Miss Information is annoyed by poor hygiene
Ok, the heat wave has subsided. This is no reason for so many of the library customers to have stopped bathing. There are always a few bad smelling patrons, the Guy with the Little Hat who Eats Too Much Garlic, for example but the non-pungent usually out number them. Not this week, however when Miss Information has been surrounded by the seriously stinky.
It is so bad that she has started to recognize customers by their odors. She'll have her head down and get a whiff of someone and think "Oh, Hoodie's here. He's late today-- not because he showered, though."
She gently reminds the patrons that while the price of gas has risen enormously recently, the price of soap and deodorant have remained relatively stable.
What Miss Information Thought About in Corpse Pose
Miss Information had a moment of sadness during corpse pose this week. Unfortunately the hunky instructor Yoga Boy is abandoning the class. He didn't come right out and say it, but Miss Information is certain that her inability to perfect Downward Facing Dog pose has broken his gentle spirit and he's moving across the country to find people more like him--people who
can get their feet flat on the ground while sticking their butts in the air. Before leaving he introduced the class to the new instructor, New Yoga Boy, who is sadly not nearly as attractive as Outgoing Yoga Boy. It annoys Miss Information that she even noticed this because dammit, isn't yoga supposed to make you all serene and content and judge people not by their outward appearance, but by their inner beauty and their ability to teach a decent Sun Salutation? Well, maybe she'll learn that from the new guy...
Miss Information presides over a touching moment
Today Miss Information was the lucky staff member who got to introduce the able-bodied guy parked in the handicapped space to the less-able-bodied woman who was entitled to park in the handicapped space, but because it was in use by the fully ambulatory guy, had instead parked illegally in the fire lane. They just happened to respond at the exact same time to the announcement.
This sort of meeting just doesn't happen often enough. Unfortunately everyone was amazingly civil. Too civil, in fact. Miss Information was terrified they were going to join hands and sing Kumbiah--which would have resulted in someone's painful death.
Now that Miss Information has discovered the fun and excitement of matchmaking she's going to start randomly pairing off those sad souls who spend hours using the library computers to access Lavalife. Some of them must be compatible. Right?
Miss Information is annoyed by, you know, EVERYTHING
It's Saturday. Miss Information is working. She's tired because her cat woke her up at 4 am for some quality time. Not that she minds the foot licking, but could this not be done when both parties are awake?
Miss Information has come to the conclusion that she (or one of her co-workers) have really upset the Internet gods, as only the noisy, irritating customers are able to log on to the computers successfully today. She has stopped wanting these patrons to leave; she now wants them to DIE. Sooner the better.
Every single person she has dealt with today has been a picture of idiocy and none of them are answering Miss Information's questions choosing to stare blankly at her. Yes, her hair is an amazing gravity-defying sight today, but surely they could concentrate on the matter at hand.
Here is a list of questions she has been unable to get answers to today:
Do you need help?
Did you have a question?
Are you all together?
Are
any of you waiting for help?
What computer number have you booked?
What time did you book the computer for?
Are you getting some kind of error message?
Who is signed up for this computer?
Would you like to return that?
What were you doing before the computer shut down?
Are you logged on to a computer now?
Were you logged on to a computer earlier?
Have you used a computer already today?
Did you want something
by Salman Rushdie or
about him?
How many pages do you want to print?
How would you feel if Miss Information threw a stapler at your head?
A lot of these are yes or no questions. There is no excuse for not being able to at least
blink a response.
She has put "become clairvoyant" on her to do list, but she doesn't think it will happen fast enough to prevent the inevitable carnage that will take place in the last hour of work.
Miss Information suspects a patron of weirdness
First a disclaimer. Miss Information was present for the entire incident described below, but she can't quite believe that it happened. In fact there is no absolute proof that her suspicions are correct but based on her knowledge of the library patrons, she thinks they probably are.
Ok, so Miss Information is once again assigned to supervise the operation of circulation desk about which she remains completely clueless. The one and only thing she has retained from last week is that in the morning
somebody photocopies and distributes the daily schedule. She set about doing just that. (By the way, she did it all wrong--she copied it before the daily changes were made, she made the wrong number of copies, she forgot to distribute to the other departments and most significantly she didn't tell anyone she had done it, so the person who was
actually assigned to the photocopy/distribution job also did it. On a positive note, the other person did everything correctly.)
Anyway, the only thing about this little story that's relevant is that Miss Information went off to do some photocopying. The main floor photocopier was out of order, as it often is--clearly marked with an Out of Order sign. Therefore, Miss Information did what any sane, logical person does when confronted by a non-working copy machine...she looked for a working one--made her copies, went away feeling like she had accomplished something. (The fact that she hadn't actually done anything of value is irrelevant. For one brief shining moment she
felt like she had. Some days that's the best she can hope for.)
Next, she went about her business--mainly trying to figure out what the hell the circulation supervisor is supposed to do--when a customer called her over to the photocopier. You know, the o
ut of order photocopier? The woman was annoyed because the copier had stopped working. Miss Information replied that as far as she knew the copier was broken, after all it had a clearly posted Out of Order sign (which was no longer clearly posted) and the service guy hadn't come to fix it in the last two minutes.
The customer responded that she was in a hurry and the copier had produced several copies before conking out.
Miss Information directed her to a working photocopier and wondered whether it was possible that a functional human being had intentionally removed the out of order sign and used a broken photocopier because for some reason they thought this was more efficient?
She really thinks this is what happened. But that's insane, right?
