Sunday, October 24, 2010

Miss Information is annoyed by button pushing

Miss Information has a recurrent nightmare where she has forgotten to push a very important button. She often wakes up on the other side of the bedroom looking for the button. It must be here somewhere and if she doesn't push it right away something very bad will happen.

One night this week she must have looked for that button all night long. Not just any button, one of the dreams clarified. It's the very important button on that very important machine. The beige machine. So then Miss Information found herself on the other side of the bedroom looking for the very important beige machine. As if a very important machine would ever be beige.

She'd blame the new job, which has lots of complicated components and tons of stuff she's probably forgotten to do, except that she's been having this stupid nightmare for as long as she can remember.

Could someone else take over the whole button pushing thing? Miss Information needs to sleep.

Saturday, October 09, 2010

Miss Information is puzzled by priorities

Miss Information does not rebound well. Something goes wrong, gets in her way, throws her off track and she becomes paralytic. She admires people who can carry on with their lives as though nothing happened. Like the patron she met this week.

The patron came to Miss Information's attention because she was having trouble with the automated check out. Miss Information went over and helped her out. Then the woman wanted to renew some books, so she came back to the desk. Next the woman had a few questions about the library website. It was a more or less normal transaction right up to the moment the woman asked to use the phone. See, she'd locked her keys in her car--with the motor running--and she had to call for help.

Oh. Miss Information let her use the phone. There was nothing in the woman's demeanor that suggested she was in any kind of hurry. Very strange.

Monday, October 04, 2010

Miss Information is annoyed by the clueless

Miss Information's new job has a lot of good things going for it. She now gets paid to write stuff. Every day! She lives in fear they will discover how much fun she's having and put a stop to it, so she tries to look miserable and stressed out. Really, though, this is like the best job ever.

She still has public service duties at the new big scary branch and though the customers are generally quite nice, this past week Miss Information had to deal with a number of irritatingly dim taxpayers.

The first customer was at the library for a workshop. The library has a lot going on and Miss Information is only vaguely aware of anything above the second floor. Did he have a room number? Nope. Did he have a department? Nope. Ok, well no problem. Miss Information could look it up on the big list of stuff going on. She just needed a hint about what sort of workshop was it. The man didn't know. Seriously, c'mon. Is it computers, social services, culture? The man had no idea. Miss Information directed him to a random room where something was happening. If he didn't care, neither did she.

The second customer was also at the library for a workshop. A seniors drop-in program. Did she have a room number? Nope. A department? Nope. A vague idea of what the topic was? Nope. Her daughter told her to come so she has no idea. Jeepers. This would never happen to Miss Information's mother who treats everything her daughters tell her as though it were coming from Mata Hari. She would never just show up somewhere because Miss Information told her it was a good idea.

This woman obviously trusts her daughter. It was sweet, actually. Miss Information checked the list. There was a seniors drop-in computer program. Surely though if the woman were coming for a computer program she would know. Miss Information asked if this could be the right thing. The woman became huffy. "Of course," she sniffed. "I told you it was a computer class." Um...no, you did not. If you had mentioned that, Miss Information would have sent you to the computer training room hours ago and you wouldn't still be standing here.

So, the new job is mostly great. Unfortunately the need to be clairvoyant was not mentioned on the job posting and once again Miss Information is without the necessary skills to do her job.