Miss Information has a case of the crankies 1
‘Twas the week before Christmas and the library is filled with crying babies and cranky patrons. Meanwhile Miss Information had the world’s most annoying trip to work. She drove and her car needs gas desperately but the city has strategically placed all the gas stations on the other side of the street with “no left turn into the gas station” signs. She finally made it to work, still needing gas, but at least she’ll be on the gas station side of the street when she leaves here.
The library is part of a big complicated complex that includes many places to buy coffee and very little else. For no apparent reason she decided to not go into the main entrance but to use the entrance closer to her favourite coffee shop. The entrance closer to the coffee shop is where the t’ai chi practitioners gather. Miss Information thought it would mess up their chi (or their t’ai) if she went in that entrance, so she moved to the next one--closed due to mall construction. Ok, then. Although she had set out for an entirely different coffee shop, she headed for Starbucks instead because it has both an outdoor entrance and a mall entrance. Except that Starbucks had a giant queue blocking both entrances. Miss Information trudged onward to the next entrance, an entire mall’s length from where she started. Finally she was able to enter the mall where she went to her preferred coffee shop and got the biggest coffee available. Between the coffee shop and the library she realized she had forgotten her key card and had no way to enter the building.
She stood at the gate and looked sad until her boss opened the door for her but the fun didn't stop there...
(continued below in part 2)
Miss Information has a case of the crankies 2
(technically part 2, but it's chronolologically first because then you can just read from the top down)
After Miss Information finally got to work, she had an encounter with Mr. Cranky. Last week library installed a new do-it-yourself check-in machine. It seems to be working ok. Sometimes a patron will get an error message. Mr. Cranky got an error message so it seemed like a good time for him to march over to customer service and tell Miss Information everything he thought was wrong with the library-starting with the stupid check-in machine. Why the library has some nerve wasting all this money buying new equipment that doesn’t work and by the way, the library shouldn’t be doing stupid renovations. It was fiscally irresponsible! He demanded that Miss Information explain why the library was swanning around spending the tax-payers’ dollars on these stupid toys!
Miss Information was feeling a little cranky herself, especially after hearing yesterday that one of the truly decent circ people is losing his position at the branch because the machine has made him (and a couple of players to be named later) obsolete. Miss Information likes the people who work here and although the machine seems nice, it will probably never laugh at her jokes or recommend a good book to her. This was the last damn straw. She was a bit testier than usual as she responded about the wondrous savings the library would see from this awesome plan to replace her friends with more of these dumbass machines. So really, she explained with gritted teeth, the library was on his side with the financial responsibility and all that good stuff. The man didn’t hear a word she said and went away muttering about wastage and promising to alert the authorities.
The rest of the day was pretty annoying too and ended when Miss Information had to pay for her parking in quarters, nickles and dimes because the magnetic strip on her credit card has stopped working and she had no actual cash.
Miss Information is annoyed by the Christmas crankiness
It’s Christmas so of course everyone is filled with the joy of the season. Well there was this one patron who wasn’t. She started off by telling Miss Information that she had the day off, making Miss Information terribly jealous. Miss Information has been bitter and cranky since she realized that Christmas gets her exactly one extra day off. Ho, ho, ho.
The woman wanted to know where the closest location of the Magic Bus Travel Agency was. Miss Information used Google maps to find several locations. The woman complained bitterly that none were close enough. Miss Information wasn’t very sympathetic but gave her a print out of the locations anyway.
Next the woman wanted to know where she could learn the fine art of garnishing. Miss Information suggested some of the wonderful library books in stock that would teach the woman fancy fruit cutting techniques. The woman scoffed. She wasn’t interested in a book, she wanted a class. Now where were the classes?
Miss Information went back to Google where the woman proceeded to criticize her search techniques. “Don’t use ‘garnish’ use ‘food art’! Now try searching for vegetarian cooking classes! Now try ‘culinary art’!”
What Miss Information actually wanted to try was shoving the woman into an oven but she restrained herself. After completing several unsuccessful searches, she suggested that the woman broaden her search to include all culinary schools and then call around to ask if they might teach garnishing classes.
The woman had been annoyed with Miss Information since she made that crazy “read a book” suggestion earlier and this new advice didn’t make her any happier. “I came to the library so you could help me find the information! You’re not helping at all! If I wanted to do it myself, I would have stayed home!”
Well, Merry Christmas to you too, lady. Miss Information would like you to know that fruit is awesome to begin with and so carving it into whimsical shapes is just a giant waste of effort.
