Big book orders

Big book orders....

I used to order every week. That's a pretty good habit actually. 

However, recently, our system has begun the process to REMOVE some libraries from our system.  Because of this, our system will be down, in various stages, at various times.  Therefore, I have been ordering very large amounts of books at one time.  I want to get as much into the system as possible before we are down.

New Pages - The People Kind, Not The Paper Kind

Our Pages are new. Some of the funny things they did to us, unintentionally, or not.... :)

Locked the bathroom doors at night. This one we couldn't figure out for some time.  At first, the cleaning crew thought that someone was already INSIDE the bathrooms in the morning before we opened in the mornings.

Didn't lock the main doors at closing time. We've had nightmares about this! Then, lo' and behold! It actually happened.  My co-workers couldn't figure out how patrons were still getting in.  Finally, someone asked one of the Pages if the doors were locked. The answer was: "Oh, I'm supposed to lock the doors at night?" Yes. That is their job - lock the doors 5 min. prior to closing time.

Turned off all of our computer monitors - then in the morning we couldn't figure out why our computers weren't working.

Left their dirty dishes in the sink so long that they molded and I threw them away.  Left their dirty dishes out - all over - the work room areas. I happen to HATE THIS!!

Swearing Patrons and Swinging Babies!

Angry patrons. How do YOU handle them?  We have a book at the Circulation Desk that we leave up there for us to read when we have a minute of down time. It's called, "Diffusing the Angry Patron".

Well, sometimes, in the heat of the moment, a flustered librarian will struggle to remember all that they've read!  For example....

A guy came in with a fine.  We have a policy that if there is a fine on the patron account of more than $1.00, they cannot use their card or the free internet without some sort of discussion and approval from one of the librarians.  I happened to be the librarian "on desk" at that time. His fine wasn't even that terrible. Honestly, I think his fine was under $50.00 or something.

We are pretty generous. We want people to come back. We understand that times are tough and things are forgotten in the busyness of life.  So, usually, we are happy to take ANY amount of payment from the patrons. NOT to totally CLEAR the fine away, but as a good faith gesture.  This way, we can say the patron made an effort to clear the fines, but didn't have enough on hand. I will start out by asking for half of the amount owed. After that, I simply say, "I don't want to take your last dime. What can you pay today?"  After I get some sort of payment from them, I will allow them to check out their items or utilize the internet if that is what they need.  I will, especially, work with the patron if they are doing any sort of employment search online. Afterall, times are TOUGH!

Anyway, this guy comes in one night and he is totally IRATE that he cannot use his card. I explain the fine. He's ticked and denies the fine. I ask if there is anything he can put down on the fine.  This is when he gets EXTREMELY rude.  He gets his wife/girlfriend involved. She comes up to the counter, polite at first, to ask what's wrong. I explain the fine. She denies the fine.  At this time, I explained that any adjustments on the fine need to come from the Director or the Assistant Director.  They want to speak to someone. That's fine with me!

So, now Bossman comes onto the scene. Angry patrons are handled very well by Bossman. However, they should NEVER swear or cop an attitude with Bossman. This guy did both. Bossman told him that behaviour was unacceptable.  Angry patrons didn't stop and then MOCKED Bossman. Oh good gaawd!

Police are called. Angry patron guy leaves with a baby in a car seat -- swinging his arms up into the air, all while holding on to that car seat!  I thought for sure that the baby was going to go FLIPPING OUT OF the carseat!

So, apparently, we are crazy, unreasonable and don't know what the hell! LOL

Yea.... okay. We can go with that.

Poop Guy

Pooper guy still cannot utilitze the library. Thank goodness!  However, he still resides in town and sees us from time to time.

I happened to see him at the gas station.  He was sitting outside in the nice evening air.  As I approached the door to pay for my gas, he noticed me.  He asked, "Are you a nurse?" I didn't understand him at first and said, "Pardon me?"  He then asked again, but this time in an exaggerated annoyed tone.  He repeats the question. I said I wasn't. To which he appeared angry with me for NOT being a nurse. What a weirdo.

I mentioned this to my co-workers. ..... hahahaa! You can just imagine. My favorite response from my lovely co-worker was: "He probably wanted to ask you to check his scrotum."

Oh gross. I think I threw up in my mouth a little bit.

Would a Ghostie Need to Use the Phone?

For two days in a row, we came in to work and found phones off the cradles.

Of course, we blamed the ghosties.

Would a Ghostie need to use the phone to make a phone call? A very LONG DISTANCE phone call? Who would they call?  Did they try to call a loved one?  Would they even know how to use a modern telephone!?

We don't really think it was a ghostie that used the phone. In all reality, it was a coworker! She left the phone off the cradle, put the phone on intercom/speaker and blasted her music through it after hours.

Ha HA!!! IT got your attention though, didn't it?! :)

A Soapy Mess.....

My co-worker had to use the employee restroom. This is her story really.....

She was sitting on the can - now bear with me - it really is kinda funny....

Anyway, she was sitting on the can and realized that the floor was wet. Not only was the floor wet, but it was puddling.  To which she was wondering if the sink plumbing or the toilet plumbing was leaking.  As she is sitting there pondering the situation, she realizes that she can hear liquid dripping.

So, she looks around - under the sink and behind her at the toilet plumbing.  Nothing.

Where the hell is that dripping coming from?  As she looks towards the sink again, she notices that the liquid soap dispenser is literally pouring out of the dispenser!

At least it wasn't poop!

So she finishes her business and tells me to call the DPW guys. I'm thinking that I can clean this up without calling a DPW guy! So, I get a mop and the mop bucket with clear, cold water......

A liquid soap dispenser holds approximately 1- 1/2 cups of liquid soap, but I tell you, when it's all over the floor of a 4x6' tiled bathroom floor, it may as well been 100 cups! Soak it up in the mop. Sure, no problem. It's made to FOAM, so now try to rinse the mop and squeeze out the soap without creating too much foam.

Yea. That works great.....

Three buckets of mop water later, the floor was still kinda foaming in tile grout.

That was fun.

Busy Day....

We had a busy day today!

Typically, we average.... maybe 400 people a day. Give or take. However, on this busy day, we had a head count of 850 people!

Summer is here. So is our Summer Reading Program activities. I'm sure that had something to do with this high number. By the end of the day, we were all brain dead and uber tired.  But through it all, we were still laughing at closing time.

I love my job!

Ghostie Hunters at the library!

Bossman decided that it would be fun if his ghost hunting friends came to our library and "did their thing".  It isn't the first time they've been here.  There were here about 10 years ago (maybe) in June as well.  I wasn't there at that time, so I'm not sure how it went, but my co-workers tell me that LAST time there were too many people.

We had 12 people there last night, but only 3-4 on the floor, at a time. Several of us were barefooted or in stocking'd feet.  See pic below.

As I go thru my sound bytes, I will post them here.  Hope we captured something!  For now, I am off to transcribe what I captured.

My digital recorder and our barefooted camera lady!

Missing Chairs?

How does a library suddenly lose chairs? We jokingly blamed the ghosties, but seriously.... where the heck can chairs disappear to? It isn't like a patron can just roll one out of the library. Nor can they tuck a chair into their book bag!

These aren't tiny little kid chairs from the Children's section. They were regular chairs! Not the folding kind. The hard plastic kind.

UPDATE 10/25/14: It's still a mystery. The chairs have not been found.

Reincarnated Souls Meeting Up At the Library and No More Poo*

My ghostie friends have been quiet lately. Not sure what that's about. I thought maybe they'd be busy in February, but no.

I met another friend - kinda thru the library, but not.  I met our mutual friend thru the library - then we were introduced. It's kinda neat how the library has re-connected the souls I believe I touched in another lifetime.

There could be a poster that says, "Meet up again through your local library!" and it could be all foggy like with images overlayed one on top of another of people reconnecting - indicating reincarnation.

Also, happy to inform you - that the only poop incidents at the library are those that we joke about! Yay!