Miss Information is annoyed by androgyny
Annie
Lennox, Boy George, David Bowie...Miss Information used to think androgyny was cool. Although she has always been too voluptuous to pull it off successfully herself, she has worn her grandfather's tuxedo jacket on occasion.
Well, she's not finding the gender bending thing quite so amusing this summer. Once again it is Force Your Child to Read season at the library. Miss Information has always observed these activities but the "not being good with children" excuse is not getting her out of it this year. Stupid nice neighbourhood branch.
The process is as follows. Child comes in. Those who aren't put off by Miss Information's scowl stammer out a request to join the
FYCtR club. This is where it gets complicated. It is necessary for Miss Information to hand out a colour coded sheet based on the child's gender. Which is not always obvious. Miss Information attempts to use her
librariany wiles to figure it out. Hair? Shoulder length. Clothes? T-shirts, shorts. Damn gender neutral apparel industry. Voice? Soprano, squeaky. In desperation she asks the child's name. Which is inevitably "Sam". Miss Information tries to work her face muscles into something resembling "pleasant" and gives out a blue sheet.
The library is going to have way more boys registered this year.
(Also, pink and blue registration forms???? Miss Information is enjoying her time in the 1950s.)
Miss Information is annoyed by the stingy
Miss Information is what some might call frugal. Her friends call her cheap but tomato/tomahto. So the pennypinchers are her peeps. Usually. However, Miss Information is also a fanatic about debt repayment so people trying to get out of paying library fines really get on her nerves.
The recent offenders:
The woman on the phone began the conversation by asking why the man at the call centre had transferred her to Miss Information’s branch instead of the branch she wanted. Miss Information has a couple of ideas. First she thinks it is entirely possible that Call Centre Man made a mistake. A second possibility is that Miss Information has unknowingly done something to irritate Call Centre Man and he is going to transfer all the really annoying people to her in order to slowly drive her mad. Great plan, buddy. What the woman truly wanted to know was whether if she returned a book at a branch that wasn’t open on Mondays did she have to pay fines for Monday or just the other 6 days of the week because the woman was willing to drive all over the city in order to take advantage of this .30 windfall. This behaviour is too cheap even for Miss Information to consider. Miss Information said she didn’t think it worked that way and the woman spent 10 minutes making her case. Doesn’t it make sense? Doesn’t Miss Information agree? Since the woman asked, Miss Information expressed her opinion that if an item is due on a certain date, then it should be returned or the person should pay fines regardless of whether the branch on Hooterville Drive is open Mondays or not.
Wet Pants Woman has finally stopped trying to get people fired over the library’s poor plumbing and is scheming for ways to avoid paying fines. Miss Information mentioned that the only sure way to avoid fines is to return materials on time. Or get a job here. Since Miss Information does not relish the thought of working side by side with this loony, she recommends the former option. Wet Pants Woman spends several hours each day in the library; this should be no particular hardship. She persists in her belief that the current city workers’ strike should result in her library fines being waived. That the library is not affected by the strike is of no particular interest to WPW.
A third woman wanted Miss Information to waive the fines she accumulated when the library’s web catalogue was dysfunctional. She would have returned her books but she couldn’t check her account online and see the due dates, so she doesn’t really owe that money because it was the library’s fault. Miss Information suggested that next time she actually take a look at that little slip of paper the circ desk people hand out along with the books. It is actually a printed record of what you took, when it’s due and how you might be able to extend the loan period. Amazing. And yours to keep. So if you ever lose track or the library catalogue goes kablooey, you can still return your materials on time. Wowee. What an amazing world we live in.
Miss Information gets that people are trying to economize but seriously, the rules aren’t complicated. Return your materials on time—no charge. Return your materials late—pay fines. Libraries have worked like this for years so stop pretending you didn’t know.
Miss Information helps the aged learn about the Internet
On Saturday Miss Information got to help out with a computer training. She used to find these annoying but once she accepted that none of the students learned anything but none of them seemed to mind, she began to appreciate them as breaks away from the reference desk.
This training, like all trainings, had an agenda, a goal, an objective. None of this makes any difference when the people you're teaching treat the mouse as though it were a live grenade. On this occasion the training got as far as step 2--Using a Search Engine--before it fell apart. It may have been Miss Information's fault. She pointed out the special searches and mentioned that she had never used Google Video. At this point, the rest of the lesson was abandoned as the 4 little old ladies and the little old man decided to experiment.
One woman was horrified by the opening screen. "But I don't want 'hot' videos," she protested. The other octogenarians concurred. No 'hot' videos. No
siree. Nice ladies are not interested in that sort of thing.
After explaining that 'hot' was merely a synonym for 'popular', Miss Information's colleague suggested a little-old-lady-appropriate search for
Pride and Prejudice. The first hit was for a trailer of a BBC production--nice, tame, suitable. The second hit was titled "Colin Firth strips off and goes swimming." Miss Information watched in horror as every one of those women demonstrated heretofore unknown clicking ability and the screens were instantly filled with, well, Colin Firth stripping off and going swimming. The women were delighted. The man in the group buttoned his sweater up to his collar and began to explore Google Maps. Miss Information got an idea for a new training. She's working on a title but it will be something like "Learn the Mouse by Looking at Nubile Actors on the Internet".
It would be more fun than using the jigsaw website.
Miss Information has another bad group project experience...or does she?
A couple of weeks ago Miss Information had another group presentation. It was going to be great. She had the material down pat. She was going to be charming and funny. She brought some ironically lame drawings to hold up. There were actual jokes! She couldn't wait.
Her part was at the end of the presentation. Prior to this the professor got excited and interrupted to discuss at length the negative aspects of Open Access Publishing. Unfortunately this was Miss Information's topic. Fortunately, she had missed every single one of the very relevant points the professor brought up. Damn. Well, at least there was no duplication.
When it was time for her presentation things really went downhill. She didn't bring water so her voice was cracking like Peter Brady's in that special singing episode of the
Brady Bunch. No one so much as smirked at the lame drawings. No one laughed at her jokes. The whole thing was a big stupid disaster and she has spent the past couple of weeks avoiding the rest of the group out of embarrassment.
The marks were posted online and it was
ok. The professor wrote out comments and put them in little envelopes like love letters. Miss Information didn't look at the one for her group. Today one of the group members waved the envelope in her face.
"You really should read this," she said. "He loved your part."
Well presented he said. Engaging he said.
Miss Information just can't figure this place out.
The patrons annoy Miss Information...again
Miss Information was having a peaceful and educational Saturday conducting research into the sexual proclivities of animals. What? A person can have hobbies. And seriously? Koalas may seem cute and harmless but they could keep Jerry Springer supplied with guests for years.
Unfortunately this pursuit of knowledge was interrupted by a high school kid who wanted to find childhood photos of a World War I hero. He got really snotty when Miss Information told him that this might be impossible given that the man was born in 1875 when camera phones were somewhat rare.
After he stomped away, Miss Information read about transexual deer until she overheard a patron angrily ask for a manager. Damn. It was unfortunate that Miss Information was in charge of the branch right then. She had a nice conversation with the man who was really upset about the library bags--specifically that they were too girly. Miss Information would describe the bags as gender neutral...they don't have unicorns or hearts or flowers on them, but the man was mad. They just weren't manly enough for him. Sigh. To think that Miss Information wastes her time worrying about crazy dictators with nuclear arms and ethnic cleansing when there are real problems in the world. She found him a contact number. Hopes it works out for him.
The woman on the phone wanted a movie--
Lies of the Saints. "Lie," she said. "Like the opposite of true." Right. Miss Information has not heard of this movie but it seemed plausible. Too bad the library catalogue hadn't heard of it either. Could the woman provide any more information: was it a documentary? Did she know any of the people involved? The woman suggests she try "Lies of a Saint", "Lie of the Saints", "Lie of a Saint". No, no, no. The woman was desperate. She needed the movie. Miss Information asked if it could possibly be
Lives of the Saints. The woman thought maybe. CBC movie? Based on a book? Something about Italians? Sophia Loren? Any of this ring a bell? The woman became testy. How would she know? All she knew is that her friend told her it was good. Her friend didn't say anything else? Nope.
People recommend movies to Miss Information all the time. Maybe she's too picky but she always asks for more information. What's it about? Who's in it? Why exactly do you think Miss Information should waste 2 precious hours of her life with this particular offering? She decides whether to watch it based on this data. She almost never calls the library and gets snippy because the staff member can't figure out what movie her friend recommended based on incomplete information.
Miss Information suggested the woman contact her friend for clarification. The woman opted to call her local library instead where she was doomed to have the conversation again but at least Miss Information wasn't involved. She went back to her studies and learned much about hedgehogs and Snow Geese.
Another weird moment in the nice part of town
Yep. The nice part of town seems to have some real weirdos in it. The woman with the wet jeans is still mad. Today she told Miss Information that she is not paying her fines because of the wet jeans incident. She also made Miss Information give her a printout of all her charges because she has trouble remembering the due dates. She explained that she has some pretty serious memory problems. Miss Information would love for the woman to "forget" the wet jeans incident but this doesn't seem likely.
Another woman hailed Miss Information as she walked through browsing section. She wanted to know whether the library got a lot of obscene phone calls. Bit of an odd question, but ok, Miss Information will play along. She assured the woman that she had never had a problem and she hadn't heard of any problems.
"Oh," said the woman. "So, what's the phone number for the library?"
Fortunately Miss Information hasn't committed that to memory yet so she suggested the woman pick up a library guide on the way out. She waits expectantly to see whether the number of obscene phone calls increases. Maybe the woman is going to write the number on the bathroom wall of some seedy dive--"for a good time call..."
Some pervert is about to be seriously disappointed.
Miss Information spots a sign of insanity
Miss Information went to the gym tonight instead of working on those pesky school assignments. In the lobby there was a whiteboard promoting community centre activities.
"Public Skate" it declared. "Please note: no public."
So, um. More of a "skate" then. Miss Information actually has no idea what that means but it really tickled her.
Miss Information is annoyed by the court system
Oooooh, is Miss Information ever annoyed. A couple of weeks ago she received a notice to appear for jury duty. She immediately went into a panic because the court date is only a week before summer school starts. Surely those axe-murderer murder trials take longer than a week. She called the number on the summons. Got in touch with a very nice lady who said that this wasn't a problem. If Miss Information would provide them with proof that she was enrolled they would postpone her jury service.
Phew. Relief. Miss Information set about obtaining proof. Amazingly, but given past experience, perhaps not surprisingly, the library school faculty can't actually provide this sort of thing. It's
ok. Miss Information doesn't always admit she knows them either. Anyway some kind of academic red-tape made it impossible for them to say officially that she's taking summer school classes. They were nice about it and offered to print out a copy of her timetable and date stamp it, which is the library equivalent of a Papal decree. Miss Information dutifully sent this off to those nice court people and offered to work a bunch of extra hours that week, because hey, what else was she gonna be doing?
Well, the court bastards got in touch yesterday. They see from Miss Information's timetable that she only has class two afternoons a week, so that doesn't really count. While two afternoons a week may not be significant to lawyers, they are quite important to Miss Information who plans to be at every one of those damn lectures. She keeps thinking about those lengthy axe-murder murder trials. What's she supposed to do? Ask the court for a continuance when she has to leave for serials management class?
The court woman seemed sympathetic. She suggested that Miss Information could try a financial hardship excuse. However, the damn library union has seen to it that all employees are paid for jury duty. This however only applies to regular hours and not all those lovely extra hours that Miss Information had scheduled. The courts have therefore managed to piss off all sorts of library staff who now have
Emmental instead of schedules. Not to mention that Miss Information is ever so cranky about the whole thing.
What the courts fail to realize is that annoying Miss Information simply doesn't work in their favour. It makes her want revenge but not in a “let's lock up the axe murderer forever” way—more like “hey, buddy, nice axe--let's smash stuff!”
So Monday morning Miss Information is on jury duty. They better have pastry.
