Miss Information makes a bad decision and is subsequently annoyed
Miss Information went to her first librarian's meeting today because she's a librarian now, you know. It was a bit of a letdown. Miss Information had always assumed librarians' meetings involved debates about classification systems, gossiping about clerical staff and jello shots--not so much debating, though. Unfortunately it was just like a clerical meeting, except more discussion of department budgets.
There was, however, a big chocolate cake. It was fudgy. It had sprinkles. It looked delicious. Miss Information avoided eye contact with it, pretended she was at an entirely different cake-free meeting in a cake-less dimension. It worked. Miss Information left the meeting with her head held high and diet intact.
Back on the desk after the meeting, she was inundated with argumentative customers. Why couldn't she access information on her husband's library card? Why couldn't he bring his dog into the library? Why did was the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo not here? Why can't he take out a reference book? If they were just asking the questions fine. It was that they insisted on arguing about the answers. You can't argue about municipal laws or health regulations, at least not with Miss Information.
By 7:15 Miss Information had lost the will to live and for some reason no fudgy chocolate cake with sprinkles was coming to her aid. Stupid unreliable cake.
Lesson learned. Eat cake whenever it appears.
Miss Information is perplexed by a computer message
Miss Information is having a quiet night at the desk. She suddenly noticed an error message on one of the nearby Internet terminals. She went to clear it, thinking this would be an easy task.
This is what the error message said: “There has been no activity on this computer for 5 minutes. To continue, acknowledge this message within 30 seconds. Yes. No.”
Miss Information was stumped. There was no question so how could there be an answer? Yet the computer clearly wanted an answer. What to do? She wanted to log the computer off. Was that a “no” or a “yes”? She almost pressed the no button but realized that if she did that it would just acknowledge the message the same as pressing yes? As far as Miss Information could tell, there was no possible way to log off the computer.
Fortunately, she stood staring blankly at the computer for 30 seconds so it went ahead and logged itself off.
Miss Information now understands why the customers are so cranky all the time.
Miss Information is annoyed during a power failure
Miss Information can't believe she has to explain this to anyone over the age of 4 but elevators run on electricity. Today there was a power failure in the big library. It only lasted about 20 minutes but Miss Information lost track of the number of people who waited in the pitch dark for the non-functional elevator.
So, how do they think elevators work? Solar? Wind? Batteries? Miss Information confesses that she got a bit snippy with a few of the patrons. But then she had a terrifying thought. When she was younger, her best friend's father wrote science textbooks. One of his tricks was to make up stories about how things work and then explain them with actual facts. Miss Information distinctly remembers the elevator one. It involved tiny little people--leprechauns or something--who lived inside elevator walls and worked pulleys to make the elevator go up and down.
She had no idea he was this influential.
Miss Information is relieved
Miss Information up to now has been disappointed with the clientele in the new branch. They are almost insanely civilized, polite, decent. Miss Information can't work with these people. There was only one exception in her first week. A woman complained that the display unit was "low rent". Really? And how much did we charge you to come in, Your Grace? Of course, it turned out she was not from the area, just popping in for a royal tour.
So, this week, the patrons have decided to stop playing nice. There was a guy who decided his penis was so nice everyone should get a good look. Miss Information didn't have to deal with that but she did have trouble with another customer. She wanted a couple of books. The library didn't have either of the books in but could get them. The woman agreed to that plan, but then she had a question. Since this library was no damn good, perhaps Miss Information could recommend a better library. Um...what? It's a huge library, many thousands of books spread over a number of floors. The woman hasn't even gone to the shelves yet. Has she never heard of browsing? Miss Information put on her reader's advisory hat and offered to help the woman find a book. No dice. It is clear that this library sucks and the woman wasn't going to spend any more of her precious time in this dump.
Frankly, this news came as something of a relief. Miss Information would like to know why people think that they're the only ones who want to read a book, see a DVD, listen to a CD? If she had a quarter for every time someone acted shocked that there's a waiting list for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, she'd be able to retire now.