Eyes of Laura Mars

What is it with patrons that like to stare at you at the Ref Desk?  Are they deluded?  Are they near-sighted?  It's really unnerving sometimes when you feel like you are on 'display'.

Google This!

Don't you hate it when you ask one of the techie types a computer-related question and they look back at you with disgust like "Don't bother me with your inane questions"?  Their answer at least in my experience is usually "I don't know... I can't think about that right now... Can't you google it?"  So much for subject expertise...

Do It Yourselfers

Sometimes I really can't stand those know-it-all, do-it-yourself patrons that think that they can retrieve the information that they want faster than you can. 

They probably can because I'm not standing over their shoulder, breathing down their neck, clock ticking over their shoulder, watching every keystroke they make on the computer while they are trying to perform a professional level search.

Deja Vu All Over Again

I forgot my library keys this morning so I had to turn the car around and drive 14 miles back home to retrieve them off my dresser.  Ever had one of those days that just starts off bad and keeps getting worse and worse?

In Memoriam

Have a nice Memorial Day everyone even if it is a somber occasion.  

He Really Had 'To Go'

My supervisor walked past my desk laughing like a hyena.  When I asked what was going on she nearly popped a stitch repeating her encounter with a co-worker in the women's restroom.  She was standing there washing her hands when all-of-a-sudden a man walks out of one of the stalls and moseys up to the sink to wash his hands. He apparently realized something was wrong when he didn't find any urinals in the stall but that didn't stop him from completing his business.

Piece of Crap

I tried three times (on a tablet computer) to send the previous message yesterday and all I got was a bloody headline.  Stupid POS.

Oh My Aching Neck!

Is anyone else out there bothered by all the hunching over that you have to do with all these new fangled tablet computers?  I get a killer headache and finger cramps every time I try and use them.

Why Me?

Why do people always stop and ask me for directions?  Do I have a sign tattooed on my forehead that says information?  No! 

Holiday Hell

Well here it is another summer and the start of my holiday season from hell.  Seems like I always get stuck working from June to September while everyone else is busy taking a summer vacation. My supervisor has already informed me that she will be gone for most of July.  Just great!

Training Wheels

Sitting through another training session today.  Hope I learn something new.

Seeking Ideas

Have any of you out there ever designed a user satisfaction survey?  I need some good questions...

Yee Haw

I can finally use the remote login at work so technically I can now telecommute from home one day a week.  Now I just have to figure out how to smuggle my work monitor home so I don't have to squint at my meager screen anymore. 


Hey Santa are you listening?  I need a new computer.

No Cookies 4 U

G-String Divas - Part Deux

When did it become fashionable to show your underwear at work anyway?  Not only do people let their g-strings hang out but bra straps are always peeking out from under sleeveless tops as well.  My poor deceased mother would never have let me out of the house looking like that.  She would have been mortified to see her daughter out in public that way.  

Brit Com

The Hollywood Librarian

You Spin Me Right 'Round

We had a patron barf in the trash can after scrolling through microfilm in our genealogy room the other day.  He got motion sickness from watching the film speed past on the screen.  Yuck!

How Rude?

Does anyone else find it annoying when someone IMs you and strikes up a conversation only to abruptly log off?   I mean, how rude is that?

Oh Loverboy!

Do you remember that 80s song "Everybody's workin for the weekend"?  I've got it on a loop inside my brain and it won't go away.  Darn brain worm!

Rastafari Wut?

What is it with white suburban teenagers that think its cool to go tribal or au naturel?  You know the ones that hang out in parking lots playing hackey sack with beads and dreads in their hair.  They rarely bathe and try to mask their odor with patchouli.  They also have a penchant for piercing their parts with pieces of wood.  Don't they realize that noses and ears are made of cartilage that continues to grow as we age.  Just leave those lobes alone kids and you'll eventually look like Abe Vigoda without the stylish accessories.

Faux Injuries

What is it with people who over dramatize their health problems?  I went to high school with a kid who hobbled around on crutches for a week gaining sympathy from anyone who would listen about his injured foot which turned out to be a simple hangnail on his big toe (I guess the dude never heard of toenail clippers).  Anyway, the reason I ask is that there is a lady that I work with that walks past my desk every day wearing a sling on her arm yet it doesn't prevent her from performing mundane tasks like turning a door knob.  What is up with that?

Question

Does anyone out there know where you can buy a VCR (gasp!) nowadays? 

Fax Schmax

Have fax machines become irrelevant?  With all the desktop publishing features available nowadays are fax machines really necessary in the office when you can simply create a .pdf version of a document and forward it by email?

Clippety-Clops

What is it with women who wear noisy shoes to work?  I know it is springtime and everyone wants to be stylish but it is pretty bad when a woman walks by (on carpet no less) and you can hear her coming from 40 yards away.

Calling Mr. Newman

Do you work with someone that keeps their office so hot (even in the summer) that you feel like whipping out the marshmallows and graham crackers and toasting some smores?  Why can't 'freezy-people' learn to acclimate?  It's not like the rest of us can come to work naked when we get too hot. If you get cold, bring a sweater to work.  Don't crank up the thermostat or practically burn the building down with your portable heater tucked away under your desk (they are a fire hazard, after all). 

Where's Randy Newman when you need him?  He wrote that song about short people, surely he can come up with some lyrics about freezy people too.

Nit Picker

Why is it that those so-called homeless people that inhabit the library who never use their Internet time to job search or do anything that appears to be productive in changing their circumstances always seem to have money for a new iTunes download or a new tattoo? Strange priorities, huh? 

Pop Ur Top

Have you ever had one of those headaches that just won't go away?  Wouldn't it be nice if we came with interchangeable heads that we could just pop on and off depending on our mood?  Kind of like a human pez dispenser.

Bureaucratic Nightmare

The worst people to return phone calls or emails are government employees or people that work for service organizations that have a direct impact on your daily lives.  I've been waiting for two days for a lady to return my call. So far no luck. It seems like the more you try to contact them the more they deliberately drag their feet in helping process your complaint.  Whatever happened to karma?

Snail Mail

Why do people always get mad at you if you don't return their emails right away but they never show you the same courtesy.  They are always 'out-of-the-office' or taking a break from social media.  Gimme a break! 

Get A Room

Why do large crowds congregate in small rooms?  Why is it never the reverse?  Do small groups feel self-conscious in large spaces and adapt accordingly?  Large groups never react that way.  They always try to squeeze as many people in a small space as possible instead of moving the whole shebang to a large meeting space.  Is it a lack of common sense or what?

Stop the Insanity!

I am being bombarded with emails from the training class that I had last week except these are exercises that I never participated in.  I'm so confused!  Why are the email gods against me today?

A Chorus Line?

Is it strange for a middle-aged man to know all the words and dance moves to the High School Musical movies?  

Three Peat

Last day of tech classes.  Hope I'm not flying alone today.  Yesterday's class went well and we even finished thirty minutes early. 

Oh Whoa Is Me

Three whole people in my class today. I am really moving up in the world.

Slippin' Into Madness

Well folks it happened again the other day... I was sitting in a meeting and a co-worker looked over at me and gave me a funny look.  I thought maybe I was blocking his view so I scooted my chair back a little but no!  He caught up with me on the way back to my desk and told me that I had my shirt on inside out. 

Luckily it looked the same inside as it did outside so no one else noticed the big tag sticking up on my back.  Unfortunately, it's not the first time I've gotten dressed in the dark and gone to work with my clothes inside out.  One day I came home and was struggling to get my bra off and give 'the girls' a little relief and I soon discovered that I too had gone to work that day with my underwear on inside out.  That's what too much stress does to a person I guess.

Cinderelly... Cinderelly...

I hate laundry day!  Why can't have I have little mice and birds come by and wash and fold my 'delicates' for me?

10 Men + 1 VCR = Chaos

"Lady Wrangler" belongs to a hunting and fishing club that meets every couple of months at the library.  During their meetings they have guest speakers and the like.  If it's a slow night they'll pop in a video of somebody trout fishing or butchering meat.  Real snooze fest in my opinion but occasionally I'll get a panicked summons to the meeting room because they can't get the VCR to work.  Turns out the tv channel was wrong or the whole thing wasn't plugged in. No one in the whole group stepped up to figure it out.  Maybe they need to spend less time in a trout stream and more time being a couch potato in order to know how to navigate today's antiquated technologies.

Amy 'Whine'house

Do you ever encounter members of the public that are total Internet crack addicts? We have plenty here to spare if you would like one of your very own. You know the ones - they get upset over anything and everything that disturbs their online session or prevents them from getting their full two hours on the Internet every day. People...you need to call Dr. Drew and get yourselves to rehab.

911

Server down! Server down!  The public is ready to mutiny and take off our heads because they can't check their Facebook and watch YouTube.  Send reinforcements. Stat!

Yahoo Serious

Why do people that come to the library to check their email and who are paranoid about other people seeing their information always forget to properly log out of their Yahoo email?  Don't they realize that the next person that comes along and tries to access yahoo mail can login to their account?  Log out people!!

Simmer Down Now

Why do people that are sitting two feet from each feel compelled to shout at each other like they are standing across the room? 

Teacher, Teacher, Can You Teach Me?

When the library received it's computer lab through a grant from the Gates Foundation, "Miss Jane" was flown out to Seattle to receive Microsoft training so that she could provide free computer classes to the public.  Since then she has declared that she is tired of teaching and has sought out several 'volunteers' to take over teaching the public computer classes.  We get calls just about every week from people needing help but "Miss Jane" won't suck it up and offer to teach any more.

All By Myself

I can't believe it.  I went to my training workshop yesterday and I was the only one there.  I spent the next 8 hours being lectured by this poor guy who seemed uncomfortable only talking to one person.  I learned a lot but it was still weird.

Hidden Treasures

Why do people feel compelled to squirrel things away in the library?  If you take a book off the shelf, why do you feel the need to tuck it away in another part of the library?  You never come back for it.  It just stays lost until a library staff person finds it and re-shelves it in its proper place.  I'm glad they are only books and not nuts stored for the winter.

Death by Chocolate

"Miss Jane" traveled home to visit her family one Christmas with a bag full of delicious chocolate candies to put in her stocking.  She returned from the trip in a deep funk that lasted for a month.  When we asked what was wrong all she would say was "My brother told me I was eating too much chocolate".  Some brother...

Training Day

I have to attend a technology training class today.  I hope the instructor actually knows how to use the product.  I hate getting stuck in a training class when I have a question that the trainer can't answer and I always get the same reply "I'll have to check with our tech people and get back to you on that one".  

Passing the Buck

My supervisor recently returned from a few days off from work. While she was gone she asked me to forward any reference emails to her personal email folder so she could respond to them from home.  Meanwhile I was keeping everything up-to-date and requests filled while she was gone or so I thought.  Yesterday she dumped all of her old email requests into the reference email folder so I had to do not only the new requests but a weeks worth of her old stuff too. Why wasn't she forwarding this stuff to me to process while she was gone? Now I have twice as much work to do... mine and hers.  Thanks a lot!

Men!

Why are men so squeamish about relationships?  If they don't want to be in one, don't hang around women who do.  That's what the professional girls are for, right?  Or are they just too cheap to go that route? 


I've been dealing with some major sister drama... some guy didn't have the cajones to break up with her in person.  He just couldn't talk about it so he sent it in an email.  So I've had to hear all about it.  Thanks a lot, jerk!

I'm Back!

Sorry for the lack of posts the last couple of days folks.  I just needed a break!