the angsty librarian

OK....perhaps it's a nice little change of events to have a male librarian
help you in your dumb questions....if you're female.

One rule needs explaining: just don't call me 'sweetheart'...it's basically just
proper etiquette to say a simple 'thank you'. And even add 'have a nice day' or to be
really familiar, 'have a good one'. Bitch, if you think I enjoy talking to you, you must be
mistaken, 'sweetheart', so 'sweetheart', lets call it a day.

All you have to do is say 'Thank you'. Got that? Good....

See ya, sweetheart!

So this lady with a rather pretentious voice calls and starts asking questions about our
Special Collections. We are a pathetic public library with no funds and she declares that
she has a "special art resource". Yeah, really special, so special indeed that she can't mail any promo literature in, she has to have the email address of the special collections personnel.

NOW. (All caps for emphasis, she was rather stubborn and argumentative).

I respond that we do not give out email addresses, adding that I "do not make up the rules" and that she can mail in the information but she rudely cuts me off with:

LADY: Well!....No library ever refuses to give out their email addresses.

ME: Well!...(pause for emphasis): this one does.

LADY: But....(sigh for dramatic emphasis): I need the email address because this is SUCH A SPECIAL RESOURCE! How come you won't give me the email address to whom I SHOULD address this to?

ME: Because it is against library policy, that's why. If you have promo literature, I can gladly give you the email address or regular address...

Again she rather rudely cuts me off with:

LADY: No! I need the email address!

This is followed with me going on about how i won't do it, blah blah blah. Tough old bitch cookie, no?

After a bit of my expectoration, she suddenly (once again, cutting me off) demands:

LADY: IS THERE SOMEONE ELSE WHO CAN HELP ME?...(dramatic pause) Besides you?

ME: (almost relieved to be rid of this old baggage): HOLD ON PLEASE!

I put the phone on hold, talked to the supervisor and she took the call, giving her contact information (mainly to her). At the end of the call, she said:

SUPERVISOR: What a BITCH!

Yeah, bitch is the appropriate epithet, just what planet do you live on? Public libraries are hurting (in case you haven't figured out) and I'm sure you could care less about trivial matters like 'budget cuts' to public libraries, or even the rather ridiculous 'lack of funds', etc., etc. I hope your 'special art resource' finds some 'very interested people' to back your sorry ass.

As a saleswoman, you suck donkey's patooties.

Part of the 'fun' in working for a large urban public library system is having to clean up the messes that others make.
I'm not talking about public bathrooms, (haven't been in one for years - being germaphobic) but the level of miscommunication that happens between library user and library staff.
All of this emphasis that we, as library staff receive on library training seems to go in one ear and out the proverbial other.

Case in point: someone claiming to be a 'librarian' from another library in the system asking or rather demanding me why a reserve HAS YET TO BE FILLED.

When I innocently asked for details, I got this: NO, THIS IS NOT ABOUT A LIBRARY HOLD! CAN YOU FIND OUT WHY THIS HOLD IS NOT GOING THROUGH.

Without the necessary information, I simply said: I'll look into it.

End of conversation.

Usually, if this is a librarian at a branch, we try to help. The person I talked to couldn't give a flying rat's ass. It was the main library's fault, oh my and she happened to get me. When she refused to give me any more information, I simply felt like it was either a) an irate library user posing as a 'librarian' or b) an actual librarian needing to vent.

Sorry, homey don't play that. You see, if you can't play the game, insist on wasting my time, just are clueless about how the library operates, stay clueless. Just don't pick up the phone and eat lunch or something. Warm a bench perhaps.

Yes, the proverbial **** has hit the fan. Where to start?

Low morale....stupid library administration pitting two warring librarians against each other, which would not bother me if it were not in the office I happen to work in. Oh yeah, make someone extrememly upset and handle it in such an idiotic, stupid way that you refuse to tell them what their annual ratings meeting is about.

Since when do we work at Gestapo headquarters? Also, give the staff the paranoid feeling that some angry PMS-head of HR wants their blood. or to play GOTCHA! we cannot even take leave or sick time, without serving some writ from the doctors. Or just collect notes and throw them at HR's face, they will stupidly lose them in no time.

Did I mention that I work for a Stupid library?

OK, while I admit that the library I work for is rather rigid and idiotic in its bureaucracy, there is an increasing amount of resentment over classification: how librarians - mind you, with advanced master's degrees and experience----are now being treated like clerks. (albeit, highly paid ones then the kiddies who work here). I hate seeing injustice and people treated like shit, but that is the rule of the day. Lucky us.

Gee, it's just too bad that I can't be like Volunteer Sgt. Barbie with unlimited "mental health" days and volunteers who like to steal from employees. She doesn't give a wrap about it and can keep her job - since she is so good at making others do said job for her.

Gone are the days when the CEO could wave to employees and people would actually know who he was, it appears that the library board forced the interim administrator into the position, no vote, no input from anyone. In the good old days, the library board members would provide their addresses or email or something, now that's too secret! Can't have it!

We should continue to keep rotting books on the rotting shelves and not bother putting security cases on multimedia: all those DVDs and CDs gotta go sometime!

Have the IT department be invisible - or answerable to no one. That way, when the library's website goes down, no one needs to be called about it. Excellent move!

Don't hire security or extra janitorial staff, let the library become a mess of unsafeness. Keeps library spending down!

Let the lil' sweet teen library clerks not receive training: it's not their fault, they should be lucky to have underpaid jobs in this economy.

Oh yeah, and continue to have people who should've been let go years ago warm benches in the library equivalent of the teacher's rubber room....all those pension benefits gotta get paid somehow!

The library as I know it is finished. Let the autopsy begin!

First you dress well enough to show your six figure salary.

Don't bother to knock on an office door, just arrogantly shove yourself in and say why you are there, no matter what anyone is doing - it can't be more important than what you are about to say.

If someone (say another librarian) tries to interject while you are making your rounds, just brush them off, without acknowledging what they are saying and continue with your mission. They will truly feel like you are much more important than any input they can make. Make sure to mention that you are doing a 'survey' that has been ongoing for a year....just to make them know.

Always deliver eye contact to the floor and look rather earnestly while doing so, otherwise your mission won't work. Focus on the person least likely to give you problems while you are on your reconaissance mission, or wait until the person most certain to be in charge is in the room. Continue to ignore the interjecting librarian. Even if another librarian repeats what that librarian says.

Repeat as needed. After all, you have brown nosed yourself into this position, and you can take advantage.

You are useless.... Isn't that great?

Hey, why don't we as the powers that be, institute a sweeping change to everyone's library account by going paperless? Yay!

And why don't we do that without telling anybody? Yay!

Until it's three days before it happens! Yay!

And if they don't change their notification preference to phone or email or text messaging, they'll just be blocked from using their account at all! Yay!!!

Who cares if our library users don't have a computer? We sure as hell don't! It's their tough luck, ain't it?

Hey, at least we're going paperless! Yay!!!!!!

I think I'm ready to commit murder. I can think of the usual stoopid library managerial staff who can justify making this change, and should be removed from the library scene as we speak, but this is just bad policy. Can you show any more contempt or cluelessness for your library users any other way? Especially the ones who do not own a computer? (I doubt it!) What, you don't get paid enough to see this project through but just throw it out there and see where the shards and crap falls?

Unbelievable. No wonder libraries are under siege, management in charge is solely lacking: in judgement, skills, brains! Hey everybody! lets be clueless! Yay!!!!!

Honestly, I forgot I had this blog until some gentle reader reminded me.

Let's say that I'm interested in leaving public librarianship forever, except my use value has declined to nil. At a certain point, you can't be exploited forever!

Besides, how could I ever leave the whackos we get? (very easily, like last month's vacation). And the prima donnas who are not librarians, but believe they have all the answers (I certainly hope nobody tells them they are expendable, they might have an ego-displacement!).

Yep, the new year is almost like the old year....same shite, different day.

If you are a telephone reference librarian or a customer service geek, don't you just love people who call and point-blank ask if they are talking to a "human being"? You might want to ask the same for the whacko on the other end of the phone line, who insultingly asks the question.

You should always say "no", so the said whacko will hang up and mercifully leave you alone. If that doesn't work, try to speak like a machine and repeatedly say in standard customer service-ease: "Your call is VERY important to us..." (repeat several times until caller hangs up).

Apparently, there is general consensus among the smaller branch libraries in our public library system that, if you call a magic library number, your fines will be erased. Yeah, and I will retire to a villa in Italy once my ship comes in and I win Powerball, once your fine request is answered.

The phone conversation goes like this, once the unlucky patron dials the magic number:

Hello, I am Dumbasapost Jones and someone in the Dumpliberrybranch said that I need to call you and get my fines erased.

Oh really? Well, we don't do erase fines over the phone, I'm very sorry but the branch clerk (asswipe) gave you the wrong information, and you will need to speak to a clerical superviser.

Be very apologetic, it helps. And repeat several times (with mild variations) a week.

1. First, eliminate all reference sections, in this economy, why bother replacing any reference works - or bother keeping what you already have.

2. Base everything on statistics, generally like the chain stores Borders or Barnes & Noble stores. Continue to base everything on bogus circulation statistics that can only be applied to circulating materials. Bookstore business models are quite functional, even if the business is not a business per se but is an institution, not a chain store.

2. Hire outside consultants for all training sessions, this will drain any excess library budget for unnecessary training by experienced librarians and clerical staff.

3. Have a puppet library administration: answerable only to the library board (who are, needless to say, not librarians but asshats). Any dissension shall be either a) ignored, b) answered by immediate termination, or retirement buy outs. The marrionette, um, puppet library administration will be so photogenic, no one will dare question their motives. Image counts!

4. Have an administrative staff answerable to no one, and we mean, answerable to NO ONE. Create an imaginary department for branch library complaints and have no one answer phones. Any bills that need to be paid will be ignored and forgotten, or answerable to small claims court. Do not publish any contact phone numbers, only an information phone number manned by librarians no one wants to talk to. This strategy has been proven to work time and again in major corporations. While these corporations have folded, this is a public bureau, which will never close, since the institution in question is not a business.

5. Hire illiterates to man all clerical positions. Complaints will not be handled anyway (see #4) and there is no real reason to answer to one's public. We are all just too busy.

6. Keep in place a security team that is so low paid they can't be bothered to keep an eye out for anything. De-activate guard gates and allow library customers to walk out with anything they want to walk out with. Give out the entire store, since there is no backup replacement plan for supplies, missing books, CDs or DVDs or money in the library budget to order anything new in the way of replacements. This is called "demolition by theft" and will result in massive losses in the library's collection, but library administration can always blame massive amounts of theft on an underpaid professional and clerical staff.

7. Perpetuate a hiring freeze for all vacancies and (by doings so) encourage burn-out from under-populated departments within the library. Then refuse to pay overtime. In this recessionary economy, no one would ever be able to find another job, so why pay them any more than one has to?

8. Ignore all accustions of unsafe library conditions, such as building mold, leaks, dust, paint chips, decrepit and unsafe work elevators, dingy storage basement levels, unsafe overheated offices, the list can be endless.

9. Encourage further staff burn out by implementing a needless outsourced online training application that takes several hours to do one fifteen minute training and crashes constantly.

10. Outsource all processing of new books, any books and catalog records. Increase hours and watch as the house of cards, (excuse me) library collapses in incompetence. The rapture and dumbing down is effectively completed.