As Easy As 1-2-8 !!!

How it is that people who cannot count are able to make it through life absolutely, utterly, astounds me.

Take the printer, for example. Ten cents a page. That should be easy, right? One page is 10c. Two pages are 20c. And on and on.

Well apparently, it isn't as simple as it first seems.

Yesterday, a 20-something lady with a huge pile of change (don't know her name so I'll call her "Chickie Change") decided to use the printer. Great, I thought, she's got a huge pile of change on her, she'll be fine.

Oh, how wrong I was.

A few seconds into the printing parade, Chickie Change comes up to the desk, with a rather ornery expression on her face. Uh-oh.

CC: "Your printer won't print my pages."

G: "Hmmm. Is it not printing the page clearly, or not printing anything at all?"

CC: "I told you already! It won't print my pages!"

At this point, I figured it was safe to assume she meant option # 2. Figuring there was perhaps a paper jam, I went over to the copier to take a look.

G: "Everything seems to be in working order. Did you put your money in the machine?"

CC: "Yes I did! I'm not stupid, you know!"

G [to himself]: What a bitch!

G [out loud]: "Okay, then let's try it again. Maybe there was just a glitch."

Of course, that was an out-and-out lie; I already knew what the problem was. I checked the coin machine, and indeed, there was money in it. I pushed print, and sure enough, nothing happened. Next step, check the print queue.

G: "It says here that you are printing three pages. Is that correct?"

CC [annoyingly tapping her foot]: "Ummm ... yeah."

G: "You only put twenty cents in the machine."

CC: "Your point ... ?"

G [very slowly]: "Three pages ... ten cents each ... ... ... "

CC [looking confused]: " ... ... ... "

G: "... thirty cents."

CC: "Oh. I knew that."

I did my best, I really did, but I'm pretty sure a smirk managed to sneak through my best defenses. Serves her right, to feel like an idiot. Although I'm pretty sure it's a safe guess that she's quite used to that, already.

Needless to say, Chickie Change dropped in an extra dime, and sure enough, everything printed perfectly. It's a rare day that I see someone beat as hasty an exit as she did, without even saying so much as "thanks for the help."

But that's okay. I made sure to holler "you're welcome" toward the back of her head as she was leaving. I'm nothing if not polite.

Dis/Order

- Crumbs reside on the table.

- Dishes are piling in the sink.

- The coffee maker hasn't been cleaned since perhaps 1994.

- Dust bunnies are breeding rampantly in the corners, not unlike real bunnies.

- The food in the fridge no longer qualifies as food.


No, this is not a description of my house. This is worse; this is ...

... The Staff Kitchen.

You know, you'd think that librarians, of all people, whose entire profession rests on the merits of precision and order, would be able to keep a kitchen relatively clean.

This must be some sort of a private taboo, the one area of their lives where disorder and chaos can reign, where they can forgo their focus on order and just let the mess pile up. Where they can let someone else take care of establishing order, for once.

Problem is, when everyone starts thinking "someone else", there is suddenly no one left to do it. Hence the sorry state of the Staff Kitchen.

Librarians and disorder? Quite the irony, isn't it?

It's a good thing I don't eat in there. Otherwise I'd feel guilty, and perhaps inclined to do my part. Fact is, rarely do I ever step foot in that room, unless The Hot Girl happens to be there; which, of course, goes without saying. Otherwise, I make an active point to stay the hell away from that germfest.**

(** The kitchen, not the Hot Girl. Or so I hope.)

Brand New Day, Same Old Sh*t

Been a while. Haven't had much to complain about lately ...

... except:

- The guy we caught masturbating in the public washroom. That was a new one. Won't go into any details; suffice it to say, at least he cleaned up after himself. That, too, was a new one.

- I was given a hard time by some for taking a sick day for the first time in over two months. In the meantime, there are other staff who seem to miss an average of one day every two weeks. How many sick days do they get, and how can I get in on that action?

- Tweens in the library. They seem to serve no purpose except to run in circles while simultaneously screeching at an extraordinary decibel level. Honestly, why can't we just be allowed to hit them with a stick? Worked wonders in the 50s, or so my father tells me.

- Vendors. They can't design a halfway-decent ILS or database, and don't seem to care to listen as to why we feel their products are inferior. They're in the business of software development; you'd think free upgrades addressing user concerns would be SOP. Of course, I only once worked in software development, for a vendor, so what the hell do I know?

- And I still don't have my new chair. Bastards.

So, yeah, nothing new, I guess. Just another couple weeks at the office.

Elderly Woman In Front Of The Counter In A Small Town

I swear I recognize your face ...

Or so she said. In all honesty, I had no clue who she was.

Still don't, for that matter.

But she knew me. She was sure of it. I'd helped her find some obscure books about a month ago, she said.

Nope, I still had no idea who she was. But of course, like a good little librarian, I played along and feigned memory.

"Oh, yes, I remember, you're uh ... uh ... it's on the tip of my tongue ..."

"Angela."

"Yes, that's it! Angela! How have you been?"

Ah, the classic tongue-tied-stutter approach. Works every time.

So in the end, she was very happy and I was much relieved. But I was still quite sure I had never seen her before in my life.

More than likely she was thinking of the other guy who works here (yes, there are only two of us), even though he looks nothing like me. Then again, at her age, memory and eyesight lapses can be forgiven, I suppose.

(I mean, after all, she's still a heck of lot sharper than the OWG.)

Mic Check

Why is it that no guest speakers can seem to figure out the microphone/speaker correlation?

These people speak publicly for a living. You'd think they'd know that standing right beside the speaker creates the sort of feedback which would make Angus Young proud. Yet, somehow, none of them seem to understand this very simple dynamic.

So now I've got a splitting headache and patrons complaining about our shoddy equipment at all of our events. Headaches and patrons are not a good combination. I've been trying to tell them, in as kind a manner possible, that the equipment is fine and the guest speakers are a bunch of idiots.

So far, this approach seems to be working; instead of knocking our equipment, people are now requesting we get intelligent guest speakers who actually know how to use the equipment.

That means the program-attending public is now open to new forms of programming, which in turn allows us to become more creative with what we offer. As a result, staff morale is at an all-time high.

Ah, the power of negative spin. Don't ever underestimate its benefits.

The Frustration

Pleasing people.

That's the frustration. But not in the way you would think it would be.

The natural inclination would be to assume that I'm saying it's difficult to please people.

Nope.

That part is easy. Too easy. And therein lies the problem.

Background: I hold a specialty role at [Library]. My job description suggests that I am the resident specialist, or expert, in this particular area within the library. My job is almost solely built around this particular area of interest.

I do what I do well, namely because I've been doing it my entire professional life, and for many years prior.

Since no one else at [Library] is an expert in this particular area, their expectations are quite low, compared to the Standard of Expectation within other organizations more familiar with what I do than the staff of [Library].

Thing is, because I've been doing this pretty much exclusively for the last decade or so, I've become somewhat of a perfectionist. The longer you do something, the better you want to be at it, and the more you expect of yourself.

But that's the problem.

[Supervisor] is very happy what I am producing. [Big Boss] likes it even more. I think it's crap.

This is my life, people. I'm producing what I think is a piece of shit, and everyone else seems to love it because they don't know any better, having not worked with this stuff to the extent that I have.

I suppose I should embrace their ignorance, and be happy that they are satisfied, but my professional pride keeps getting in the way. I can satisfy their expectations, but not my own ... believe me, it's much more frustrating than it sounds.

Your inclination right now is to probably ask me why I'm complaining about what, on the surface, appears to be a good thing.

All I can say to that is, borrow my shoes and see for yourself. As much as I like the notion of getting more for less (in this case, compliments and high standing for what I know to be a low-quality output), I still want to be able to be proud of the output, rather than the views of those who have no frame of reference regarding the output.

Does this make me a purist, anal, or an egomaniac? Or am I simply dedicated to my craft?

At the moment, I'm really not sure which it is.