Tales from the library
I haven't updated much lately, so I've collected a bunch of crazy people stories from the library. This lab has a very different feel from the UGA library lab. For one thing, the majority of my patrons are senior citizens. And there are a couple of different skills required. Maybe I can add bouncer to my resume. At UGA, you needed a student id to log in, but here anyone can log in. I work in the adult lab, which means a more forgiving filter on the internet than the YA lab downstairs, so of course, all the teenagers are always trying to get in. I love it when they show me their id with their thumb over their date of birth, as if that will work. The current generation of teenagers seem to be a pretty dumb group. The few that have passed that magical year 17 can come into the lab, and they drive me crazy. We have headphones for the computers. They are those blue and beige ones that everyone had for language labs in high school. They suck; they have always sucked, and being used everyday by inept library patrons has made them suck more. Yet these kids (don't I sounds like an old geezer, "these damn kids!") are constantly asking me to switch out the headphones. I used o do it, now I just tell them to deal, because the ones I pull from the shelf in the back, are exactly the same ones they traded out the day before. But they go on in their quest for the perfect set of headphones.
The old people are a different kind of crazy. Some of them have taken to computers like a fish in water, but most seem to regard them as magical boxes that will kill you if you press the wrong button. I had a lady in here trying to get into her Yahoo email which her son had set up for her. She had the userid and password written down, but they didn't work. I told her it wasn't a problem, we'd just check the secret question to get her password. The secret question that came up was the "what is your pet's name?" She got genuinely upset, turned to me and wailed, "But I don't have a pet!" It was very, very hard not to laugh at her. Add to that the old guy who went on a trip to Africa with his first digital camera. He had two memory cards, a 64 and a 512. I installed the driver, and got all the photos downloaded, and when it came time to save them, he pulls out a floppy. Explaining that he couldn't put all those pictures on one floppy took a while. I finally convinced him to go out and buy a cd. He came back a day later telling me he was going to wait, because the store wouldn't sell him JUST ONE CD. The smallest package was a set of ten, and it was just too outrageous to expect someone to buy ten cds when they only needed one. Pointing out that he would have them for future pictures was too difficult a concept for him.
And then there are the librarians who are yet another kind of crazy. I thought school teachers were the biggest coffee addicts, but I was wrong. Some of these people are wired so tight, I'm waiting for them to snap. But my supervisors are really nice and sane, so I guess I got lucky. The other weird thing about the library is the speed at which gossip travels through the grapevine. I told one of my supervisors two days ago that I was sewing with a friend (the most awesome Rebecca ^_^) for a wedding. This morning, a reference librarian seeks me out and says, "I hear you're a seamstress." I hate hearing those words, because I know what comes next. XP "So I have about 15 suits that need repairs..." Gah! Why do people always think I'll be cheaper than an alterations shop? So I did my best to discourage him without trying to sound too mean, but it wasn't enough. I told him I couldn't possibly say whether I could do it, or how much I'd charge without seeing the damage. That should have deterred him, but he told me he'd bring them in for me to look at. o_O 15 suits! Is he crazy? Hmm, I think I will ask some insane price if he does, just to see the reaction.
The old people are a different kind of crazy. Some of them have taken to computers like a fish in water, but most seem to regard them as magical boxes that will kill you if you press the wrong button. I had a lady in here trying to get into her Yahoo email which her son had set up for her. She had the userid and password written down, but they didn't work. I told her it wasn't a problem, we'd just check the secret question to get her password. The secret question that came up was the "what is your pet's name?" She got genuinely upset, turned to me and wailed, "But I don't have a pet!" It was very, very hard not to laugh at her. Add to that the old guy who went on a trip to Africa with his first digital camera. He had two memory cards, a 64 and a 512. I installed the driver, and got all the photos downloaded, and when it came time to save them, he pulls out a floppy. Explaining that he couldn't put all those pictures on one floppy took a while. I finally convinced him to go out and buy a cd. He came back a day later telling me he was going to wait, because the store wouldn't sell him JUST ONE CD. The smallest package was a set of ten, and it was just too outrageous to expect someone to buy ten cds when they only needed one. Pointing out that he would have them for future pictures was too difficult a concept for him.
And then there are the librarians who are yet another kind of crazy. I thought school teachers were the biggest coffee addicts, but I was wrong. Some of these people are wired so tight, I'm waiting for them to snap. But my supervisors are really nice and sane, so I guess I got lucky. The other weird thing about the library is the speed at which gossip travels through the grapevine. I told one of my supervisors two days ago that I was sewing with a friend (the most awesome Rebecca ^_^) for a wedding. This morning, a reference librarian seeks me out and says, "I hear you're a seamstress." I hate hearing those words, because I know what comes next. XP "So I have about 15 suits that need repairs..." Gah! Why do people always think I'll be cheaper than an alterations shop? So I did my best to discourage him without trying to sound too mean, but it wasn't enough. I told him I couldn't possibly say whether I could do it, or how much I'd charge without seeing the damage. That should have deterred him, but he told me he'd bring them in for me to look at. o_O 15 suits! Is he crazy? Hmm, I think I will ask some insane price if he does, just to see the reaction.