Miss Information

Miss Information is annoyed by criticism

Two things about Miss Information:

First: There are a bunch of things Miss Information simply does not understand. One of them is “the world”. It’s a biggie. Early in childhood she realized she could spend her life trying to understand it or fighting against it. Frankly both of these options require too much effort so she decided to find it all terribly amusing instead which is amazingly easy.

The second thing you should know is that Miss Information truly, genuinely enjoys people--they provide hours of entertainment after all. Ok, so she doesn’t want most of them to know where she lives or what kind of car she drives, but they’re fun to watch from a distance.

So what’s inspired this festive get-to-know-you session? Someone recently mentioned that Miss Information should not be blogging about how stupid her new co-workers are. Miss Information denies that she ever did such a thing. A difference of opinion about the life expectancy of a certain government document is merely a difference of opinion. Ok. So she made fun of her new branch’s quirky fire drill procedures, but c’mon--they run around the branch with an alarm clock. Who wouldn’t mock that?

For the record, Miss Information doesn’t think her co-workers are stupid. She thinks they’re different. Not different in the condescending politically correct way, but different as in not Miss Information--a category that most of you occupy, by the way.

Her postings are an anthropological document of the new world in which she has been stranded. They're not meant to be mean-spirited or sinister. She’s here as an observer ike Griffin Dunne in After Hours or Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes, just trying to survive without being captured. She thinks of herself as the Mr. Spock of the library world, her mission to point out all illogical behaviour. (Please don't misinterpret that last statement. The cultish worship of Star Trek is another thing Miss Information just doesn’t get.)

Miss Information knows stupid when she sees it. Those people walking down the highway because the sidewalk hadn't been ploughed and they didn't want to get snow in their boots were stupid. The people at the new branch are just nice, normal people whose actions baffle Miss Information.

posted by Miss Information @ 6:06 PM 11 comments

Miss Information may be getting the hang of the new branch

Miss Information is still opening drawers and poking around hoping to find some meaningful work at the new branch. So far she's come up with nothing. There was a brief shining moment on Thursday when she spotted a new government document.

It was one of those annual documents that supersedes last year's. Without pausing to consider why her new lifeless branch would even have something so cutting edge and stimulating as the fee schedule for left-handed veterinarians, her instincts kicked in. She shelved it, removed the old copy from the shelf and disposed of it.

And five whole minutes of the workday were killed just like that. Ok, it really only took about a minute for the actual work, the celebratory dance and self congratulations took the rest of the time but still the time had passed and Miss Information had made a difference.

Or so she thought. A little while later, the very kind branch head discovered the withdrawn document. She pointed out that she personally thought it was probably ok to get rid of it, but that she had checked with the catalogue and it turned out that the Dasher Dancer Branch had kept their copy. The Prancer Vixen Branch had also hung on to their copy. So maybe these other branches knew something. Miss Information suspects that the staff at those branches probably have enough work and haven't gotten around to withdrawing it yet, but whatever. The branch head made plans to contact the branch head at Prancer Vixen and also call the government document's librarian at Comet Cupid Research Library just to check.

Miss Information thought it was a big deal over nothing but then she had a revelation. She had only occupied 5 minutes getting rid of the document. The branch head checked the catalogue, made phone calls, thought deeply about the implications, un-withdrew the item, cleared a space on her desk for all the follow-up memos...all in all blowing away a good 20 minutes of time. The woman is a genius. Miss Information could learn a lot from her.

Except that she has a job interview at a branch that might actually have some reason for her to show up every day. She hopes it works out because she's getting tired of all the reindeer games.

posted by Miss Information @ 3:03 PM 4 comments