the angsty librarian

My favorite quote of the day came in from our email reference service:

Yes I am still interested in Vile Bodies please keep it for me.

"Vile Bodies" was the second novel by Evelyn Waugh, (best known for "Brideshead Revisited"). Also a forgotten English movie from the 1980's. Me and my undergrad college friends always liked the title.

Yep, the angsty librarian's workplace has experienced a rash or a constant stream of angry customers/patrons refusing to pay their library fines. Why should they, since entitlement has it's privileges...

Entitlement asshole for the week award goes to some grouchbag who called a librarian coworker and began to harangue her on the phone after she spent a good ten minutes explaining what he should do for his fines. "Oh, stay on the phone and let me insult you some more, dumbass" he supposedly said and continued to harrass the librarian. Ordinarily I would've hung up but she took it personally.

The great thing is that he called in the next day to complain about "his treatment". WTF!? How about the treatment that he gave my coworker? He asked to speak to a superviser and got one (after badgering another librarian to give him her name, which, being a reasonable librarian, she refused to do).

The next thing was my boss emailed us all and described that she took a call from an abusive patron who got her on the phone and proceeded to yell at her for five minutes. After she repeatedly told him to calm down several times, she hung up.

Yep, the mofo decided to call again to speak to the Library director and the director's office decided to take the call.
I guess the outcome was that the angry patron was dispensed with.

I understand that the economy has left a lot of people angry, but still - does that give one free rein to abuse librarians(in this case via phone) verbally? We're now all on the watch (or listen) out for some grouch who needs anger management and has hostility issues... guess it's just the holiday season approaching, bringing out the lack of cheer in our library patrons.

Let's see, perhaps it was a full moon, or maybe something like Saturn in retrograde....ok, perhaps that already happened, but I am finding the effects lingering.

Recently, I had to help a serviceman by phone from somewhere in the Midwest before he got deployed to Iraq. I find that I am sympathetic to soldiers generally, and believe that they get the worst deal out of all of us and should all be brought home. On a personal note, I have had a relative in the military, that my classic dysfunctional family didn't know he was away is another story.

But I'm getting away from my story. The serviceman was polite, uncomplaining and wanted access to our online library of downloadable audio books. Unfortunately, he sent away for a library card and didn't read or notice that he had to come in person to activate said library card. I transferred him to a circ supervisor and took the next call.

Shouldn't have done so. She was a nasty mofo, ready for a fight as soon as I said "Hello" into the receiver. Barking her orders like a field sargeant with twisted boxer shorts, she said that someone 'over the weekend" told her that if she called our magic number, we would take care of her library fines. Yeah, right. When I politely explained that the person who gave her said information wasn't correct in that info and that she would need to come into the library to take care of her fines, she badgered and went in for the kill.

It was one beauty of a mofo harangue. How dare I tell her that! give her the runaround! How dare I give her false information! How dare I not give her my name! How full of crap I was! .....mind you this was on the phone and I made my coworkers look at me oddly when I had to pull the phone away at arms length. After trying to get a circ superviser, (probably still on the call with the serviceman or else with phone off the hook), I couldn't get rid of this mofo. After she called me full of shit, I finally said firmly and angrily, that perhaps she should call in another hour and maybe someone just might be sympathetic to her.

Needless to say, she didn't call back....sheer luck I guess.

Still, I stupidly cannot believe how entitled priviliged mofo assholes get. This is a public library, if you really insult me that makes me ever so ready to help you. I compared the army guy with this bitch from Gimme! Gimme! City and realized that some people have a sense of themselves that is selfless and some are just bottom feeders, not quite evolved from pond scum. Keep pretending the world revolves around you lady, and hope you remain in your entitled little world forever and ever...

Occasionally I wonder why I went into this profession, or this sorry excuse for one. Librarians are treated worse than substitute teachers, and take abuse on a daily basis. Given the hard economic climate happening now, a lot of people are angry, frustrated for whatever reason and due to their sense of entitlement, get incredibly angry over nothing,  or any slight thing, all it takes is someone to say 'No' to them. Then you wait for the 'KABOOM'! All social niceties evaporate into nothingness and the apparent or perceived victim has the victory over the evil librarian.

I was working a busy reference desk an hour before closing. Everything was going fine, there was a nice Irish guy who just moved here, we chatted, and people asking directions as usual for the bathrooms or checkout and just really nothing in general going on.

Until she barged in. With her meltdown in tow.

Ugh, she was relentless. She came in talking on a cellphone in one hand and holding a library card in the other. I was rather snippy to her asking her to come out of the common area and face the ref desk, to actually enter the library. I was coming off of a rather bad head cold and (being all too self-aware of not wanting to spread my germs), decided not to get on the cellphone she held out to me. That was a BIG mistake. Apparently her sonny boy was in school and needed some sort of text book which the library owned an earlier edition of, that copy was in storage. Because of the lateness of the hour I called down to the storage holdings and no one answered the phone. I patiently explained to the cellphone woman several times that since the library closes at 6 p.m. and she came into the library at 5:39 p.m., there was no way the book was going to be pulled from storage before closing time. Generally you have to wait twenty or thirty minutes for a book to be pulled from storage.

My second big mistake. She didn't want to hear it, and began to wail and proceeded to give me the entire repertoire which people do when they can't get what they want: pleading, cajoling, anger, frustration, screaming, pleading again, on and on. She began to complain to people within earshot about me, the evil librarian, who would not HELP her!

Than she said something that still bothers me: that I would treat her differently if she did not wear a headscarf
(she was Muslim I guess). That statement (as I made sure to tell her offended me) since i have friends who are Israeli and Arabic, I try not to discriminate nor buy into the usual jingo/yahoo/American imperiali$t crap. Since I have friends who are Muslim, I really don't have anything against Muslim people. (religous extremists really bother me, much like the religious brainwashed asshats here).

When I asked her why her son didn't come into the library to get the book, she told me he was sick. Apparently he wasn't too sick to use a cellphone and (in between her wailing and complaining about me), I could clearly hear his voice saying the title of the book he needed. It was very embarrassing, because there was a couple there, an African-African couple pleading with me as well, saying that I wasn't a parent, therefore didn't understand....Mommy tried to get the woman next to her to talk to her son via the omnipresent cellphone and began to badger everyone in sight to get someone to help her, since I wasn't HELPING HER!

There was just nothing i could do and the security guards looked at me in total disgust, like I was the real Antichrist. After a really shitty week at work, this was the cap off. I walked home feeling I was in hell, worried about the woman reporting me, getting fired, still hearing that ceaseless voice hammering in my head.

Just another closing time at the ref desk. And she didn't even give me the chance to say "Come back tomorrow".

It's over...temporarily at least. The heat has been turned off and the sauna-like air has retreated. Yet that didn't stop one patron from complaining via phone that "WE NEED HEAT!" Going on to say that the library was too cold and venting that she was going to inform the Mayor and city council members and demand something be done, before hanging up and before I could tell her who she could complain to. Just can't keep most patrons satisfied, I guess.

Let's have every single fan on, then let's watch as the heat rise and people go crazy kvetching away. Let's call the Building manager's office and complain about a smell of smoke coming from somewhere unknown and have the building manager goon say it's all in our heads. Let's continue bitching and kveching away. Let's call and complain to the building department every single hour! Yay!!!

Let's all pool our resourses and play Lotto! We have about as much chance as winning as we do about getting the a/c fixed.

Watching the sweat drip off the goon's face as one realizes he's stuck as you (since he works on the same floor)

Priceless!

Once again, working on a weekend, the a/c was totally off. I walked in and got a sauna blast and opened every single door and turned on every single fan I could find. Since we don't have windows to outdoor air, my attempts at cross-ventilation created stagnant air, heavy, leaden, dull. Fans didn't help. The other librarian came in and immediately ordered me to go on a break, I was in the swooning stage.

She then preceeded to go talk to someone in the Buildings Operation department, making the poor woman cry. I took as many breaks as possible, within reason. Making someone cry though, that takes a special amount of librarian gumption or superpowers that I don't seem to possess yet.

It was some sort of open work tour that day, too bad the visitors couldn't get a tour of the library sweatbox, they would have lasted all of five minutes.

OK, it's bad enough to walk through a bit of an open construction sight at work, to have the a/c turned off so that it is constantly 95 degrees, to have non-librarian employees not only not answer their phones, but remain sealed off in their locked offices, and to have a dank and depressing staff lounge also locked... but then, also to change every staff bathroom lock and not give enough keys out to your own staff? And to have the said new keys not work? Such terrific planning.

As it is, staff morale couldn't be lower...and I thought it was just the lingering post effects of mercury in retrograde...sillly me.

Recently I had to 'meet and greet' the public and also answer phones at the liberry's "Welcome Desk".

First hour:

Unfortunately i sliced open my finger in the first 10 minutes with a wonderful paper cut. The blood was oozing away. I had some tissues that I used as a tourniqet. (Boy Scout training always comes in handy when you are wounded). Relief came with a colleague I called for a band-aid. Just lucky, I guess.

To the woman who hung out for a good half hour, lounging and socializing outside of the welcome/ reference desk: If you are going to hang out greeting people you know who come in and out of the liberry building, kindly remember that this is a work area, not a happy hour bar. Yes, we have some sort of crappy mood lighting and some vending machines across the way, but it's still a library: try to manage to keep your voice down when the librarian (me) is at work. Also don't leave your empty water bottle at the desk, expecting someone to throw it out for you. Hope you had fun finding your 'articles', community college must be a fun time for you. No love, dumbass.

Look, I don't care if you don't want to go to the performance tonight at the liberry, your night schedule is none of my concern. When you ask me if the performance is "supposed to be good", I really don't know. i really can't tell you if the play is going to be 'good' or not: hello, I'm working...ergo, i am not going.

Everytime the door to the building opens or closes it slams. It slams on a regular basis. The slamming door echoes throughout  the building lobby where I sit. There are form papers for ILL, Volunteers, etc. that blow around and I have fun chasing them throughout the lobby. Security guards just laugh, like they would, if they don't gossip about their boring lives or yell at kiddies running around the entrance. The phone rings as more people come to the desk asking for directions, how to get a liberry card, where to go for their books. I get adept at placing people on hold. (Thank you, corporate job training!)

I am graced with appearances by some HR jerk who always needs to use the phone once he leaves his sequestered, locked office (he asks a security guard), and a special guest cameo by our very own Exec Director skulking around.
Haven't seen the ED in a half year or more, just admire the way she manages to escape and blend in through a crowd. Sighting her is like a rare sighting of....I dunno...the holy ghost? the ghost of our morale? With these fantastic sightings, I am overwhelmed and run out for a cigarette.

Second hour:

My voice slowly becomes hoarse and diminished slightly every ten minutes. The calls become more frequent and there are more people who need information about getting a library card, or directions, as usual for the bathrooms. I press the 'hold' button more often. More paper chase, more listening to banal chit chat from security guards. Or guard, since there is only one who likes to chat up another who eventually goes mobile and disappears.

And then the phone call with someone who really doesn't know English and doesn't know how to ask for what he wants. I try to put on my librarian super translation powers and find out that he had some sort of call from the library about an overdue item, but from his record (after asking for his liberry card) there is really nothing there to warrant such phone call. Quel mystere!

Door slam. Again. And again. And again. Almost rhythmic now, I can almost improvise a song for it. But I don't.

When my relief comes, I can barely talk and leave into the cool autumnal night air and hear the door slam again as I make my way alone, wondering why I ever took this job in the first place. Oh yeah, for the experience...or something.

Yesterday was rather busy, with the Jewish holiday and an already frazzled colleague on the phone, kvetching about having to say "We're open" a billion thousand times. This being the truly stoopid public library, a tape recorded voice could have informed the various populace of that fact, except that, with our luck as a stoopid public library, the recording would eventually go down.

Yep, then it was my turn at bat (or the phonelines). In 30 minutes, i must have had 50 phonecalls saying the same thing, over and over and over. It was truly an epic day. Along with the 30 minute 50 phonecalls, I had the pleasure of talking to the 'regulars' in full force. I went through some sort of epiphany, that people are truly stupid, otherwise they would not call. How do they get on in life without knowing how George Clooney graduated or what scandal Courtney Love was currently involved in, or why they couldn't get a directory for every single phone number in Boston, MA?

So, this went on all day. Obviously, if you are calling to see if a library is open, if someone on the other end answers, wouldn't you assume the friggin' place would be open? Ok, it's always good (or polite) to ask. It's your dime.

Yet there is money for an overpriced staff to lock themselves away behind closed doors, to dismiss a receptionist for human resources and to bring in high-priced consultants for training sessions that no one really needs or wants. There's always money for that, not for any sort of phone menu that actually works, god forbid you should serve your public well.

Library Portrait #1 (People I Wish I didn't have to work with)

It's been really interesting to work outside of the office of the head of Library Affairs for the Stoopid Public Library I work in. The relevent facts are that this guy looks like Mr. Clean. Bald, like a freshly boiled egg. Body like the cleaner. Personality like a colonist who just got elected ruler of a banana republic. Has wardrobe to match. Gotta look good to deflect from the egghead appearance, I guess.

He hates all librarians. He doesn't bother to know or understand what we do, which is unfortunate since we have to clarify the bullshit and crap his office puts out on a regular basis. Like his predecessor, he has a lot of minions  doing his work for him. And like a lot of minions, fore and aft, they are disgrunled. Except they fall in line with his dictatorial mentality since they want to kiss ass and brownnose or keep a job...but hey, I'm getting ahead of myself. Yes, he won't give us the time of day. He's really not that interesting except that he seems totally out of his egghead stratosphere, i.e. he gives a few indications that he doesn't know how to do his job. He does try to look like he works his butt off most of the time, that's a trait I thought was a fine art from my corporate days. Busy bees. Meet and greet.

But like many liberry administrators in his field, he is covered. This job is just a stepping stone to something better, so he's using his time here at the Stoopid Public Library to get his work credentials in order. In the time honored tradition of everyone else before him, perhaps his 'service' for the stoopid public library will serve him well in the future.

Yes, he could work in the private sector as a fund raiser or even in some not-for-profit, but he didn' realize that, in this shoddy economy, jobs are hard to come by and he will have to serve out his term while being immune to the organization he works for. Anyway, why should he learn how these liberry thingies operate? It's so much more fun having power over his minions and his domain.

Bad week for me with bad eye...pink eye, stink eye, I was infectious and the fine folks at work made a lot of "unclean" and "leper' jokes at me. I almost thought I would get a bell to warn people of my arrival, until I'm semi-cured. It's fun to go to work sick, yes? Especially if all your sick time is used up..

We've had the clueless army of regulars at work, I got another encounter with Sex Scandal Lady. I recently wrote about this enquiring mind here. My lucky session with her today was to find out who the supposed rape victim from Hofstra who falsely accused some guys of gang-banging her. Great way to start the day. I don't want to pass judgement here, but the guys looked like bad news and the fact that one of them taped it on his cell-phone (like a serial killer wanting a souvenir) didn't really seem kosher to me. But really, why would that person's name be in the news? Why do you need to know, Sex Scandal lady? Is your life so severely limited that you need to know about horrible stories like this? Take your medication dear, will you please?

After that brief encounter, I knew my day was not going to be easy. I had some high school or college kid who wanted a textbook that was out and it was also showing up as an electronic resource ebook. He either had a slow connection (he called while he was online) or else didn't want to bother finding out about how to place a hold on an ebook. I kept telling him where to look, what he needed to download,  where the FAQ's were located...(all available at the liberry website). "Yeah but how do I DO it?", he said repeatedly. I told him how and it was "I don't see it". "Where can I get it?"  After five minutes repeatedly telling him the same information, he finally relented and figured it out for himself. Or else didn't. It's very unnerving to have someone at the other end of the phone line wanting you to do all their work for you, and giving you very long silences and pauses while they expect you to do said work. Especially when it is right there in front of them!!!!

It's doubly hard when you are on the phone with said dunce and can't see what they are seeing. Guess I should be glad I'm not a teacher.

 

There has been a marked increase in incivility in our culture recently (over the last several years), but it seems to be much worse now. There was the recent incident of Sen. Joe Wilson yelling out "You Lie" during President Obama's health care speech, town hall bullshit sponsered by health care interest groups wherein right wing nut jobs scream and disrupt info sessions on the proposed health care bill, Serena Williams' outburst on losing a tennis match, and Kanye West's dumb ranting during the idiotic MTV VMA awards. People have friggin' lost it, haven't they?

A definition on Wikipedia states: "Culture of entitlement is a expression promulgated by conservatives and meant to encapsulate the social norm whereby a society comes to expect government entitlement programs to correct inequalities in employment opportunities, access to adequate health care, or any other inequity caused by bias in access to things that are perceived by the common public as basic human right.aused by bias in access to things that are perceived by the common public as basic human right." The anonymous writer goes on to say that it is a 'dog whistle' phrase, meaning it is coded for a specific (in this case) conservative audience, an audience of the faithful.

I am afraid it is much more than that, since it is not only a conservative political stance. In psychological terms, a sense of entitlement is expressed through the behavior of patients who expects the world owes them and (most egregiously) they do not have to do anything except collect, and remain the center of your world all the time. Dr. Sanity has an interesting blog entry about this, likening this phenomenon to babies behavior: what is trying and patience-testing in an infant or toddler is now evidently disturbing in an adult's behavior, but apparently now is commonplace. This mode of thought states that entitlement is a psychopathology which, in adults is rather disturbing in its selfishness and compulsive need for one's own gratification over anything or anyone else.

And it has penetrated our culture. (that's American culture, an oxymoron depending on your world view). The real problem is that these asshats do not claim any sort of responsibility for their actions and can sue McDonalds for making them obese, sue a tobacco company for getting cancer, even (like in my building) have their dog shit on the hallway carpet and not bother to clean their pet's mess.

It's a regular factor in the library world. I started on this post when I read the blog @thelibrary and his experiences on the lack of civility, the idea had been brewing in my head for quite some time. In my angsty librarian world, I regularly get calls and emails from people who go to elaborate lengths to get out of paying their fines because it's all the library's fault! Or the nutjob who wanted two copies of a two-character play when the library only had one and could we get another copy and reserve it for them? When I replied in the negative, the insults were emailed fast and furiously, like how dare I deny them!

I do go on about work complaints at length in this blog, and they've been increasing on a daily basis. But it rather disturbs me how infantile people can be when they are denied what they want. But then I realize it's a factor of how infantilized our culture has become: when non-news events become news, and debate on something vital like health care is shouted down by nutjobs who declare "Government! keep your hands off my Medicare", I realize the majority of Americans are bitter, stupid babies who can't analyze or want to know why they are in the mess they are in, but can always blame someone else for it, conveniently of course.

How depressingly sad this country really is.

OK, I have a week of vacation coming to me. With staff shortages, and me and my four other librarian collegues to "pick up the slack" as we say, it's been a recipe for librarian BURNOUT!!!! First, I had some health issue, then another librarian was moving but, like a trooper in some bad B movie, came in to work anyway and another librarian is wondering what she got her MLS for, like she feels stupid everytime she walks into the office and forgets everything she learned in liberry school. I have to admire her, because I learned shit/zip/zilch/nada in liberry school (and almost had to unlearn the things I knew from before I got the MLS degree). (But I didn't). And then....

It's back to school time: the dumb summer volunteers are being replaced by phonecalls from college students who shouldn't be in college (community or otherwise) in the first place. Yes, it's textbook time once again, yay! I just love it when the students get their syllabus and don't know what to ask for. I swear I had someone ask for "Ralph Ellison, New York, 19--" no title, no nothing. When I suggested that she go back to her instructor/teacher to get the title, she went a bit ballistic: "WHY CAN"T YOU Just look it up? WHAT's THE FREAKIN' PROBLEM?"  I slowly and patiently had to explain to her the fact that "NY: 19--" was a p.d., publisher's date. I could've just said "Are you looking for "Invisible Man"? or "Shadow and Act" (a collection of essays) or "Juneteenth" or "Flying Home & Other Stories"? Think I did use this tactic and the student had no clue as to what she was looking for.  Pity.  At  least she calmed down and realized what she had to do.

Which brings me to the usual new hire or 'librarian associate". I thought this organization (stoopid public liberry) was phasing out ass-ociates but I was wrong. I got treated to the following scenario:

"Hi, I'm a liberrian from the Cowchewcud branch, can you give me the number for the seniors shut in at home service?" When I said that it was located on the interoffice website, librarian mofo chimed in with: "Listen! I have a very busy reference desk! I don't need your sarcasm!" I gave him the number and hung up. What I should've answered was: Yeah, asshole, it's a liberry ref desk, it's nearly always busy at certain hours, get used to it - or else go back to Walmart and greet people for something less strenuous. Or perhaps, given his air of entitlement, he too could rise and be a library administrator. 

I do get calls from a lot of Luddites working in the library system who don't know how to run a computer, look up anything, think the rules can be changed ever so slightly for someone who is an employee and some of them aren't just librarians. Why bother learning to do it when someone else can do it for you...? and is a phone call away?
 

This has been a rather trying time for public libraries with budgets cut, the usual staff shortages and the general economy not quite on the upswing, leading to our "regulars" giving me and my colleagues grief. But, if I weren't angsty there would be nothing to write about.

Yes, there was the recent buyout of older librarians and, since we're a stoopid city agency, the older people aren't gonna be replaced anytime soon. Guess I should've asked for my reference  from my retiring boos sooner, but it doesn't matter, there are no more jobs in the library field if you've worked, slavishly like i have for nearly ten years and the only thing you can get is a full time public librarian position. With benefits (can't knock that). And barely noticeable union representation. (could be worse). If you're unpleasantly middle-aged (as I am) and have had several hundred librarian jobs over the last 15 years, guess what? You are screwed. Unless you have a fast track with a sponsor or kiss ass, or just luck out and get some sort of medical/law firm/academic job, you can just forget it. That's the basic law of life in the thrilling library world.

Hey, but you don't have to take my word for it. Try the Annoyed Librarian, she sold out to Library Journal after pissing on them on blogspot.com.
Wow, like a suck-cess story! (or a I'll-piss-on-you-if-you-pay-me story) There's also several other library blogs you can consult, (like yours truly), but who cares? If you wanna reality check, try the  Society for Librarians Who Say Motherfucker

That one forum will give you all the info you need to know about the library world.  Yes, we are worse than teachers, we're invisible and yes, we can be replaced, depending on the library. If you are a public librarian, forget it, you won't be replaced, since cost cutting measures have eliminated your position anyway.

Yep, so there was this story about paparazzi snapping some thirteen year old girl who happened to be in George Clooney's villa in Italy and I got the rather out of it, perhaps nasty alcoholic woman calling up at work asking about it...wow, the day just began for me and now she REALLY needs to know when the story broke: it was  in the Daily News (in case you were wondering) and the said alkie had to know who this person was. When I told her that the 13 year old  wasn't mentioned in the article, she kept on imperiously demanding: "Well, did they mention her name?" like what part of "she wasn't mentioned in the article" didn't you understand mofo...?

These celebrity watchers can be rather trying sometimes...espially the ones who are 'under the influence'....I felt like telling her "Lady, why don't you put the bottle down (or whatever it is you're on) and go out and get a newspaper if it's that important to you" or "maybe there's something on TMZ tv, why don't you turn your tv on?" Basically I told her I needed to take another call (there were 4 or 5 in the line) and hung up.

The typical banging head on desk works well here....plus a year's supply of ADVIL.

As if things weren't bad enough: now budget shortages (we have NO supplies); and what with the beloved teen summer volunteers and several departments forced to scramble on staff shortages after a wave of retirements, (nope, we will NEVER hire...at least not anyone who is anywhere near competent), I have to answer calls from neighborhood librarians who either a) don't know their elbow from their anus or b) don't know how to read. To work in a liberry environment these days, it is not necessary to read or to be even be functionally literate.

A case in point was from someone calling from the "Cowcud" branch, wanting to know if an earlier edition of a literary anthology had two cds that the later edition had. When I obligingly looked it up in our 'infallible' OPAC, I immediately felt annoyed, like why couldn't the person claiming to be a 'liberrian' do it for themselves. Books with cds are always missing the cds, especially the computer texts. When I told the liberrian about the earlier record mentioned nothing about any cds in the descriptive field (I got an attentive "What?" from that remark), I was rather stupefied that the reply was "OK, I'll get the cds from somewhere else".  I'm not sure why I was stupefied after earlier annoyance, must be too hot to care. I felt like saying:

Happy hunting dude!

OK, so we've been getting a new breed of people who call up and are just very angry, or either just want to hear what they want to hear or whatever....unfortunately, it's on a daily basis, not just Mondays...

So I get this charming older woman on the phone who asks info about computer classes. Since we're a stoopid public library, we don't have computer classes, but as I'm looking for the information, I make the mistake of saying that they are probably on saturdays, and hear this: "NO, I want to hear NOT Probably, but WHEN...."

OK, I could've said I'm looking for the information, but she didn't give me time. I did tell her when the computer session was, but she repeatedly launched into "You said ...PROBABLY....is there someone else who can tell me CERTAINLY...?"

Yeah, like I need your hostility, bitch and I will help you when you yell at me. (but i do) I politely tell her again the required information, but again she launches into the 'probably' factor and that "you (me) don't sound like you know what you're doing...!" ok, like I just looked up the information for you and you were incredibly nasty about not giving me a frigging second and when I give you the information, you continue to distrust me and when I repeat the information to this woman, she says "SHIT....why can't you just answer me"....like I spent a few seconds answering your question and now you're cursing....she hangs up and I say "fuck you"

My co-worker heard me and made me take an emergency break. Angry people make the world go round, don't they?

We should all be such successful late bloomers.  Or teachers.  I'm part Irish-American and he  was one of my heroes.



An excerpt from “Angela’s Ashes,” published by Scribner, in which Frank McCourt recounts the day of his First Communion:

The night before I was so excited I couldn’t sleep till dawn. I’d still be sleeping if my grandmother hadn’t come banging at the door.

Get up! Get up! Get that child outa the bed. Happiest day of his life an’ him snorin’ above in the bed.

I ran to the kitchen. Take off that shirt, she said. I took off the shirt and she pushed me into a tin tub of icy cold water. My mother scrubbed me, my grandmother scrubbed me. I was raw, I was red.

They dried me. They dressed me in my black velvet First Communion suit with the white frilly shirt, the short pants, the white stockings, the black patent leather shoes. Around my arm they tied a white satin bow and on my lapel they pinned the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a picture of the Sacred Heart, with blood dripping from it, flames erupting all around it and on top a nasty-looking crown of thorns.

Come here till I comb your hair, said Grandma. Look at that mop, it won’t lie down. You didn’t get that hair from my side of the family. That’s that North of Ireland hair you got from your father. That’s the kind of hair you see on Presbyterians. If your mother had married a proper decent Limerickman you wouldn’t have this standing up, North of Ireland, Presbyterian hair.

She spat twice on my head.

Grandma, will you please stop spitting on my head.

If you have anything to say, shut up. A little spit won’t kill you. Come on, we’ll be late for the Mass.

We ran to the church. My mother panted along behind with Michael in her arms. We arrived at the church just in time to see the last of the boys leaving the altar rail where the priest stood with the chalice and the host, glaring at me. Then he placed on my tongue the wafer, the body and blood of Jesus. At last, at last.

It’s on my tongue. I draw it back.

It stuck.

I had God glued to the roof of my mouth. I could hear the master’s voice, Don’t let that host touch your teeth for if you bite God in two you’ll roast in hell for eternity.

I tried to get God down with my tongue but the priest hissed at me, Stop that clucking and get back to your seat.

God was good. He melted and I swallowed Him and now, at last, I was a member of the True Church, an official sinner.

Yep, right now I'm into the summer months wondering why I'm still here. If I don't go through a daily 5 second self-query about "what am I doing here wasting my life?" I just don't feel right.

All this past week, I wonder why the same ritual - from end of June through just before Labor Day - why we have to tolerate the "Summer Volunteers"? Yep, those pre- and teens whose parents are just so glad to get them out of the house for the summer. This year's crop is especially annoying: dumb, dumber and dumberer. Yep, hallway roaming, cellphone yappin', Ipod blastin', overly enunciative loud talking, brats travelling in wolf packs, spreading their own special brand of idiocy into the hallowed halls of the stoopid public liberry.

Perhaps they will outgrow it, who knows or cares? Perhaps they will never get jobs and depend on summer internships? At least one thing I know, they certainly don't care about rules, regulations or librarians.

Can't wait until September. I can just think about the quiet and the regular adult managerial staff loud talking bullshit.