Librarian Low Points (part 3)

 Spotting That Patron in a non-work context and having to hide.

 Working really hard on a program and then no one comes.

While browsing in the bookstore, you suddenly realize you're mindlessly straightening the shelves and fixing mis-shelved items instead of looking for things you are interested in reading.

Stumbling across a statistic about how much the average person with a masters' degree makes.

Spending your whole budget for the Dewey 300s on replacing the branch's copies of The 48 Laws of Power and Anne Rule books instead of getting to buy new titles.

At work on time

 Pulling holds near the computer area this morning, I observe a patron come in at 9:00 AM sharp, then make his way straight to the vending machine, the printer coin box, and the fax machine coin box and feel around in the coin return of each one. You can tell he does this every day

Do you work here? (Part 2)

...no, this is what happens to you if you return your books late.

...no, but the librarians are all too afraid of conflict to ask me to come out from behind this desk.

...if my shift ended 15 minutes ago but I haven't been able to escape, is that a yes?

...technically, most of my work is actually accomplished over by the print release station.

...until the director figures out that I'm the author of our latest Google review, yes.

Crabby Saturday librarian

(Courtesy of https://64.media.tumblr.com/0dbcefc16a0f8f10751d77d898c80e6d/0419aef259754211-69/s1280x1920/a13381cae52a4f223b4cfaa5b7079fc3418e254a.jpg)

Sir, I'm going to need you to keep your shoes on in the library.

Me: I'm sorry sir, but if you are going to eat, I'm going to have to ask you to go down to our lobby area.

Patron, flinging his bagel into the trash can forcefully: Fine! Then I'll just throw it away!

Me [in my head]: No one asked you to do that, sir.

For the rest of my shift, every time I pass near this patron he tries to set me on fire with his eyes.

SIR, you need to keep your shoes on in the library.

A patron gives me a five-minute rant about our public computers but repeatedly declines to fill out a comment card to make the complaint official, even though they are anonymous.

I gesture at a patron on a Zoom call in a study room to please lower his voice. He rolls his eyes and then says to the people on the call, in a voice 1% quieter than before, "I've just been told to keep my voice down."

This branch has two kinds of chairs, wooden ones and ill-advised cloth armchairs that you'd have to pay me $100 to sit on. Someone has taken several plastic bags and arranged them carefully over one so that she can sit in it without making any direct contact with the fabric. I get the idea, but why not just sit in a wooden chair, ma'am?

Someone has taken apart all the different sections of BOTH our copies of the local newspaper and interfiled them seemingly randomly before piling them up on a table.

 

Me to patron watching a loud YouTube video on his phone: Hi sir, do you have a pair of headphones?

Patron: Yeah.

Me: ...

Patron: ...

Me: I'm going to have to ask you to either put them on or lower your volume.

Patron: What about that guy who's snoring?

Me: He is MUCH quieter than you, sir. If he causes a disruption, I'll shush him too.

 

They're back

 Today an old man who wanted two books by Lee Goldberg and had no concept of personal space told me two jokes, one about a woman thinking her husband was buying her a diamond pin for her anniversary but he was really buying her frozen yogurt from the shop next door, and one about a macaw who insulted a woman every time she passed it in the window of a pet shop. He guffawed loudly after both, completely oblivious to the serene quiet of the library around him.

The macaw joke highlight (it was this joke: https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/28iwct/a_woman_walks_down_the_street/?rdt=37421):

Patron: Do you know what a macaw is?

Me: Yes, it's like a big parrot, right?

Patron: Yes, but with a REALLY long nose.

It's ALL the same internet, actually

I was working at the reference desk at our biggest location, which has two stories, earlier this week. A patron came to the desk and asked where the scanner and the printers were. I told him downstairs on the first floor. Then he asked if we had a map showing all of the libraries in our system. I told him that we did, unfortunately not up on this floor, but that he could grab one at the checkout desk downstairs. There was a long pause and then he said “what I really want to know is, do all of the libraries have the same Internet? I mean, can I go to another library and use the same Internet that I do here?”

 I reassured the patron that yes, all four libraries had the same Internet.

Irony

 A patron who wanted to check out 3 Christian fiction novels couldn't do so because she had a long-overdue book that someone else had a hold request on. She said some very unchristian things as she stormed out.