Belated Saturday refgrunt

 The branch I’m currently assigned to work at one day per week is doing a big push to get some of their code of conduct issues under control before summer reading starts, so on today’s four-hour desk shift I am walking around every 15 minutes. Some of my staff hate this, but I’ve become totally used to it. It reminded me that not everyone is inured to arguing with patrons like I am. So if you’re thinking about getting a public library job and you haven’t worked in a public library before, don’t skip this accurate, but possibly very tedious, refgrunt.

Two BFFs who I see in the library all the time who are needy but polite: We wanted to plug our devices into the outlet by the table, but someone has stuffed paper into all three plugs! Can you help us?

On closer inspection, I think it’s toothpaste. Ugh.

 

Sorry, you can’t sit on the floor in the genealogy stacks to listen to your music. You’re blocking traffic.

 

Older patron in camo pants and a veteran baseball cap: Can you put two books on hold for me?

They are two books in a WWII series by a navy officer, very on brand for this genre of patron.

 

I walk the stacks in the Spanish section and refill the approximately 50% of display stands that are empty. Like half the staff at this branch speak Spanish. Why does no one ever seem to come in here except me?

 

I can hear some kind of noise coming from the main seating area, but I can’t tell what. I walk around until I spot a patron with a laptop that appears to be emitting pure static. I’m sorry to bother you, sir, but do you have something playing sound that’s not plugged into headphones?

Patron: You can hear that from all the way over at the desk!? I’d hate to have your hearing.

 

Check the bathrooms. Men’s is empty, women’s has a backpack sitting on the floor and someone in one of the stalls. Hopefully the backpack goes with the person. We’ll find out in half an hour during my next restroom check.

 

Walk past a young guy who furtively stuffs something crinkly into his sweatshirt pocket. I know the sound of a bag of chips crinkling when I hear it, sir.

 

Visit the quiet reading room and put away a few abandoned magazines.

 

Back to the desk. Reset the password on someone’s library account for them and debate whether the guy talking on his cell phone needs to be shushed. He’s not speaking in that loud a voice, he’s just sitting in an area with terrible acoustics.

 

I don’t actually shush the cell phone guy, I just make eye contact with him and he lowers his voice when he realizes he’s being observed.

 

Someone is snoring over in the main seating area, but stops by the time I get there.

 

As I am looking for romance books to put on display on the endcap, a man stops me: Excuse me, where would I find books about the Donner party? It was a dark chapter in history.

 

Ugh, I end up having to shush the phone guy after all. He takes it well, though.

 

Check the restrooms again. The backpack is gone. Phew.

 

Finally someone comes to check out a study room. It’s weird that this has taken more than an hour. Usually they are all taken by now.

 

We have a handful of tablets mounted to the end of aisles that are catalog access points. Over the last few months, slowly the batteries have been swelling in them one by one and killing them. Just found another one today. Bummer.

 

Call from the circ desk: Did a guy in a puffy brown vest just come in?...Did he have a dog with him?

Uh oh.

 

Mrs. Emma, do you have a pen I could borrow?

 

Teach a kid how to use the self-checkout machine.

 

I’m sorry, but can I ask you to please keep your shoes on in the library?

 

Check the bathrooms again. Women’s is fine, men’s smells terrible but is empty and there’s no visible cause of the smell.

 

Now all the study rooms are full and I have to turn someone away L

 

Wake up a patron who is snoring. He’s very surprised to find out he was asleep. I hope he didn’t miss his bus.

 

Can you please turn up the volume on the TV screen in our study room?

Yes, but not as loud as you want me to turn it up.

 

A patron stops me on my way back to the desk to ask “Excuse me, can you drink in here?” And then gives me a funny look when I say “As long as it’s not alcohol, sure.” From his demeanor I thought he was about to complain about another patron, but I guess I read that one wrong.

 

Flirty patron (that’s been a while, ugh): Do you have The Art of War?

 

Different patron: Do you have Como el Secreto Cambio mi Vida?

 

Third patron: There’s a historical fiction book. It’s called Uprising by Jennifer A. Nielsen.

It’s always funny to me when the patrons deliver their questions as statements.

 

Do you have an airpod charger?...Is there any way to buy one?

Old Woman Fan Club

Like many libraries, our Friends of the Library group sells books at our locations as a fundraiser. We don't have lock boxes, so we take the payments for the books at our front desk and lock them in a desk drawer. An advantage of this is that we can make change for patrons if needed.

Nice old lady: I'm sorry to do this to you, but if I want to by a $1.00 book, can you break a $20?

Me: I totally understand, no worries. Let me check...Do you mind taking a $2.00 bill?

Lady: Not at all. I think it will be worth something someday...[pause]...I think it will be worth two dollars.

Quick reference shift

 A man asks: Does your sister work here? 

Me: No, I think I just have one of those faces. People are always asking me if I go to their same church and stuff.

Man: Seriously!? Me too, actually! Three times already this morning I've had people ask if they know me from somewhere. I'm 51, so I don't think I went to school with you, sir...

I told him I was excited to meet another person like me.

Later as I was passing the area where he was sitting, he held out his fist for a fist bump.

A kid asks me for help figuring out 15x12 (I show him a trick my dad taught me, that 15x12 is the same as 10x12 and 5x12 added together).

Same kid, later:

Hi...[grabs a piece of scrap paper]...bye!

I have to tell about 50 disappointed families that tonight's storytime is cancelled (our usual presenter and our backup are BOTH out sick, and I could do it, but only if we wanted to just leave the reference desk unstaffed all night). They are all so nice about it and I can't tell if that's better or worse than people being crabby.

A break up a study-room-related incident that has escalated to one patron threatening to sue the other for assault (don't worry, no one was actually hurt).

Why the library's electric bills are so high

1. Back corners of the stacks must be brightly-lit for safety

2. As long as the elevator exists, no one uses the stairs

3. Scanners. SO many scanners.

4. No matter how many times I ask them to, staff never turn off the front desk computers at night

5. The patron who comes in with his own power strip and charges two phones, a tablet, a laptop, and a mysterious device I have yet to identify.

Oh no

I am doing a pet project of cleaning up old notes on patron records when I have downtime on the reference desk. As far as I can tell, I seem to be undoing the life's work of one of Those Old School Library Workers who felt that all things should be noted in the patron's account, period. Today I deleted someone's social security number from the notes field of their patron record.

SMH.

Grandson/grandma

 Today an elderly lady who was hard of hearing came in with her grandson, who I'd guess was in his mid-20s. I'd ask the lady questions in a loud speaking voice, and she'd say "What's that?" and then her grandson would repeat whatever I said by shouting it 18 inches from her ear: "SHE SAYS THERE'S A SCANNER IN THE COMPUTER LAB!"

Fortunately, none of the other patrons complained.

4 branches, 3 (not 4) sets of etiquette

The library system where I work has four locations. Here is how changing of the desk shifts "on the hour" works at each one:

Location #1: If you're not arriving to relieve your colleague 5 minutes before the hour, you're late.

Location #2: You arrive on the hour, on the dot, period.

Location #3: You wander in around 5 minutes past the hour. Sometimes the person on desk has to call their replacement to remind them to come out.

Location #4: Half the staff thinks the cultural standard is the same as location #1 and half the staff thinks it's the same as location #3, and they hate each other. You cannot win. If you try the location #2 approach, BOTH groups hate it.