This morning a staff member reported someone sleeping behind the A/C units when she came in the building. I came in a different way so I didn't see him myself. I felt bad but called the police, mainly on account of the creepy guy we had in the other night exposing himself to young women.
After a while I walked around to the back of the building and saw the police car turning around to leave. The homeless guy was walking away from us, and I noticed he had the same general build as the perv from the other night, so I got the officer's attention and asked if he had a teardrop tattoo under his eye. When she said yes I knew it was the same guy. She immediately went after him and issued a no-trespass order (yay!), and was even trying to see whether her boss would allow her to arrest him.
So I'm hoping that's the last we'll see of this guy.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Attack of the perv!
Today I became aware of a pervy perverson who has been exposing himself to young girls at the library. He sits down next to them at a table and shows them his junk. Of course, by the time I find out about it he's long gone, although I think I know who it is.
So we called the police just so they could write up a report. And if he comes back in again we'll trespass him right away, so it's not a major issue, but it's just another in a long line of exasperating issues for us to deal with.
We are truly seeing all facets of society. This facet, I would definitely like to see less of!
So we called the police just so they could write up a report. And if he comes back in again we'll trespass him right away, so it's not a major issue, but it's just another in a long line of exasperating issues for us to deal with.
We are truly seeing all facets of society. This facet, I would definitely like to see less of!
Friday, March 13, 2009
Caution: Dangerous Donations Ahead!
Today a customer brought in a box of books to donate. Our clerical supervisor carried them into the workroom and started looking through them to see if there was anything worth keeping. She noticed some blue fabric and thought it might be a handkerchief or something. But when she picked it up, she immediately squealed, "PANTIES!!!" and threw them across the room. They weren't clean, either.
I have to say, that's the best laugh I've had at work in a long time. Yay for disgusting customers!! :)
I have to say, that's the best laugh I've had at work in a long time. Yay for disgusting customers!! :)
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Will this day never end?
A little while after the events in the previous post I got a call from our alarm company for a burglar alarm. Went to the alarm panel and it said there was a techician in the building, but I could neither find him nor re-set the alarm panel. Called the alarm company back and found out they couldn't reach him, either. He finally got the message from them and came and found me - he set off the alarm and cost me about 30 minutes wasted effort trying to figure out what was going on!
THEN, three of our printers pooped out. What a day.
THEN, three of our printers pooped out. What a day.
It just keeps gettin' better
I have been at work exactly 24 minutes today and here is what has happened so far:
A taxicab was just sitting in our entryway as I was trying to get into the parking lot. Had a nice little confrontation with him to explain how he was snarling up traffic and needed to find an actual parking place.
When I walked in the building a woman I have never seen before had removed stacks and stacks of things from our community information display area and had them all over the floor. I ID'd myself as the branch manager and asked if she had cleared this with the person in charge of displays. She said "No, but I'm just getting some things for my community and rearranging things better." I sicced our display person on her.
Read my email to discover major changes in upper management which of course will affect me because now I will have yet another new supervisor. I was just getting used to the last one (who is nice but not too bright) and now I'm not sure who my next new boss will be. Very unsettling.
I guess the upheaval we're experiencing at my branch, and in the library system as a whole, is reflective of what's going on in the larger society. Things are going crazy these days.
I've been thinking about how nice it would be to go on walkabout or become a hermit somewhere, away from all this madness.
A taxicab was just sitting in our entryway as I was trying to get into the parking lot. Had a nice little confrontation with him to explain how he was snarling up traffic and needed to find an actual parking place.
When I walked in the building a woman I have never seen before had removed stacks and stacks of things from our community information display area and had them all over the floor. I ID'd myself as the branch manager and asked if she had cleared this with the person in charge of displays. She said "No, but I'm just getting some things for my community and rearranging things better." I sicced our display person on her.
Read my email to discover major changes in upper management which of course will affect me because now I will have yet another new supervisor. I was just getting used to the last one (who is nice but not too bright) and now I'm not sure who my next new boss will be. Very unsettling.
I guess the upheaval we're experiencing at my branch, and in the library system as a whole, is reflective of what's going on in the larger society. Things are going crazy these days.
I've been thinking about how nice it would be to go on walkabout or become a hermit somewhere, away from all this madness.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Public service isn't for sissies
Librarians who think public libraries are these wonderful places where people can have free access to information aren't in public service. People don't come to the library to be enlightened, they come to use the free computers. They come to check out DVDs. They come to steal from us. They come to break things. They come to yell at the poor clerks who are just trying to do their jobs. They demand to be waited on RIGHT THIS MINUTE and cannot seem to grasp the concept of waiting their turn.
At the moment I am completely and totally sick of public service. I cannot wait until I can retire and not have to deal with these pigs who come in here every day and trash the place.
At the moment I am completely and totally sick of public service. I cannot wait until I can retire and not have to deal with these pigs who come in here every day and trash the place.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Can't sleep? Blog!
It's the middle of the night (well, about 4 a.m.) and I can't sleep. I've been thinking lately that I should start blogging about the library again - it's the craziest place!
Here are some random things that have happened recently:
The guy from an earlier post who kept telling me he was moving away and then showing up again has been an almost daily presence these days. I think he has a bit of a crush on me - last week he told me my ID badge photo doesn't do me justice. Unfortunately, he's so weird that I'm not really flattered, I'm uncomfortable. He spends hours and hours on the computer and fills out complaint cards whenever anyone else uses their cell phones or has a noisy child. One suggestion he submitted was for us to configure the computers to allow him to immediately report anyone violating the noise policy to the librarians at the reference desk - that way, he could avoid any possible retribution from the offending party. He's such a tattletale! (And a chickenshit!) And what is he doing on the computer that is so important he has to have absolute quiet? Playing online games. Sigh...
With the state of the economy these days, our computer classes have been full to bursting lately. We have a limited number of seats in our classroom so once the tickets are gone (we start giving them out a half hour before the start of the class), that's that - it's first come, first served. A few weeks ago a woman missed getting a ticket and you would have thought someone died, she was so upset. She was so angry she was actually crying. I was very apologetic but firm - I mean, we only have so many seats! What did she want me to do, kick someone else out so she could come in? She was a total baby about it. When I reminded her we would be repeating the same class next month, she said, "I will never come in here AGAIN!" Perhaps she had just lost her job and was frantic about it - I guess I should be more understanding, but she was hard to deal with.
In other news, I am so SICK of cleaning up after people! Every single day, I pick up all sorts of trash that people leave behind - food wrappers, water bottles, drink cups, you name it. Plus, nobody EVER pushes their chair in when they get up. How hard would it be to simply push the chair back in? People leave stacks of stuff wherever they happen to be - wadded up papers, library books, magazines - and the shelves are always a disaster area. As soon as we straighten them up, I swear, within ten minutes they are a mess again. It's embarrassing to go out to the shelves and see the books falling all over the place all the time. We try to keep up with it but with upwards of 35,000 people in here every month it's almost impossible. People are pigs.
Not only are they pigs but they are also thieves. We've had a big increase in the number of stolen DVDs lately. I think we've been discovered by the thieves who used to steal DVDs from the Main Library but now can't do so as easily because they (Main) put their DVDs back in security cases. Which we DON'T want to do. For one thing, there aren't enough of them floating around anymore - when we got self-check machines, the powers that be decided to put security strips on the discs themselves and got rid of the security cases. Plus, they take up a LOT of room on the shelf and really make it impossible for people to use the self-check, so we can't really go back to them. We don't know what to do about this - we are so busy and aren't getting any more staff, so it's not like we can police the DVD area. And even if we did (I've actually been trying to, but haven't seen anything suspicious at all), I think it would be next to impossible for us to catch someone in the act. What we need is a security guard at the gate. But of course there's no money for that, so we'll just continue to lose DVDs until we don't have anything left. Sigh...
I can't wait to retire.
Here are some random things that have happened recently:
The guy from an earlier post who kept telling me he was moving away and then showing up again has been an almost daily presence these days. I think he has a bit of a crush on me - last week he told me my ID badge photo doesn't do me justice. Unfortunately, he's so weird that I'm not really flattered, I'm uncomfortable. He spends hours and hours on the computer and fills out complaint cards whenever anyone else uses their cell phones or has a noisy child. One suggestion he submitted was for us to configure the computers to allow him to immediately report anyone violating the noise policy to the librarians at the reference desk - that way, he could avoid any possible retribution from the offending party. He's such a tattletale! (And a chickenshit!) And what is he doing on the computer that is so important he has to have absolute quiet? Playing online games. Sigh...
With the state of the economy these days, our computer classes have been full to bursting lately. We have a limited number of seats in our classroom so once the tickets are gone (we start giving them out a half hour before the start of the class), that's that - it's first come, first served. A few weeks ago a woman missed getting a ticket and you would have thought someone died, she was so upset. She was so angry she was actually crying. I was very apologetic but firm - I mean, we only have so many seats! What did she want me to do, kick someone else out so she could come in? She was a total baby about it. When I reminded her we would be repeating the same class next month, she said, "I will never come in here AGAIN!" Perhaps she had just lost her job and was frantic about it - I guess I should be more understanding, but she was hard to deal with.
In other news, I am so SICK of cleaning up after people! Every single day, I pick up all sorts of trash that people leave behind - food wrappers, water bottles, drink cups, you name it. Plus, nobody EVER pushes their chair in when they get up. How hard would it be to simply push the chair back in? People leave stacks of stuff wherever they happen to be - wadded up papers, library books, magazines - and the shelves are always a disaster area. As soon as we straighten them up, I swear, within ten minutes they are a mess again. It's embarrassing to go out to the shelves and see the books falling all over the place all the time. We try to keep up with it but with upwards of 35,000 people in here every month it's almost impossible. People are pigs.
Not only are they pigs but they are also thieves. We've had a big increase in the number of stolen DVDs lately. I think we've been discovered by the thieves who used to steal DVDs from the Main Library but now can't do so as easily because they (Main) put their DVDs back in security cases. Which we DON'T want to do. For one thing, there aren't enough of them floating around anymore - when we got self-check machines, the powers that be decided to put security strips on the discs themselves and got rid of the security cases. Plus, they take up a LOT of room on the shelf and really make it impossible for people to use the self-check, so we can't really go back to them. We don't know what to do about this - we are so busy and aren't getting any more staff, so it's not like we can police the DVD area. And even if we did (I've actually been trying to, but haven't seen anything suspicious at all), I think it would be next to impossible for us to catch someone in the act. What we need is a security guard at the gate. But of course there's no money for that, so we'll just continue to lose DVDs until we don't have anything left. Sigh...
I can't wait to retire.
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