Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Miss Information can't cope right now.

So, here are some of the things Miss Information cannot deal with.
1. Change.
2. Making Decisions
3. Spending Money

This past Saturday, she went car buying. She will never get over this. Never. See the last time she bought a car, the salesman was a brachiosaurus. Her car was just that old. In fact, she had planned to do this in 2009 but never got around to it. Sadly, recently the car has been showing signs of age. Stuff falling off the car while one is driving cannot be a good thing. Also, there's been a weird gasoline-y smell lately--hardly noticeable with the windows closed, so not a big problem, but still... Well and there's those noises...

Anyway, Miss Information survived car shopping with a new car and began saying her last goodbyes to her present car. Which has been a good car...that she never liked all that much...but still, a good car...with flaws. But she's a sentimental gal, Miss Information is. She picks up her new car today and it's been hard. Backing out of the driveway for the last time, driving down the street for the last time. It was the end. Final, kaput, over.

She was about half way to work when she realized that she left her important car paperwork at home. So, that requires a slight detour. During rush hour. At the time of day, Miss Information's neighbourhood is hermetically sealed from car traffic and requires much detouring and out-of-the-waying to a part of the city that permits left turns. Then a 30 second stop at home followed by a tedious trip to the other side of the city. Still during rush hour. That surely won't be annoying, right?

At least the return trip will be in a car that doesn't make noise or smell funny.

Saturday, October 01, 2011

Miss Information is annoyed by all the noise

Miss Information has these days where she is just driven mad by any sort of noise. Wednesday was one of those days. For those of you who want to say something reassuring like "well, it's good that she works in a library, then", she would like to remind you that these aren't the 1950s. These are the days when anything goes in the library. Wednesday was one of those days, too.

First thing...babies. Singing babies. It went on and on and on. Right outside of Miss Information's usually tranquil workspace. Well, it wasn't non-stop singing. There were breaks for crying, whinging, and for some reason, whooping. Then the babies left. And were replaced by toddlers. Singing toddlers. The children's staff had such fun with the babies, they repeated the entire show for the toddlers. Same songs, same crying, same whooping. Oh, bliss.

At some point, Miss Information ventured out to the staff room to make some soothing herbal tea--only because she has run out of anything drinkable and discovered that the entrance to the staff room is where they park the strollers. There might as well have been a flaming pit separating her from her beverage so she went back to her desk and whimpered.

Then peace reigned for a short time and then there was a fire drill. Miss Information was informed later that she had left at the first-stage alarm and staff were supposed to wait for the second. Oh, darn. Isn't that too bad. All Miss Information knew was that she heard an alarm and left the building. Seemed sensible but apparently staff are supposed to be more like the band on the Titanic and sing hymns while everyone else saves themselves. Well, it isn't happening on Miss Information's shift, especially not on a day when the slightest noise is like torture.

After the fire drill, things settled down. Except that with the security upgrades, if you hold the staff door open for more than 30 seconds an alarm goes off. So, getting oh, about a hundred staff members unevaluated, made the door very nervous. Lots of alarms happening there.
Following that little adventure, Miss Information took her turn at the public service desk where a member of the public proceeded to use the electric pencil sharpener on every pencil in the entire world.

It was kind of a long day.