Lost and Found of the Week

Earlier this week while working the Circ desk, an Info coworker came up to me with a set of keys in her hand.

 

I took the keys and was about to place it in the lost and found when I noticed the keychain, it was a bottle opener that read, "Drunk Chicks Dig Me."  As I was in the process of taking a picture of it with my cell, my coworker incredulously asked, "You're taking a picture of that?"  I remark, "What? Should I take a picture of the owner when they claim it?"  We then joked about how funny it would be if an elderly person came to the desk to claim them.

 

A couple minutes later, a young girl came up to the desk and said that she had lost her keys.  So as I am pulling out the lost and found container, I ask her to describe them.  I would hate to think what would happen if I erroneously give away the keys of some patron's Aston Martin by accident.  She said there was a keychain.  Well, that really narrows it down.  As I'm fishing around the container with the only set of keys in there, I ask her if the keychain said anything on it.  She sheepishly replies, "Words."  It was at this point, I realized she wasn't going to budge and say those funny words so I held the  keychain up and pointed at them and asked, "Is this it?"  She nodded and took them without a reply.

This Is What They Pay Me For...

First thing my supervisor asks me to do when I walk in is to run to the grocery store and get change for the register.
Now, I'm a "body in a chair to boost attendance" for some guy's tulip talk. As you can see, its just the tulip guy, me, and some older lady talking his ear off about her garden - good stuff.

MLIS 1/6

My first semester of the MLIS experience is over with officially. Grades have been posted for my two classes: A and an A-, really an A 'minus'? Whatever, I'll take it, I was expecting worse.

Both of these classes were hybrid, so there weren't that many in-person classes which I actually learn better from. So my two summer classes are all in-person, driving will probably suck but I can suck it up for an accelerated 6 weeks.

This week is my only break before the "Summer Session of Hell" starts. I keep telling myself that its only 6 weeks and that the rest of the summer can be spent decompressing.

"There's a 104 days of Summer Vacation,
And school comes along just to end it.
So the annual problem for our generation,
Is finding a good way to spend it."

Yeah, I threw out a Phineas and Ferb reference.

Perry the Platypus is gangster.

The Library: We Ruin Your Mother's Day

We were fully staffed yesterday, the first time in months.  Even though half of the staff is new, its better than nothing and its great to blame things on the "new guy" [new GAL(s)].

It being Mother's Day also relieved the patron rush, still had a 1000+ door count though.

Only one "bad" patron interaction out of a hundred or so, not too bad.

A mom and her 10 year old son come up to the Circ desk to check out.  The first card she hands me has a lost item fine of over $20.  The item is from another branch, and they're closed so I can't do a shelf check.  I recommend her to call during the week to have them clear it up.  I ask if she has another library card we can use, that one is blocked too with 3 lost items totaling over $50.  Both lost items were from over a year and a half ago.  I was going to work with her and override the $20 block since I couldn't check the shelves for it, but she instantly started giving me attitude saying that they only have been to the library ONCE and everything has been returned.  Following her logic, yes she has been to the library once to check the items out, and she never made a SECOND trip to return the items.  So I go back and call my supervisor.  She comes out and talks to her and tries to talk to her.  The patron becomes even more irritated while her son is right next to her telling her, "It's okay mom."  Mom replies, "No, it's not, it's ruining our day." 

I got bored listening to her complain so I moved to a different station to assist the other non-disgruntled patrons.  The problem patron and her son walked out without the books only to return 5 minutes later, she was looking for my supervisor who returned to the backroom so she walked up to another coworker and asked her to pass on the message to my supervisor, "Thanks for ruining my Mother's Day!"   Ouch, really?  You're going to take it there?  And I suppose that if this happened a week earlier your message would have been different: "Thanks for ruining my Polish Flag Day!"  To make matters worse, my supervisor just had her first baby last November, so this was HER first Mother's Day.

Rant Against Romance Novels Part II

Why Every Chick Flick Is Starting to Look The Same [CHART]

"I could not have said this any better..."

Nicholas Sparks stated that he has no contemporaries.  No one else does what he does.  He writes unpredictable love stories, not trashy run-of-the-mill romance novels like Shakespeare.

View >>

Food + Meetings = Bad News

Every time there is some sort of food brought to any of the meetings, whether it's candy, cake, mixed nuts(weak sauce), etc, I am always skeptical as to why: "Why are they trying to butter us up?"-mentality.  Sure, there has been the "Retiring" and "Going-Away" aka "I'm sick of you people, so I'm going to another branch" meetings where food is the norm, but if it's just a regular meeting and they bring food to butter everyone up, I always assume it can't be good.

There's a Circ meeting today and I just got an email saying there will be pizza... that can't be good.

The tomato topped, round doughy goodness is being brought in as the harbinger of bad news.  If it's Domino's, there won't be any temptation, that stuff tastes like someone took a Thomas the Tank boardbook and melted cheese on it.  They can't fire me if I don't accept a slice right!?? 

Passive Aggressive Librarians with Printers on the Rampage

The secret's out.  There is another stereotype for librarians out right now, passive aggressiveness.

To celebrate National Library week, Buzzfeed collected 20 Passive Aggressive Library Signs.  If I knew they were looking for contributions, I could have added another 20 to that.

Here's to National Library Week!

Patrons Behaving Badly part II

Last Sunday, I ended up working at the County instead of the usual Sunday shift at the City library system.

Let me just say, that the patrons that come in on Sundays are NOT the same ones that come in during the other 6 days of the week.  I only recognized a handful of the 1000+ people that walked through the doors.

My first hour on the desk started with a patron coming up to me and telling me, "Just to let you know, the guy at the internet sign up station is intoxicated.  You might want to keep an eye on him."  Great, yet another drunk in the library.  This guy was surely drunk, and as I looked at the lower right hand corner of the computer screen, I was thinking to myself, "It's 5 o'clock somewhere (in the middle of the ocean.)"  He was wobbling back and forth as he was jabbing at the keys to enter in his account number.  I watched this go on for a good 5 minutes, wondering if someone at the Reference desk would notice the drunkard squinting at the keyboard.  I could only assume that it was turned into a waiting game between Circ and Info to see who would have to deal with him. 

Luckily the guy gave up, and wandered into the stacks.  Before I knew it, he was passed out in a chair in the periodicals.  Since Circ had a better line of sight on the guy in this location, the Info manager told us to watch him and I could read her mind as she told us this and it read, "SUCKERS!"  He slept for an hour or so, and by the time I came back on to the desk he made his way out.  Apparently this guy was found unresponsive at an internet terminal the week before. 

You think that his tolerance level would go up and he would have been able to sign off the internet this time instead of drooling on the keyboard and having the space-bar imprinted on his cheek.  At this rate, he'll be passed out just outside the front doors next week.

The Patron is Always Right

The patron is always right, unless I say so.

Last week a patron wanted me to check in her items to see what was still left on her account.  I checked them in and showed her the screen of what was still checked out.  She said that out of the remaining items, there was one she was sure she returned.  Okay, routine shelf check, nothing new.  She asked me if she would have to pay for the item, even though she is "100% positive" that she returned it.  I assured her that she wouldn't have to, and she didn't believe me and asked who she would have to talk to fix the matter.  I told her I could and she seemed okay with it, she then looked back at the computer screen and said that she also returned another title that was still listed.  I told her, okay, I will check on that item too.  She then asked yet again, if she would have to pay for items she knew she returned already, I told her no, AGAIN.  And then she says, oh wait, those two were also returned.  It was at this point, that I commented, that 4 items is a lot to have not been checked in, and she went on to say how she is very good at keeping track of her accounts, showing me a handful of due date slips in her purse.  My spidey-sense was already going off, but I never take the route of accusing patrons.  I know my coworkers, and I know that there will always be mistakes with people's accounts.  I told her I would email her the results of my book hunting.

Well, shocker, none of the 4 items were on the shelves.  I guess I have not been in the library system long enough to be jaded to go against the patrons, so I emailed her that I will take the items off of her account.  I looked at all 4 items and they were just added to the system last year, I added up all of their prices in my head and I started to get angry at this patron.  I'm not one to argue with a patron, unless I know for certain they are in the wrong.  I just let karma handle all of the patrons who have pulled fast ones on me.  A couple hours later, I get a reply email saying that she found all 4 of the books.  It was at this point I did a face-palm. 

Thankfully, this patron turned out to an honest one, confused - yes, but honest.

Ewe get a car! Ewe get a car! EWE GET A CAR!

So I am watching the new BBC/Discovery episode of 'Life,' and don't get me wrong, I love nature shows.  I am a self professed Shark Week Geek, yeah, I know that sharks don't evolve each year but I still watch it every year.
But I cannot get into this series like I did with its predecessor, 'Planet Earth.'  It's not the visuals that I am disappointed with, I have 52 inches of 1080i HD real-estate.

It's the audio.  Why is the States' version devoid of Sir David Attenborough --- again!??! 
You know, I let the fact that 'Planet Earth' was commented by the Alien movies lady slip by, most likely because of all the eye candy this ground breaking series had to offer.  But the second time around, it is going to take more than that for me to believe all the hype.  Not only is the US version "dumbed down" but Oprah's narration is unimpressive and does the series no justice.  Score one for the Brits.

As the saying goes, the sequel is never better than the original.