Monday, April 07, 2014

Miss Information is trapped in the teen area and it's still annoying

Staff shortages mean that Miss Information gets to spend part of her Saturday in the teen area. She's really starting to sense that a name change is needed. The "everyone but teens" area would be more apt. In her first hour in the department an 8-year-old asked her for the iPad password.

Oh dear. The iPads are not supposed to be password protected. If they are asking for a password that means that some little cu...stomer has decided it would be fun to mess with the nice library.

Miss Information could see password protecting the iPad if you wanted it to be available whenever you personally needed to use it but the fact is that the iPad is not a particularly high demand device (no good apps) so, basically, you can use it just about any old time.

The unfortunate thing is that now both of the iPads need to be reset and Miss Information can't do that. What she can do is put "Out of Order" signs on them and send an email to the guy who is responsible for making them work again.

A couple of hours later, Miss Information is in the department again and notices a crowd of children and caregivers huddled around the iPads. What she can't see is her lovingly constructed Out of Order signs.

She decides to investigate. An adult woman standing with several children is holding the Out of Order signs.

Miss Information fights the urge to be sarcastic. "Hi," she begins. "These iPads are not working."

"What's the password?" says Kid A. "It needs a password."

Miss Information explains that she doesn't know the password because it was set up by some random stranger who didn't bother to provide her with that meaningless detail.

"C'mon, what's the password?" says Kid B.

Miss Information replies that she still doesn't know.

"The children need the iPad password," says the adult/mother/caregiver. You remember her--she's the one who removed the Out of Order signs. By now the group seems to believe that either Miss Information is intentionally denying the children the password or that she doesn't understand English.

Miss Information asks the woman for the Out of Order signs and puts them back on the iPads. She explains that the Out of Order signs are there because the iPads are out of order.

She explains it a couple of times, just in case and stomps away muttering to herself.