Bear in mind that I work at the main branch of a small county library.
The stage is set. I'm head librarian for a day and my crew is most of the girls that work in the basement. Most of the time they can be found sitting at their fun little desks, taking one or two ice cream breaks, five or ten smoke breaks, one or three lunch breaks. But...these beeches is mine today.
I walk into the arena and inform them that at least one of them is page for the day so she should immediately go out and start properly shelving and organizing four to five carts of books. At first she looks smug thinking, 'Alphabetizing...ha! I can do this in my sleep. And I know the Dewey decimal system better than my husband’s backside!’
I grin ever so slightly then flatly continue. “And after you finish those five carts you have all those to do…” I point back behind the circulation desk to the shelves that are loaded with books. Not only is every shelf filled end to end, but in some places the books have been shoved to the back of the shelf and a second row has been added. “…tonight.” I finish.
The poor dear has more than enough to do but I tell her she has other duties. Like giving children’s floor a break at seven, locking up the basement at eight and being ready to clean up the various areas on the main floor at eight thirty.
She marches off sullen and resigned to a lonely, mind numbing task and I point to the others around me. “As soon as she brings back a cart someone should be back there checking in and loading up another cart. In the interim there needs to be at least two people behind the circulation desk at all times. You need to put away the Audio/Visual items whenever you can and you will all be asked to put away at least one cart tonight because slave-ah…I mean Librarian…T-trainee #1 will need all the help she can get.”
Never mind that you may or may not be familiar with the computer system, or the main floor itself.
Just wait for the first homeless person to come in. And you must respond to their needs. If they decide to lean over the counter and breathe into your face while they tell you interesting facts about the new wonder-nut they just heard about on their portable radio, you are not allowed to make faces, or comments.
When the woman with three screaming children insists on keeping her kids on the main floor while she uses a library laptop to check her Facebook status, you are not allowed to shout at her that she should take her kids up stairs, or corral the little brats into the bathroom and lock them there. You must treat her like the freedom loving American that she is and do your best to placate the other annoyed patrons.
Suppose someone comes in, having had the world’s worst day and they ask for an item that they claim is being reserved for them and it’s not there. And they throw a fit. Then you have to inform them that not only is their item not their but they are not there. As in…in the system.
“Well I have things I’m going to be checking out. And I’ve been waiting for the 54th season of Snoggles United for fifteen !@#$% weeks!”
You try to say, “Sir, I’m fairly certain that Snoggles United doesn’t actually exist and that’s why your Inter-Library Loan request was not only ignored but I also see someone wrote ‘LoL – You’ve got to be fu-‘”
But Mr. I’ve-Had-A-Bad-Day-and-Can’t-Think-Past-It isn’t going to stand by. Not only has the library failed him in his time of dire need, but now they are mocking his intelligence. So he fumes and snarls and says horrible things then stomps out leaving you bewildered and on the point of tears. But right behind him are fifteen other patrons, twelve of whom insist on conversing at the top of their lungs and standing in the way of the people that are clearly in a major hurry.
And you have to be polite, patient and calm….with all of them…right now.
Then there’s a lull. And in that lull you have to hurriedly check, scan in and lock, organize and put away every item that has collected in the drops or on the counter top before the next rush comes through. If you miss an item, or don’t scan it in, or don’t lock it, or put it on the wrong shelf in the back it will come back to haunt you.
The lull ends…far too soon. Another group comes in, you’re shaking because you haven’t eaten anything since you left home and it’s been three hours of flow and ebb and no time for food. You’re still emotionally spent from the reaming you didn’t deserve by Mr. Nasty-pants and just as you go to help the first in a line of aged patrons you can barely hear, the computer terminal freezes. And it’s the kind of freeze that can only be fixed by shutting the whole thing down and turning the whole thing back on.
And since these computers were brand new about when mobile phones started to become popular it’s going to take a few minutes. Now there’s only one computer at the front of the desk, one in the middle at a separate kiosk with no locking magnet and OH BY THE WAY…the computer in the back is on the fritz…again…so now everyone back there making carts, sorting stuff, etc. has to use the computers at the front to do it.
Another lull. Then she comes in. Tall, gangly, walking with a rolling limp, her hair in tufts sticking out every side and she’s never known a quiet day in her life. It’s not her fault really, she’s probably autistic. She always wants to get on a ‘compooter’. She always wants help. Your skin crawls and you try to look busy every time you hear her shout, “Scuuuse me…Kin you haalp me.”
She always comes in to search the net for a stay at home job that doesn’t require her to send in money first. You don’t know how many times you’ve told this woman that it’s not going to happen but she doesn’t care. It’s what she wants, and she comes to the library because she doesn’t have a car and can’t walk all the way across town to get to the business set up precisely for the sake of helping people like her.
So she sits down, finds some websites, starts loud conversations on her phone flourishing with profanity.
And of course, ten to one, you'll be the librarian that has to go over and help because every other co-worker has had the same exact reaction as you.
But the patron saint of librarians will bless you ten fold if can help her with loving kindness in your heart.
Meanwhile you’ve got another impatient customer who doesn’t appreciate the joke you tried to tell because you’re losing your sanity and right now a slightly bent sense of humor is the only thing keeping you together, but she’s in a dang hurry so she can get home and enjoy the final season of Dexter that she tried to borrow from the library but couldn’t watch because it’s scratched.
“And why is it you can’t just clean it now. The machine is right there. What’s the reason? Oh…no poli-cool? Really…why don’t you order some?”
“Not my department,” say you. And it’s not, but that doesn’t make sense to Mrs. Everyone-around-me-is-inept-just-like-my-husband-says.
Then….then!!!! Someone comes in and says, “I need a library card.”
What you would love to be allowed to say is, “I need to see a background check, credit check and if you wouldn’t mind stepping through this metal detector here….Or would you rather submit to a pat down?”
But what you actually say, with some manner of hopeful trust in mankind, is, “Sure thing, I’ll need to see a driver’s license with current address please.”
“Oh well I don’t have it with me, but, can I show you my Kroger card instead?” She asks.
“No, Miss. I really need to see a state ID.”
“Well..it’s out in my car and I just wanted to get a library card…” She says, showing you with her soulful eyes just how painful it will be to trot out to her car.
How many ways can person politely say the same thing before it becomes rude?
So instead, you cleverly lean in and wince right along with her. Feeling her pain. “I know it’s a little inconvenient but it really is necessary for us to have your information on file.”
She sees the wince, gets the idea that your conspiratorial inward cant means that you’re letting her get away with something and happily trots out to get her ID.
When she comes back she mentions that it’s not her current address on the ID, and no she doesn’t have any mail on her. No bills indicating her current address.
“You can check out today but we’ll mail you your card, and you will have to bring it in next time.”
For all she cares you could be telling her you need to hold her first born as collateral…so long as she can check out that movie she’s hoping you have. Or those shiny new video games there on the wall kiosk.
She fills out the paper work and you get into the computer system and look her up and you are, gosh….not at all shocked to see her name there in the system.
Brightly you say, “Well looks like you used to have a card with us.” And you know full well there is likely to be a massive fine attached with it. But boy doesn’t she look hopeful, and completely innocent. And you can see the ‘liar liar’ gears starting to churn in her brain, prepared to deny deny deny.
You open up her status and lo and behold there’s several dozen books missing, and all the replacement fees have been sitting on her dormant account since she moved away. She’s got several hundred dollars that she’s got to pay.
First she’s shocked, then she’s outraged, and even after you print off a copy of her account (which costs money, which she isn’t going to pay for) she can’t believe that she is still expected to pay those fees. And surely that book can’t possibly cost fifty bucks. And I never checked these items out.
And her grandmother died, her dog was accidently burned at the puppy sa-lon, and she lost three nails just the other day and can’t you just cut her some god-forsaken slack!?
Bravely, firmly, you say, “No.” Because you are aware, if no one else in the town is, that the library does not in fact have its own money tree growing out back.
She pulls out her credit card and hands it to you while looking away…hardly believing that she must stoop so low as to be charged for using the FREE public library.
“We don’t accept credit cards, I’m sorry, Miss.”
More shock, more indignation.
So you do the lean again…and you tell her the deal. “If you just bring those items back, or replace them (which you can do pretty cheap on Amazon), we’ll let the fines slide.”
Because really once the item is replaced, what does $1.90 in fines per book do for the library? Especially when it no longer needs to shell out several hundred to have the things replaced. (Which in this case they probably weren't going to replace anyway..)
Well she thinks you’ve just saved her life, or at least saved her dog’s life, and maybe she can replace a few nails with the money she’s saving.
Out she trots, happy as a pearly clam.
She’s happy, you’re happy, the library hasn’t fallen down, and one less person has yelled at you today for things that were out of your hands from the beginning.
Now is when I pull my librarian intern to the side with a friendly hand on her shoulder. And I say to her,
“Imagine you get to have lunch now…and you go down into the lunch room hoping that it’s empty so you can have a small part of your day be void of human noise. But…no no. All the people that work downstairs are there, leisurely reclined about the table enjoying lunch…hot lunches. That they’ve obviously had time to warm. So you sit, with your cold PB and J and glass of ice water, and you listen to the chatter and are fairly ignored up until one of them notices you…and starts talking about how you all keep waiving fines. And the more they talk the more they indicate that everything you do up stairs is in-ept and is essentially the reason the library is bleeding money.”
Then I pat her on the back as I pull away and head for the counter, back into the fray. Let her sort it all out on her own the way I did.
I would LOVE to hand a copy of this out to all the ladies I shared lunch with. Not looking for a win here...just a little understanding.
Sincerely,
The Librarian
