There's a New Sheriff in Town

So, I have a new manager at work.

When we found out that we were getting a new manager, it was much like last year when we found out we were getting a new manager: cleaner desks and workstations, more professional attire and less sweaters that looked like they came from the lost n' found bin, (sometimes forced) enthusiasm for job and teamwork (sometimes with high fives), and overall non-work related internet use drops with productivity going up 30%! We were a little like those small, nervous, and easily excited monkeys at the zoo, but at least we were positive.

But it was also a lot different from last year when we found out we were getting a new manager: we liked our (now old) current manager, lots of hissy whispering, and their future office was raided and cannibalized of everything from matching desk chairs to a non-sticky keyboard to ancient starlight mints found in the drawers. It looked a tad bit ugly...and then he arrived.

He seemed friendly enough. He seemed capable, had a long history of library work and management to confidently rely on. He brought cookies to our first reference staff meeting. And then slowly things changed, or rather these things had probably been present all along and I just hadn't been paying attention. Disguised as a normal person he was in fact a horrible boss.



List of offensives:
1. Shirks responsibility. When the phone rings he never reaches for it, he always takes the desk seat farther away from the public, he defers to someone else constantly because he is "too new," to find a book on the shelf, help someone with the copier, print out directions from Google maps, etc.
2. Eaves drops/reads over your shoulder. This is actually my biggest problem with him but since I am guilty of doing non-work related stuff part of the time (hello) I moved it down a notch. If I'm helping a patron over the phone, when I hang up, he's all "What did they want?" You want to know what they wanted? Well answer the damn phone next time. Because he wears sneakers he can sidle up to you quickly or suddenly appear over your shoulder. He must have great eyesight too because before I have time to minimize my want list on Amazon he scares the bejeezus out of me with, "Hey, I bought that same coffee maker!" He hovers and I don't like it.
3. Too personal/no boundaries. If you're in his line of sight and he feels like chatting up a storm he will engage in awkward conversations about his wife, his cat, where he buys his pants, what he was doing in 1969. Similarly, he wants us to reciprocate by oversharing with him. When I asked to use sick leave for my annual check up, he responded, "Could you be more specific?" Uh, no.
4. He can't take directions. I don't know if it's just me, but frequently I will tell him something and it will go in one ear and out the other. For example, yesterday our IT guy came by to work on a computer and told us not to use it while he was updating some software. My new manager comes out of his office and sits down at that computer station. I repeat IT guy's request, but instead he starts typing away, then announces to no one in particular, "Hmm, I can't login." I repeat IT guy's message a second time, but then he gets up and goes into his office. A few minutes later he comes back and says, "I called (IT guy) and he said not to use that computer right now, so nobody use it!"
5. He doesn't know how to do his job...and on top of that he's not even trying. As someone who gets paid I'm sure considerably more than I do, it is frustrating to see he can't do what I consider simple job required tasks. Combine that with his "What is it you do again?" attitude and I feel like replying, "Part of what I do involves fixing or redoing things you do." But alas, I kinda need to retain employment so that I may continue my meager existence.

Libraries, we do more than shelter the homeless...

If yesterday's dumb question was, "Is the library still open because of the earthquake?" today's would be anything related to required reading for school.

Bitchy Mom: How can the library not have any copies of Lord of the Flies? You're the library, that's what my tax money is for.

Irrationally Annoyed Teen: What am I supposed to do now? I was supposed to read The Miracle Worker by next week...do you have the movie? Why not?!

Slouchy Teen Boy: Could you write a note to my teacher that you didn't have any books but I'm on the waitlist for Their Eyes Were Watching God?

The 1040 instructions arrive and it's like Christmas morning

Holy effballs! Today we got our delivery of twelve boxes of 1040 instructions that the public has been requesting. Everyday. At least once an hour. Even though I made two signs about their delayed delivery and had to explain to at least three patrons that 1040 A instruction booklet was not the same just because they wanted it to be.

Let the tax form shit storm begin!

Patrons attempt to set redundant question record

So yesterday we got saddled with a little bit of snow. Actually, it was about 6"-10" of snow which is considered blizzard worthy by most locals, but the problem was that for whatever reason no one was prepared for it even though all the weathermen were saying "heavy snowfall expected to start around 3pm." Our library remained open even when the staff to patron ratio doubled and the federal government announced it's early closing. Yup, that's right, my little library is considered more essential than the federal government. We were then scheduled to close at 5:30, which meant nothing to me because that's when I got off and I didn't want to use my vacation hours to go home early. That was until one of my coworkers who had left at 3pm called to say in the hour she had been on the road she had just approached a major highway that was maybe five minutes away. I left immediately.
Through the power of my Magic Phone I am able to document my surroundings while navigating through the mighty thunder snow storm.

My new place is roughly about five minutes away but it took me 45 minutes to get home yesterday. I feel very fortunate though because my mom who works maybe 25 minutes away from her home the next town over was on the road for six hours and my brother's girlfriend who lives in the same apartment building as me and works for the federal government didn't get home until after midnight. These are reasons why I was very annoyed this morning to wake up and discover I was expected to be at work...on time. However, once I got out of my neighborhood that was still not plowed, I could see that most of the roads were fairly clear for driving and I made it into work about half an hour before opening.

Last week when we experienced a dusting, we kept a tally sheet by the phone at the reference desk to mark off how many times patrons called to see if we were open. This is a ridiculous time wasting question because when a patron calls the library, one of the first things they are greeted with on the recording is a message that informs them if we are opened or closed. When we are closed we record a new greeting for that day that says, "Thank you for calling suburban library. Today is (insert date), due to (inclimate weather, a power outage, bear attack, etc.) the library is closed." The rest of the year the message says, "Thank you for calling suburban library. THE LIBRARY IS NOW OPEN." So anyone who is calling to see if we are open has just sat through the recording that told them that exact information.

"Hi, I was wondering if you were open today?"

Yes we are open. Do I sound like a robot or a recording? Do you think I live here and answer the phone when the library is closed for kicks? Doesn't the fact that another human being is picking up clue you in to the fact that the library is open?!

"I'm checking to see if you're open? And is the internet working?"

We are open and the snow has not effected the interweb so you can drive your SUV or slosh over in your boots in order to troll on Facebook or play that mafia game.

"Are you open? Do you think you will be closing anytime in the next hour or so?"

We're open and would if I could close the library at noon for no good reason other than it snowed yesterday, but I can't so I shant.

So far our tally is up to 27. We were taking bets this morning and I now wish I would have wagered higher.

Self-affirmation, it's what's wrong with America

No offense, but your child is probably not going to be the next Da Vinci. They probably won't even be the next "genius" that does things like staple dryer lint to a canvas, but that's no reason not to build up their confidence now!

Last night we were short staffed (again) and I spent time covering the desk in the children's department. This is usually an ok job, the two biggest drawbacks are that every parent believes their 5-year-old is reading at an 8th grade level and wants book recommendations, and that the information desk backs up to the children's computer area. The computers in the children's department do not have access to the internet, but are preloaded with games. One game plays animal sounds as the child playing is supposed to click on the animal that makes that sound in order to move forward. I will admit that I'm a little disturbed by how many children click on the wrong animal when the sound playing is clearly a cat. What are these preschools teaching children if they think a sheep goes "meow"? Another "game" features nursery rhymes and songs with animated graphics -- almost like MTV for toddlers. So, it would be accurate to say that after an hour of background noise that consisted of nothing but "Row, row, row your boat" and "MEOW" on repeat, my brain started to feel a little mushy and I longed to return to the adult reference area. I actually caught myself nodding my head, tapping my foot, or drumming my fingers on the keyboard in time with "Row, row, row your boat" and felt as though the parents that witnessed this thought of me as some sort of idiot sitting in for the regular "normal" children's librarian.

But I digress. The game I had the most problems with was an art themed game, where children were encouraged to "color" a black and white picture using computer paint tools. I watched as one little girl nicely (though drab with the color choices) colored in a picture of an elephant having a picnic. After a few minutes, her father came to collect her and she left the computer game playing, where another girl approached the computer and sat down, her mother almost collapsing in the chair next to her. I was curious to see if this little girl would start over with a fresh drawing to make her own or if she would change the colors and improve on the work done by the previous artist. Of course neither of these things happened.

The first thing she did was select a black crayon and with violent movements of her hand on the mouse, she raked a black streak back and forth across the picture before concentrating on creating a black hole where the elephant's picnic blanket had previously been. It was at this moment that the computer decided to pipe up with its automated positive reinforcement, "Good job!" At hearing this, the little girl gasped and turned to her mother, "It said I'm doing good!" she squealed, meanwhile I thought, "Hmmm, you really think so?"

Confident in her skills, the little girl then selected the paint tool in a shade of baby poop brown and proceeded to click randomly all over the screen, filling the sky, the grass, and the elephant himself with the offensive color. As the pièce de résistance, she decided to employ the "sticker" function, where the child selects a graphic from the toolbar to enhance their creation. This little girl chose the basketball sticker (which makes a "bloop!" sound everytime it is used) and continued to cover the landscape with basketballs (bloop! bloop! bloop!) until only the elephant's poo brown head peeking out from the black hole, surrounded by basketballs could be seen. The computer decided to chime in, "You're a great artist!" here and the little girl beamed in repeating this well deserved praise to her mother.

Ok, I know the above makes me sound like a total bitch and it's not like I would want the mom to actually say to her daughter, "No, that sucks sweetie," but pumping her up with delusions of grandeur is acceptable? Why must we all be special unique snowflakes who never do anything wrong?

My parents grew up in a time where children still served utilitarian purposes, and therefore thought it was important to instill a belief in brother and myself that we were amazingly talented and special children. The end result? My brother and I have not always had the easiest times, carrying on as if our shit didn't stink, all because our parents had written "some pig" in the Charlotte's web of our lives. A public booing during my 5th grade solo was enough to end my poorly conceived musical career, while my brother spent six years at a party college, touring different majors because none of his professors could see him for the radiant ball of creativity that he was. Even today, with my Lisa Simpson type personality, I find myself suffering from praise withdrawl from my superiors and fantasize about some alternate reality where the president phones the library with an emergency request that I perform on Broadway. After a lifetime of thinking one is special, how does one cope with the truth that one is, at best, ordinary?

I ask this question, partly because I feel our society is so self obsessed, but also because every teen sensation that comes along is apparently the second comming of Christ: not only is Paris Hilton a lucky individual who will inherit wealth, but she is also an amazing author, actress, and has a star quality singing voice! I am disturbed by the child who cannot recognize that it is a cat who meows, but also by the fact that this child will most likely grow up believing they will get their own tv show and recording contract.

So I ask you, the reader, to do your part. Go out today and tell someone that their drawing is ugly, that they can't sing along to that song on the radio, that they have the bone structure of an accountant. Let's do our part to destroy what's destroying this country: positive thinking! Please take someone aside and tell them that they are not a special snowflake, unless that person is me.