Small victories

Being male, I periodically use the men's room. Once in a great while, I enter the men's room to discover the urinal has been flushed since its last use. Today, I found the urinal devoid of urine on an unprecedented two consecutive restroom visits. I mean unprecedented quite literally. I've never seen it flushed twice in a day, even on non-consecutive trips. My patrons are learning!

Bah Humbug!

Nothing says holiday spirit like getting dissed by the chairman of the library's trustees.

For once, said chair was actually in the building, waiting for a meeting to begin and passing the time glaring at people checking out books. I happened to pass by, saw one of our regular patrons, and stopped to chat. Chairman saw what she was checking out & called across, "is that a new Cussler novel?"

Ever the reader's advisory librarian, I jumped right in. "Yes, it's Skeleton Coast."

"Oh, I need to run by the bookstore & buy it."

Heaven forbid that a library trustee actually check out a book from the library. Guess we, the poor serfs, should feel privileged just to be in the same room as the exalted one. And pull on our forelocks to show our respect.

Even Ebenezer Scrooge saw the light at the end. I don't think that will happen in this case. But how can someone be entrusted to the library's mission & well-being if they never use the place? And the higher-ups wonder why morale is low....

God bless us everyone this Christmas weekend (only 12 minutes to go until closing! And a 3-day weekend awaits)

New linoleum

"*Mumble, mumble, mumble* CHEEPah to replace the CAHpet?"

Seriously, Phony British Accent Guy. It's not just annoying, it makes you impossible to understand. Maybe you'd get an answer besides "I have no idea why XYZ" out of me if I ever had a clue what you were cockneying all over the place about.

Puzzlers

Three things I don't understand at the library:

1. People who complain that we've changed things drastically since they were last here, even though the change they're referencing happened nearly two years ago and I've seen them a couple times in the past month.

2. Why A Million Little Pieces is still in non-fiction.

3. Mysterious puddles of blood on the men's room floor.

Okay, number three is a slight exaggeration. They weren't puddles. But when the discoverer of said blood described it as "a couple drops," that was pretty far off-base as well.

Blogspocks

In some regions of this nation, I've noticed, people can't end words that end in "T" without substituting "CK(S)." Sometimes the "T" in the middle suffers the same fate. "Wal-Marcks," and "Picksburgh," for instance. It's not a speech impediment, it's a learned behavior that seems to be localized to specific communities, and it's not my imagination, my co-workers have noticed it.

A woman came in recently looking for information about a small town in Kansas. I had to ask her at least five times to repeat herself before I realised that when she asked me about "K'nook" she wanted to know about Chanute, and was not in fact trying to find rude ways of accusing me of being born much further north than I actually was.

Lab of the lost

I thought a Wednesday evening at the Ref. desk was boring. I was wrong.

One of our computer lab attendants couldn't come in this afternoon, so I'm subbing for her. So far I've:
1. Played Bookworm.
2. Played a (weak) clone of Zuma.
3. Handed out lots of little yellow cards.
4. Answered two questions.

At the ref desk, if I get two questions, one of them will be interesting, wierd, or mock-worthy. In the lab I've been asked to divide 36 by 120, and whether we have a paper shredder. In other news, I am, for the second time in my life, bored of the internet. The first time happened at the library as well.