if it’s just your library card. Unless your full-time job is at a male strip club, you moonlight doing stripper-grams, and you’re in really high demand, leave it in your pants, you perv. If it’s touched a part of your skin that is warmer than room temperature, we don’t want anything to do with it. I know there’s a long-standing tradition of stuffing socks down there, and that’s fine so long as you don’t whip out that sock and hand it to me. In fact, stuff whatever you want down there, but whatever it is has to stay. You’re stuck with it. Money, credit cards, cell phone, hamster, tapioca, Brilo pad, or whatever your heart (ahem) desires to have down your underwear is between you and your underwear, literally. Keep it to yourself.
So, while I admit I use pockets, though I dislike any more than one or two in my clothing, I don’t like people creating pockets where none exists. And what baffles me the most is why don’t these people put pretend pockets somewhere that isn’t R-rated?
I swear, I don’t know why I serve the public. The public is so creepy.
Friday, July 16, 2010
What I Learned Camping
When I was in Girl Scouts, we went on a two-day camping trip to Butternut Springs. This was something like 28 years ago, and the way it was set up was there was a cabin for the troop leaders to sleep in, prepare meals, and a dining room to feed the troops. The girls camped in tents in the surrounding woods. These were permanent tents with a deck-like floor and prison beds and mattresses inside. Given that it was in Indiana, and we were there in the height of a sweltering summer, we were fairly miserable in the woods, sweating and bored, with only a single strip of flypaper hanging in the tent for bug protection. The first night we were there, I did the sensible thing any kid who had been trained by her cruel, older cousin would do: I scared the crap out of the girls telling them ghost stories in the dark. Many of the girls couldn’t sleep, either because they were terrified or because they were homesick, and throughout the night many cries were heard from many of the tents. And then a terrible storm hit, which quieted the sobbing, but also brought a tree down on one of the tents. In the morning, the nonchalant troop leaders congratulated us on surviving our first night camping and said the second night would be easier. I was having nothing of that and I organized a coup against the leaders. Screaming, crying, whining girls ranging from 6 to 12 years old, dozens of them, have a way of wearing down the defenses of even the most weathered troop leaders, and the second night we slept in the cabin, snug as bugs in our sleeping bags on the linoleum floor of the dining hall. So went my first camping experience, which I don’t really count as camping.
Last weekend I camped for the first time for real. Aside from having a lot of fun, it was quite a learning experience. And being a good librarian, I’m going to share it with you. (Click pictures to embiggen.)
1. This stuff, without DEET, is awesome at keeping bugs away. This is not a light statement made by someone who can frolic in the woods with Skin-So-Soft. Oh no! If there is a biting bug within 100 yards of me, it will find me, send up a signal to any biting bug in 4 square miles, and the swarm will descend upon me with ravenous hunger until I am all but exsanguinated. They leave enough blood for me to survive so that they can feed upon me when I step outdoors the next time.
This is the stuff I usually use. If you can’t read that, it says 98% DEET. This is the only way for me to come in from an evening outdoors without losing my mind – and my blood.
2. Putting up a tent is a lot easier than I thought it would be. But it would’ve been a whole lot easier if it hadn’t been 95ยบ.
Even the tent wanted to melt. Taking down a tent is easy too. Getting it back into the container it came in is a whole nother story. Good luck.
3. Never bring a photographer with you on camping trip. They are way more interested taking pictures of you putting up the tent than actually helping put it up.
4. When your car wobbles (or shakes violently) at high speeds, something is wrong. If you have the tires rebalanced and this does not fix it, check again. Because sitting in your car on the banks of the Mississippi River on a Saturday night, changing a flat for a spare, trying to find space in your already packed car for the tire that was worn down to the cords is really going to put a damper on the whole camping experience.
5. This little LED lantern (which is merely 5½ inches tall) generates enough light in a 9’ x 9’ tent for two people to lay on their bellies and do crossword puzzles in the darkness of the late night, while waiting for the neighboring tent campers to either kill one another, or shut the fuck up. Handy little device. I highly recommend it.
6. If Person One is in the tent doing crosswords with the lantern on, head positioned right by the tent door, turn OFF the lantern for a few moments before Person Two enters tent, or all the moths, gnats and other light-attracted bugs who are patiently waiting at the door to get at the lantern will invariably get into the tent and drive you completely mad.
7. These batteries only work if you scrape them with something metal each and every time you use them in the little LED lantern. Totally retarded. Don’t know why. Don’t know why we tried this. They worked fine in B.E.’s camera, his camera batteries worked fine in the lantern, but these batteries + the above lantern = need for scraping.
8. When you have inconsiderate, idiot camping neighbors who stay up until 1 am setting up their tents, hammering their spikes with actual hammers and not mallets, vacuuming the tents out, using their car headlights to do all this, with the keys in the ignition and the alarm going off the entire time, slamming car doors every three seconds, no matter how many times you complain, they will insist they’re almost done and that your complaints are absolutely unreasonable.
9. However, revenge is yours in the morning when the drunken losers are trying to sleep off their hangovers. Revenge is sweet. And best served cold. And loud.
10. Millipedes are gross, but massive quantities of millipedes in the campground’s bathrooms/showers are massively gross.
11. When you camp and the temperatures are already above the mid 80s by 7 am, you get so sweaty, so slimy, so dirty, that even in showers infested with 1-inch millipedes, you will shower daily, and you will be grateful for the ability to do so.
12. Bug spray needs to be reapplied before you leave the safety of the shower. Freshly showered humans are most delectable.
13. Trees make for nice insulation against noise, protect you from the direct sunlight that seeks to fry you to a blistering pulp, and provides perches for the early morning birds that sing you awake. Yay trees!
14. Trees also are the homes of many bugs that will annoy you to no end. Tit for tat.
15. The only thing worse than sunburn is sunburn with bug bites on top of it.
16. If you have a sweetie with you who will scratch your sunburn and bug bites for you, you are a lucky, lucky person.
17. No matter how awful you think the whole experience is going to be, it’s never going to be that bad. Bring the condoms just in case. Assuming you won’t be in the mood is an underestimate. Being sexually frustrated in the woods is just sad.
18. Air mattress. Get one. You will not regret it.
19. A bag of cherries is great for camping. Put them in the cooler and the cherries will stay fresh longer, but they will dye the ice water a purple-ish red color. Which will dye everything else a purple-ish red color.
20. You, too, can have the coolest meals around if you have a propane stove and make pizzas for dinner! Others are eating sandwiches, or burgers and hot dogs that are not cooked enough, or cooked too much. Pizzas rock.
And so, despite the heat, bugs, things we forgot, people who irritated us, car mishaps and general annoyances, we had a really great time and are already planning our next camping trip. After we get an air mattress.
Last weekend I camped for the first time for real. Aside from having a lot of fun, it was quite a learning experience. And being a good librarian, I’m going to share it with you. (Click pictures to embiggen.)
1. This stuff, without DEET, is awesome at keeping bugs away. This is not a light statement made by someone who can frolic in the woods with Skin-So-Soft. Oh no! If there is a biting bug within 100 yards of me, it will find me, send up a signal to any biting bug in 4 square miles, and the swarm will descend upon me with ravenous hunger until I am all but exsanguinated. They leave enough blood for me to survive so that they can feed upon me when I step outdoors the next time.This is the stuff I usually use. If you can’t read that, it says 98% DEET. This is the only way for me to come in from an evening outdoors without losing my mind – and my blood.2. Putting up a tent is a lot easier than I thought it would be. But it would’ve been a whole lot easier if it hadn’t been 95ยบ.
Even the tent wanted to melt. Taking down a tent is easy too. Getting it back into the container it came in is a whole nother story. Good luck.3. Never bring a photographer with you on camping trip. They are way more interested taking pictures of you putting up the tent than actually helping put it up.
4. When your car wobbles (or shakes violently) at high speeds, something is wrong. If you have the tires rebalanced and this does not fix it, check again. Because sitting in your car on the banks of the Mississippi River on a Saturday night, changing a flat for a spare, trying to find space in your already packed car for the tire that was worn down to the cords is really going to put a damper on the whole camping experience.
5. This little LED lantern (which is merely 5½ inches tall) generates enough light in a 9’ x 9’ tent for two people to lay on their bellies and do crossword puzzles in the darkness of the late night, while waiting for the neighboring tent campers to either kill one another, or shut the fuck up. Handy little device. I highly recommend it.6. If Person One is in the tent doing crosswords with the lantern on, head positioned right by the tent door, turn OFF the lantern for a few moments before Person Two enters tent, or all the moths, gnats and other light-attracted bugs who are patiently waiting at the door to get at the lantern will invariably get into the tent and drive you completely mad.
7. These batteries only work if you scrape them with something metal each and every time you use them in the little LED lantern. Totally retarded. Don’t know why. Don’t know why we tried this. They worked fine in B.E.’s camera, his camera batteries worked fine in the lantern, but these batteries + the above lantern = need for scraping.8. When you have inconsiderate, idiot camping neighbors who stay up until 1 am setting up their tents, hammering their spikes with actual hammers and not mallets, vacuuming the tents out, using their car headlights to do all this, with the keys in the ignition and the alarm going off the entire time, slamming car doors every three seconds, no matter how many times you complain, they will insist they’re almost done and that your complaints are absolutely unreasonable.
9. However, revenge is yours in the morning when the drunken losers are trying to sleep off their hangovers. Revenge is sweet. And best served cold. And loud.
10. Millipedes are gross, but massive quantities of millipedes in the campground’s bathrooms/showers are massively gross.
11. When you camp and the temperatures are already above the mid 80s by 7 am, you get so sweaty, so slimy, so dirty, that even in showers infested with 1-inch millipedes, you will shower daily, and you will be grateful for the ability to do so.
12. Bug spray needs to be reapplied before you leave the safety of the shower. Freshly showered humans are most delectable.
13. Trees make for nice insulation against noise, protect you from the direct sunlight that seeks to fry you to a blistering pulp, and provides perches for the early morning birds that sing you awake. Yay trees!
14. Trees also are the homes of many bugs that will annoy you to no end. Tit for tat.
15. The only thing worse than sunburn is sunburn with bug bites on top of it.
16. If you have a sweetie with you who will scratch your sunburn and bug bites for you, you are a lucky, lucky person.
17. No matter how awful you think the whole experience is going to be, it’s never going to be that bad. Bring the condoms just in case. Assuming you won’t be in the mood is an underestimate. Being sexually frustrated in the woods is just sad.
18. Air mattress. Get one. You will not regret it.
19. A bag of cherries is great for camping. Put them in the cooler and the cherries will stay fresh longer, but they will dye the ice water a purple-ish red color. Which will dye everything else a purple-ish red color.
20. You, too, can have the coolest meals around if you have a propane stove and make pizzas for dinner! Others are eating sandwiches, or burgers and hot dogs that are not cooked enough, or cooked too much. Pizzas rock.
And so, despite the heat, bugs, things we forgot, people who irritated us, car mishaps and general annoyances, we had a really great time and are already planning our next camping trip. After we get an air mattress.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Benje
I learned to read when I was three years old. That sounds a lot more impressive than it is because all I did was beg my parents to read the same bedtime story over and over every night until I memorized it. Once I could recite the entire book cover to cover, I applied my knowledge of those words and the combinations of letters I saw on the pages of the book, and quickly understood what I was looking at. After I figured that out, I was able to read other books and increase my written vocabulary by recognizing words I already knew and adding the sounds of the letters around those familiar words. It was a lot of figuring out, but from an early age, once I had a taste of something I liked, like reading, I attacked it and had to devour it entirely.
Working in a library, I run into many people who also love to read, and though I haven’t interviewed them all, I suspect they all have a book – a single, solitary book – that they can trace their love of reading back to, and will remember that book (or the essence of that book) for the remainder of their cognizant lives.
My book, which not only taught me how to read but also bred my love of books, was Benje, by Elizabeth Rice. It’s a touching story about a squirrel who loses his tail in a trap and becomes depressed because he isn’t like the other squirrels and can’t do the same things he used to as well. Eventually he’s talked to by an owl, who teaches him to appreciate what he has and learn to do things again without his tail. He does and lives happily ever after. Something about the sad, tailless squirrel spoke to me and the book just stuck.
This is the actual book, which some 34 years ago turned an ordinary child who was a veritable blank slate into a life-long reader.
I’m curious what your book is. What started you on the path of being a reader?
Working in a library, I run into many people who also love to read, and though I haven’t interviewed them all, I suspect they all have a book – a single, solitary book – that they can trace their love of reading back to, and will remember that book (or the essence of that book) for the remainder of their cognizant lives.
My book, which not only taught me how to read but also bred my love of books, was Benje, by Elizabeth Rice. It’s a touching story about a squirrel who loses his tail in a trap and becomes depressed because he isn’t like the other squirrels and can’t do the same things he used to as well. Eventually he’s talked to by an owl, who teaches him to appreciate what he has and learn to do things again without his tail. He does and lives happily ever after. Something about the sad, tailless squirrel spoke to me and the book just stuck.
This is the actual book, which some 34 years ago turned an ordinary child who was a veritable blank slate into a life-long reader.
I’m curious what your book is. What started you on the path of being a reader?
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Benefits
At the reference desk, we have about seven of these toys for the public (and us) as a form of self-entertainment.
The director walked over to the desk and as he started asking us how things were going, he flipped one of the seven toys over, but left the other six as they were.
The director walked over to the desk and as he started asking us how things were going, he flipped one of the seven toys over, but left the other six as they were.
This bothered the OCD part of my brain, and with no regard for his position, I snapped, “You can’t just DO that! You have to flip them ALL now!”
And so he did. With a smile. And without batting an eyelash or challenging my tone of voice. It was great.
So…
Me: Now stand on one foot and “bock” like a chicken.
Director: I’ll do that… later. That’s an after-hours game.
Me: Oh my! What other tricks do you do after hours?
He laughed evilly.
My partner at the desk, who’d only last week sung along with the “My Ding-A-Ling” song, begged out of the conversation because it was getting too racy, but typical of her, she never actually left and then rejoined and upped the ante.
Partner: Do you play the chicken with feathers or without?
Director: Well… [more evil laughter]
Me: He starts out with feathers, but then…
He began making sexy plucking motions that had me in hysterics.
Ahh, the benefits at my job are not monetary, but they do exist.
One of my favorite regulars was in using the computer, as always.
On his way out, he asked about our Summer Reading Club display (which I will share with you when I get a chance – it’s so twisted), and we joked about it for a few minutes, then he left.
I turned away and heard a crash, looked up to see him, and he was looking at the big glass door, dazed, and his son was laughing at him.
I shouted, incredulously, “Did you just run into the DOOR?”
He scrunched his head down between his shoulders, giggled a little, and left.
My partner at the desk looked at me and we both busted up. It reminded me of the glass conversation I’d had with my brother a while ago, and I couldn’t stop chuckling.
Partner: You’re so mean! You shouted that! ‘Did you just run into the DOOR?’ Everyone looked up and saw him!
Me: I… I… was concerned about him.
We collapsed into giggles.
Partner: You were not! You embarrassed him!
Me: No! He embarrassed himself! I was worried about his health! His mental health, but still!
Partner: And people say I’m mean!
Me: You are mean! But that’s why we like working together.
And we do. More benefits you just can’t put a price on.
And so he did. With a smile. And without batting an eyelash or challenging my tone of voice. It was great.
So…
Me: Now stand on one foot and “bock” like a chicken.
Director: I’ll do that… later. That’s an after-hours game.
Me: Oh my! What other tricks do you do after hours?
He laughed evilly.
My partner at the desk, who’d only last week sung along with the “My Ding-A-Ling” song, begged out of the conversation because it was getting too racy, but typical of her, she never actually left and then rejoined and upped the ante.
Partner: Do you play the chicken with feathers or without?
Director: Well… [more evil laughter]
Me: He starts out with feathers, but then…
He began making sexy plucking motions that had me in hysterics.
Ahh, the benefits at my job are not monetary, but they do exist.
* * *
One of my favorite regulars was in using the computer, as always.
On his way out, he asked about our Summer Reading Club display (which I will share with you when I get a chance – it’s so twisted), and we joked about it for a few minutes, then he left.
I turned away and heard a crash, looked up to see him, and he was looking at the big glass door, dazed, and his son was laughing at him.
I shouted, incredulously, “Did you just run into the DOOR?”
He scrunched his head down between his shoulders, giggled a little, and left.
My partner at the desk looked at me and we both busted up. It reminded me of the glass conversation I’d had with my brother a while ago, and I couldn’t stop chuckling.
Partner: You’re so mean! You shouted that! ‘Did you just run into the DOOR?’ Everyone looked up and saw him!
Me: I… I… was concerned about him.
We collapsed into giggles.
Partner: You were not! You embarrassed him!
Me: No! He embarrassed himself! I was worried about his health! His mental health, but still!
Partner: And people say I’m mean!
Me: You are mean! But that’s why we like working together.
And we do. More benefits you just can’t put a price on.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Hands
His hands were a deep bronze hue from years of sun exposure, a shade of brown that no longer faded in the winter. If you flipped them over, palm up, you’d see the softer, tender pink shade that likely was the same color since his birth. They were strong hands, but not hard, not callused. He’d broken many fingers, many times, and his knuckles, which sometimes locked up on him, were large and appeared knobby with his slim, dark fingers. His fingernails were odd, unlike any I’d ever seen before. Instead of being curved over the tops, they were flat, then angled down sharply toward the cuticles, and if they grew out beyond his finger, they curved sharply inward, creating something like the lid of a box closing over the ends of his fingers. My nails have this tendency as well, but not nearly as pronounced as his. His skin was smooth, no coarse hairs anywhere on his hands or arms, and his veins were pipes making rolling hills on his flesh. He worked with his hands a lot, had scars, blackened nails sometimes, and he wasn’t afraid that they’d ever get ugly from use, though they never did.
His hands always mesmerized me. I’d sit near him and turn them over, study them, open his fingers, close them tightly, hold mine up against his, compare them, try to get mine to look like his, wonder if they would be identical when I got to be his age, and finally rest with my hand in his. Long ago he could fit my entire balled-up fist inside his own, and later we simply folded our fingers together, almost matched in size.
I miss his hands.
Those were the hands that tucked me in the best, mummifying me in my blankets, rendering me immobile in my own bed. They were also the hands that brushed my hair the gentlest, for he was terrified of discovering a snarl and yanking too hard. When I was really little, after a bath he’d wrap me up in a trove of towels, naming each towel a piece of my royal garb, declaring me a princess, and they were wrapped so securely that I could prance around the house in my terrycloth regalia until it was bedtime and I had to put on pedestrian pajamas. They were the hands, too, that would take my cares away when I’d lay in his lap and he’d stroke my back softly. To this very day the technique still works, if only I could find someone who could master the touch that he had. These hands pushed me so high on the swings that I always soared over everyone else at the park, until the day when my own hands betrayed me and I fell, head-first, from high in the air, and then his hands carried me home and never pushed me on a swing again.
I didn’t hold it against his hands when he spanked me, which I mostly deserved, though not always. Nor did I hate them after he smacked me in the face so hard it catapulted me across the room and I bounced off my bed and landed on the floor, bruises created during the landing and mortification alone brought on by the hit itself. It wasn’t the fault of his hands. How could they know my mother had lied and told him something I did wrong that never happened? When I innocently denied it, it came down to a decision over who was lying, and in this case those hands didn’t know his head had been fooled and I took the hit while the liar watched with satisfaction. His hands stood for justice, even when the delivery was wrong.
I watched his hands when he wrote his detailed notes on the yellow legal pads he used for everything; I watched them bending wire clothes hangers in just the right shape for us to dip hard-boiled eggs in dyes; I watched him fumble and gain confidence as he learned to use a keyboard and mouse with his hands, so adept at everything else and so clumsy with a computer; I watched him build things; I watched him dismantle things; I watched him rebuild things; and I watched those hands twitching subtly when he fell asleep in the recliner in the middle of a lazy afternoon.
Sometimes, when my hands darken up with a summer tan, I hold them up and they resemble his hands -- this makes me feel good. I don’t always wield them like he did. Mine are not hands that hit, or hands that do hard work. My hands may never sport popsicle sticks fastened with duct tape over a broken finger, or do intricate wiring to fix a broken electrical device, or build furniture, or be remotely as interesting to my adoring eyes as his hands were. However, the reminder is there, the vague resemblance, and it’s a part of the legacy he left me. They are closely related in that I use my hands to show love: a gentle touch, the sweeping of my fingers across sensitive skin, a tender embrace, a firm squeeze to show support, a soft pat to bring comfort, or just curling my fingers around someone else’s for closeness. They are things his hands did, things they taught me about people, about love, about myself, about what’s important, and though I miss his hands tremendously, I treasure the memories, good and bad, because so much of him was revealed in his hands. And so much of him remains in my own.
His hands always mesmerized me. I’d sit near him and turn them over, study them, open his fingers, close them tightly, hold mine up against his, compare them, try to get mine to look like his, wonder if they would be identical when I got to be his age, and finally rest with my hand in his. Long ago he could fit my entire balled-up fist inside his own, and later we simply folded our fingers together, almost matched in size.
I miss his hands.
Those were the hands that tucked me in the best, mummifying me in my blankets, rendering me immobile in my own bed. They were also the hands that brushed my hair the gentlest, for he was terrified of discovering a snarl and yanking too hard. When I was really little, after a bath he’d wrap me up in a trove of towels, naming each towel a piece of my royal garb, declaring me a princess, and they were wrapped so securely that I could prance around the house in my terrycloth regalia until it was bedtime and I had to put on pedestrian pajamas. They were the hands, too, that would take my cares away when I’d lay in his lap and he’d stroke my back softly. To this very day the technique still works, if only I could find someone who could master the touch that he had. These hands pushed me so high on the swings that I always soared over everyone else at the park, until the day when my own hands betrayed me and I fell, head-first, from high in the air, and then his hands carried me home and never pushed me on a swing again.
I didn’t hold it against his hands when he spanked me, which I mostly deserved, though not always. Nor did I hate them after he smacked me in the face so hard it catapulted me across the room and I bounced off my bed and landed on the floor, bruises created during the landing and mortification alone brought on by the hit itself. It wasn’t the fault of his hands. How could they know my mother had lied and told him something I did wrong that never happened? When I innocently denied it, it came down to a decision over who was lying, and in this case those hands didn’t know his head had been fooled and I took the hit while the liar watched with satisfaction. His hands stood for justice, even when the delivery was wrong.
I watched his hands when he wrote his detailed notes on the yellow legal pads he used for everything; I watched them bending wire clothes hangers in just the right shape for us to dip hard-boiled eggs in dyes; I watched him fumble and gain confidence as he learned to use a keyboard and mouse with his hands, so adept at everything else and so clumsy with a computer; I watched him build things; I watched him dismantle things; I watched him rebuild things; and I watched those hands twitching subtly when he fell asleep in the recliner in the middle of a lazy afternoon.
Sometimes, when my hands darken up with a summer tan, I hold them up and they resemble his hands -- this makes me feel good. I don’t always wield them like he did. Mine are not hands that hit, or hands that do hard work. My hands may never sport popsicle sticks fastened with duct tape over a broken finger, or do intricate wiring to fix a broken electrical device, or build furniture, or be remotely as interesting to my adoring eyes as his hands were. However, the reminder is there, the vague resemblance, and it’s a part of the legacy he left me. They are closely related in that I use my hands to show love: a gentle touch, the sweeping of my fingers across sensitive skin, a tender embrace, a firm squeeze to show support, a soft pat to bring comfort, or just curling my fingers around someone else’s for closeness. They are things his hands did, things they taught me about people, about love, about myself, about what’s important, and though I miss his hands tremendously, I treasure the memories, good and bad, because so much of him was revealed in his hands. And so much of him remains in my own.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Sing It Again, Sam
Given the title of my last post, about doorbells and why we have to ring them for help from our coworkers, the subject of this one is going to look fake, but I swear people, I cannot make this stuff up.
Allow me to introduce the guest of my post tonight: skinny guy with scraggly facial hair, a mullet, a red wife-beater, bad posture, shorts made from cut-off sweatpants and a farmer’s tan that turned parts of him so red, it looked like his tank top was actually a full-length shirt with white holes in certain areas.
The conversation that ensued probably won’t translate as well to written word, as many of my encounters do not, but I feel compelled to try.
Guy: Hey, I was just at [Neighboring] Library and asked them a question, but they just looked at me like I was NUTS.
Any conversation that opens with a line like that is about to become blog fodder. This I know from experience. Fortunately, my coworker had finished helping the odd, affable guy with the big Jesus belt buckle, and as she was walking toward the desk, our redneck friend (who was looked at like he was nuts at another library) decided to approach my partner.
Maybe I was already reaching for scrap paper to take notes and appeared busy. Could be.
Guy: There’s this song, and I wanted some information about it. Maybe you’ve heard it. It’s called “My Ding-A-Ling.”
I bit my lip to hide the emerging grin and sniffled to cover my brief giggle. Not only was this guy dead serious, he was talking so loudly that the entire library went quiet. And mine is a library that is seldom quiet unless the computers are down or the police are walking through. The soft pitter-pat of 20 computer users tapping away at their keyboards, a wonderful white noise that keeps me from hearing all their personal bodily turbulence, abruptly slammed to stop, giving my ears whiplash, plunging us all headfirst into a dead silence. There was not a mouse click in the whole building save for my partner, looking up the "Ding-A-Ling" song.
Guy: Do you know how it goes? It’s like, “My ding-a-ling, won’t you play with my ding-a-ling…”
I was suddenly very interested in inspecting the ceiling tiles, tongue attempting to poke a hole in my own cheek, grimacing at the pain of trying not to laugh. Oh, look! There are more dead bugs in the fluorescent lights! Surely I should ponder this instead of listening to the conversation going on only three feet from me!
Professional in a pinch, but seldom so elsewise, she started rattling off facts about the song to this guy, something about Chuck Berry, something about 1972, blah-blah-blah, and she asked what else he wanted to know about the song.
Guy: Well, I kinda know how it goes, but I want the lyrics. It’s something like “it’s the prettiest little song you ever had…”
And then something spec-fucking-tacular occurred!
Partner: Right, then it goes, “And those of you who will not sing, must be playing with your own ding-a-ling”
The patrons situated on the perimeter of our reference desk erupted in gut-busting, capillary-popping, wailing laughter. Patrons all around me were red-faced and gasping for air, no longer interested in politely eavesdropping on the patron’s request, but full-on, no-holds-barred, doubled-over hilarity hearing the librarian talk about playing with a ding-a-ling.
Seeing the reaction of so many people positively roar with uncontrollable laughs made me lose it, and I came very close to having to excuse myself to find somewhere with more oxygen and possibly a diaper for my own safety.
The conversation went on, him quoting parts of the song, her nodding stoically as she read along with the lyrics online, telling him that he had the words right, correcting him here and there when it wasn’t “ding-a-ling”, but the longer “ding-a-ling-a-ling”.
Two teens in particular, a young man and a young woman, were holding each other up listening to these two people recite the words, looking at me for some confirmation that this was for real and not staged. I just shook my head in disbelief and continued laughing, trying my hardest not to look at this guy.
He went on and on about the song.
Guy: You know, they used to sing it in bars, too. And it’s not about what you think it’s about, which is why it’s so fun to sing, right? I mean, it’s great to sing about your ding-a-ling!
Partner: Uh-huh, I remember this song. So, do you want me to print the lyrics out for you?
Guy: Oh yeah! That would be great! I gotta take this back over to [Neighboring] Library and show them, since they thought I was nuts. I’ll sing it to ‘em, now that I got the lyrics, and I bet they’ll remember it then.
Partner: Um, yeah.
Guy: This is great! I gotta show Randy!
Partner: Okay.
Guy: And we can sing “My Ding-A-Ling” all the time!
Partner: Uh-huh.
She never laughed. She was perfectly calm, perfectly unamused, and only started laughing when the patron walked away and she saw how hard everyone else was laughing.
Indignantly, she scoffed at us.
Partner: What?! It’s just as song!
I bounced up and down in my chair, childish grin on my face and said, “Sing it again! Please! PUH-LEEEEZE!”
She brushed me off and walked away, leaving me cracking up with the nearby patrons, and we were content with the memory of hearing her recite the “My Ding-A-Ling” lyrics to a patron.
Allow me to introduce the guest of my post tonight: skinny guy with scraggly facial hair, a mullet, a red wife-beater, bad posture, shorts made from cut-off sweatpants and a farmer’s tan that turned parts of him so red, it looked like his tank top was actually a full-length shirt with white holes in certain areas.
The conversation that ensued probably won’t translate as well to written word, as many of my encounters do not, but I feel compelled to try.
Guy: Hey, I was just at [Neighboring] Library and asked them a question, but they just looked at me like I was NUTS.
Any conversation that opens with a line like that is about to become blog fodder. This I know from experience. Fortunately, my coworker had finished helping the odd, affable guy with the big Jesus belt buckle, and as she was walking toward the desk, our redneck friend (who was looked at like he was nuts at another library) decided to approach my partner.
Maybe I was already reaching for scrap paper to take notes and appeared busy. Could be.
Guy: There’s this song, and I wanted some information about it. Maybe you’ve heard it. It’s called “My Ding-A-Ling.”
I bit my lip to hide the emerging grin and sniffled to cover my brief giggle. Not only was this guy dead serious, he was talking so loudly that the entire library went quiet. And mine is a library that is seldom quiet unless the computers are down or the police are walking through. The soft pitter-pat of 20 computer users tapping away at their keyboards, a wonderful white noise that keeps me from hearing all their personal bodily turbulence, abruptly slammed to stop, giving my ears whiplash, plunging us all headfirst into a dead silence. There was not a mouse click in the whole building save for my partner, looking up the "Ding-A-Ling" song.
Guy: Do you know how it goes? It’s like, “My ding-a-ling, won’t you play with my ding-a-ling…”
I was suddenly very interested in inspecting the ceiling tiles, tongue attempting to poke a hole in my own cheek, grimacing at the pain of trying not to laugh. Oh, look! There are more dead bugs in the fluorescent lights! Surely I should ponder this instead of listening to the conversation going on only three feet from me!
Professional in a pinch, but seldom so elsewise, she started rattling off facts about the song to this guy, something about Chuck Berry, something about 1972, blah-blah-blah, and she asked what else he wanted to know about the song.
Guy: Well, I kinda know how it goes, but I want the lyrics. It’s something like “it’s the prettiest little song you ever had…”
And then something spec-fucking-tacular occurred!
Partner: Right, then it goes, “And those of you who will not sing, must be playing with your own ding-a-ling”
The patrons situated on the perimeter of our reference desk erupted in gut-busting, capillary-popping, wailing laughter. Patrons all around me were red-faced and gasping for air, no longer interested in politely eavesdropping on the patron’s request, but full-on, no-holds-barred, doubled-over hilarity hearing the librarian talk about playing with a ding-a-ling.
Seeing the reaction of so many people positively roar with uncontrollable laughs made me lose it, and I came very close to having to excuse myself to find somewhere with more oxygen and possibly a diaper for my own safety.
The conversation went on, him quoting parts of the song, her nodding stoically as she read along with the lyrics online, telling him that he had the words right, correcting him here and there when it wasn’t “ding-a-ling”, but the longer “ding-a-ling-a-ling”.
Two teens in particular, a young man and a young woman, were holding each other up listening to these two people recite the words, looking at me for some confirmation that this was for real and not staged. I just shook my head in disbelief and continued laughing, trying my hardest not to look at this guy.
He went on and on about the song.
Guy: You know, they used to sing it in bars, too. And it’s not about what you think it’s about, which is why it’s so fun to sing, right? I mean, it’s great to sing about your ding-a-ling!
Partner: Uh-huh, I remember this song. So, do you want me to print the lyrics out for you?
Guy: Oh yeah! That would be great! I gotta take this back over to [Neighboring] Library and show them, since they thought I was nuts. I’ll sing it to ‘em, now that I got the lyrics, and I bet they’ll remember it then.
Partner: Um, yeah.
Guy: This is great! I gotta show Randy!
Partner: Okay.
Guy: And we can sing “My Ding-A-Ling” all the time!
Partner: Uh-huh.
She never laughed. She was perfectly calm, perfectly unamused, and only started laughing when the patron walked away and she saw how hard everyone else was laughing.
Indignantly, she scoffed at us.
Partner: What?! It’s just as song!
I bounced up and down in my chair, childish grin on my face and said, “Sing it again! Please! PUH-LEEEEZE!”
She brushed me off and walked away, leaving me cracking up with the nearby patrons, and we were content with the memory of hearing her recite the “My Ding-A-Ling” lyrics to a patron.
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