Sarah Palin

My God. I can't believe Palin is McCain's VP pick. Low blow. Very low blow. I hope Biden shreds that Creationist, right-wing, fundamentalist weirdo a new one in the debates. If McCain's campaign manager thinks that he's going to lure Hillary voters with that pro-life, NRA-card-carrying fertility bank he's out of his mind. Cleaning up corruption is all well and good, but that woman actually has some totally outrageous beliefs.

From the Wikipedia entry on Palin: "In June 2008, Palin spoke at her former church. On the topic of Iraq, she asked that people pray for the soldiers and that "there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan." In regards to a proposed natural-gas pipeline she said, "I think God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built."[110] On August 17, Palin was in attendence when David Brickner, the leader of Jews for Jesus, gave a guest sermon claiming that terrorism against Israel is due to the disbelief in Jesus by its Jewish population;[111][112][113][114] according to a McCain campaign spokesman, Palin rejected his views.[115]" What else could you expect from a woman who's married to a BP employee. Has this woman been sadistically, methodically brainwashed by the oil executives for whom her husband works or does she really believe this crap?

Perhaps it was a fit of postpartum depression that led her to the odd decision to name her down-syndrome infant "Trig," in sarcastic reminder of either A.) that type of math that he will never be able to do or B.) a personal wink/nod to the NRA using her own offspring's very name to advertise a part of their signature icon. Only a jarring, ill-breeding malignancy of a woman could have thought of such a name for her child. The others got much better names: Track, Bristol, Willow, and Piper. Sucks for this family of pro-life poster children that little 17-year-old Bristol can't wait until marriage to get knocked up. That's right. Palin announced that Bristol and her 17-year old boyfriend Levi Johnston were getting married following the public disclosure of Bristol's pregnancy out of wedlock.

You've just dug yourself a grave, McCain, if you think the voters are stupid enough not to call your bluff. You're putting her in there as a last-ditch effort to pack your ballots with female moderates. You have a VERY low opinion of their intelligence, obviously. If they vote you in, they'll deserve the backlash to pre-Darwinian, counter-Scientific, pregnant/barefoot/chained-to-the-stove-style "family" tribalism modus of society that will descend on America if you come to power. I mean, voting with Bush while calling yourself a "maverick" (did you actually look up the meaning of this word in the dictionary before you chose it for your slogan?) is bad enough, but SARAH PALIN? You're out of your mind. I'm very, VERY scared of the America you want to create.

Funny email forwarded to me at work

>A Vacancy Announcement for Part-Time Public Technology Assistant -CAII is now >available in the HR Public Folder and soon will be on the web. Please share with >those who do not have access to email. Thanks!
>
>
>*some chick*
>Human Resources
>Baltimore County Public Library
>Phone 410-887-6177 ext.4
>Fax 410-887-3025

Now, let's think on this for just a moment. A Public Technology Assistant is someone who sits on a desk just to help people with computers. They need to be able to show people how to print, how to sign on, to troubleshoot email and webpage issues, and so forth. And they'd open this position to "those who do not have access to email?" Shouldn't said person have at least basic email skills?

Unreasonable Expectations of Librarians

For how long do you help someone before you tell them you've done everything you can do for them and send them on their merry/annoyed little way? Usually I play it by ear and if the person has the right attitude, I help them a bit more. If they're demanding, rude, or curt with me, I make it a policy to do as little as possible for them.

Take this lady today. She wanted to find a comparative chart between "all the major diets," rating what has worked and what has not worked. I ended up spending 20 minutes with her getting all the weight watcher books in our catalogue for her, and eventually she suggested we look in Consumer Reports, where indeed, I found they'd rated the major fad diets back in June 2007. Sure enough, Weight Watchers was on there, and it did relatively well, all things considered. She was a bit demanding, but very polite and I didn't mind getting her what she asked for.

I usually find, however, that elderly people are less polite, expecting not only that I read their minds ("I don't remember the title, you know the one about the woman who lived in Maine, always solved crimes in her spare time?") but that I do it quickly and often.

Here's a little equation that will tell you the type of service (S) you're likely to get from me, the higher the number the better, based on your attitude (a), my available time (t), and the total customers (including you) who also need help (c).

S=(c/t)*a

So there it is. The total number of customers and my time, and your attitude, are all factors in the kind of service you will receive from me.

Staff Dining Room Conflicts of Interest

So, a staff dining room is supposed to be a place at which staff members are able to sit and eat during their breaks, right?

Apparently not at my branch. At my branch, the circ staff likes to have their staff meetings in the dining room, usually at the same time I have my lunch break. My precious, too short, rare, non-paid time lunch break.

So unless I want to sit during my only break from the stressful, harrowing information desk and listen to circulation assistants discuss the nuances of shelf-reading and new policies relating to CD cases and so forth ... I gotta sit in the librarian's office and eat my lunch, which sucks for several reasons. I don't get to talk to my coworkers, I might get salad dressing on pieces of paper that are sitting around, and so forth.

Can't they just meet somewhere else?

Control Freak Supervisers (and the Lesbian Dwarves who stalk them--Tonight on Geraldo!)

I recently received this email from a higher-ranking co-worker. Phrases in brackets mine for clarity/emphasis.

Hi,

Don't be surprised when you come in to find the cart of travel books [which you spent the better part of an hour pulling from the shelf] missing. We put them back out to be reshelved [you know, just to make more work for you]. Because we're a small branch we really do not want so many books [maybe like 40 in a collection of over 2,000 items] missing from our shelves, even if it's only for a day. Most of our customers here are browsers and if they don't see it on the shelf, they will not check out [even though there's only 3 other librarians here, who all know where to find travel books if a customer asks--your desk]. Please feel free to use the laptop for collection maintenance, you can take it out on the floor [another thing you'll have to learn]. I'll review procedures with you the next time you're in or Nancy can on Monday night.[Even though we don't want to take on the responsability of training you or being your home branch, we still want to hold your hand while doing something as basic as collection maintenance].


Also, one of our customers complained that we had no travel books on New York or New England so we specifically requested these through the blog, so please do not withdraw these titles even though they may be slightly older [you have to keep obsolete travel books, even though we have newer ones on the same geographic regions, which is poor customer service, just because I say so].

Thanks
*control freak superviser*

Do I *really* want to shill out money for an M.L.S.?

Get off your cellphone while I'm talking to you, douchebag

I hate it when people talk on their cellphone while simultaneously trying to conduct business transactions. How rude. What, do people think that others will somehow find them more interesting if they broadcast the intimate details of their life to all and sundry? And those walkie-talkie functions, those are the worst. You're not an international woman of mystery, you idiot, and your troubles are interesting only to you. And sir, this isn't Jerry Springer, no one cares about your drama with your girlfriend.

Office Supplies

So, I was at the information desk again today (you know, my job) and some lady walked up, interrupting me from the customer I was helping, saying "I need an envelope, you know, for a disk?" Since I was obviously helping someone else, I said "Just a moment, ma'am, I'll be with you as soon as I'm finished helping this young man." So this lady went to someone else at the circulation desk (my branch has them brilliantly combined into one desk so we can hand off transactions to co-workers with ease), and asked the same thing. The young woman working at the circulation desk tried as best she could to find such an envelope for the customer, offering a plastic bag, a paper towel, and so forth, none of which she accepted. When the lady saw that I had finished with my other customer, she came up and repeated her question. "Do you have a disk envelope?" "No, I'm sorry, ma'am, we don't have those to sell or to give out. This is a library. There's a Rite Aid down the street." In a huff, she walked out. It's been my experience that people expect the library to be a storehosue of free office supplies for the public.

Another woman came into the library later in the day and asked the same young woman at the circ desk for some white out. She searched in all her drawers, and then approacehd me and asked if we had any white out. I said no. The customer came up to the information desk and asked me if I knew of a place around here where she could purchase white out.

"Yes, there's a Rite Aid down the street."
"Do they ALSO have a copy machine?" she inquired curtly.
"Um, they're a pharamacy, ma'am; I doubt it."
"What I MEANT was is there a copy machine somewhere in the vicinity of Rite Aid?"
"I'm sorry, I don't know. I think we're the closest."
This customer also walked out in a huff.

I guess I'm just fed up of people who come into the library expecting us to hand out stuff to them for free. I'm tired of having to say "This is a library. I don't know what kind of shop you think you're in. We carry books here, which you can borrow" in so many words. Just because county taxpayers get free books, free internet access, free access to highly-educated professionals, they think they should get paper clips, white out, disks, sheets of copy, and so forth for free too.

After the last customer left, I walked up to the young lady at the circ desk and and explained why I said we didn't have white out, even if we may have. She clearly didn't understand me, because she made an incredulous face. What I thought I said was "We can't be giving out office supplies to the public indiscriminantly. If people thought they could come to the information desk and get paper, pens, pencils, printer ink, white out, paper clips, and so forth for free, everyone and their brother would be at our door. I, personally, would rather have BCPL invest that money in my and my co-workers' salaries than make BCPL into an office-supplies free-for-all."

"I give people paper when they ask for it," she said dismissively, frowning, before walking away. It honestly made me feel like a total jerk, as if she thought I were being stingy. But seriously, if everyone gave out BCPL's office supplies for free, it would totally be much more expensive for the organization, right? Where is the line between providing good customer service and not being a charity for people?