Top 10 Halloween Costumes for Librarians

When I first started working in a library several years ago, I thought that Halloween would be a fun holiday at work with the idea that librarians would probably get dressed up in imaginative costumes. I'm not sure where this idea came from, but it was definitely wrong. My first library employee Halloween was awkward in that several staff members agreed to dress up with me and then, of course, I was the only one who showed up in costume. That year I dressed up as a 80's Cyndi Lauper style punk which my stick in the mud coworkers mistook for an eccentric prostitute and patrons most likely thought I was a bad teen completing community service hours. Needless to say, I now usually opt out of coming into work in costume, though over the years I will confess that I've mislead some newbie employees to believe that I would be dressing up with them.

But there are a few librarians who do get into the holiday spirit and decide to put aside their nebbish and lackluster attire for one day, and these people have inspired me to list The Top 10 Halloween Costumes for Librarians:

10. Naughty Librarian -- I'll get this one out of the way first. While I have been known to dress as a wayward librarian myself, I feel able to criticize this costume because I tend to dress in a 50's/pin-up fashion normally. Also, I find the "naughty librarian" store made costumes offensive:
That is an ugly ass skirt if I ever saw one and though we may not always be a fashionable bunch, I would like to think that none of us would wear a mini-skirt with bookends printed on it. The other costume is irritating because it is labeled "sexy librarian/secretary" -- we are not the same profession!

9. Non-Harry Potter Wizard –- This person will don some type of hat and often carry a magic wand, either store quality or something created at home out of aluminum foil. Sometimes they will wear a witch’s hat for the same purpose. Once a former coworker wore a blue bathrobe with construction paper planets taped to it.

8. Harry Potter Wizard/Character -- A true fan of the Harry Potter genre and will either create an outfit for a character from the book or dress up as a Hogwarts student wearing the house colors of Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, or Slytherin, usually accompanied by a long colored scarf. These people will normally go as Gryffindor or Slytherin because they are the most well known and because no one really cares about the other houses. Should you encounter a coworker in Hufflepuff attire you should administer a series of shame induced Indian burns.

7. Renaissance Person -– This includes wenches, royalty, pirates, occasionally Vikings, and sometimes other weird things (see photo), but outside of a renfest, the work costume is usually tame and an excuse for a staff member to get away with wearing a corset tightened to show the most decolletage, or a tiara, or carrying a sword.

6. Star Wars Character -- These costumes are either finely detailed replicas from the films or someone with brown earmuffs for hair and a light saber. Star Wars character is a popular choice for gen x male staffers.

5. Comic Book and/or Video Game Character -- Staff members who adorn themselves in this type of costume will win the nonexistent prize for the most responses of "Who are you again?" Like the Star Wars costume, comic book and video game character costumes involve attention to obscure details that only the wearer or role playing folks will recognize. Or because no one will know who they are the costumed person can phone it in and claim to be anyone granting them the ability to mock coworkers who clearly do not understand their brilliance.

4. Costume Requiring the Least Effort -- These staff members are not only phoning it in, but are not even interested in disguising this fact. "Costumes" of this variety consist of things such as cat/some other animal ears, hockey masks, or an outfit from the back of their closet that they have not worn in 20 years and thus, qualifies as a "costume." Included in this group are also t-shirts that have scary movie characters or skulls or anything that involves LED lights or moving parts. This is frequently the costume of choice for unimaginative library directors/branch managers.

3. Vampire -- This category has waxed and waned over the years both due to the popularity of the Twilight series. Since most library employees are not as attractive as young Hollywood vampires, this costume is more likely to resemble Bela Lugosi's Dracula. Cloaks and fake teeth are often worn, but the glaring paleness of most staff member's skin makes white face make-up unnecessary.

2. Zombie -- Taking the spot of Vampires, Zombies have now become the hot costume, especially since it involves the joy of shredding clothing you don't like and rubbing fake blood in it. The level of commitment is up to the wearer with some going all out with props, limping, and groaning, and others just in torn up clothes. Zombie Librarian was my costume choice last year.

1. Crazy Cat Lady -- Not to be confused with someone wearing cat ears, this costume is often worn by coworkers with lots of stuffed cats glued to an old sweater, or by coworkers who have never married and still wear pantyhose with sandals. Ok, yes, I realize that I am perpetuating another librarian stereotype, but people it wouldn't exist if it wasn't at least sometimes accurate. The genius of this costume is that for many it requires no effort at all!

Happy Halloween!

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.

I bet you didn't think I could cook, huh? Well, you're right...

Friday night, while other shoppers were raking toilet paper, gallons of milk, water, and oddly enough microwave popcorn into their shopping carts, I was wandering around with a very specific grocery list. Instead of Hurricane Irene freakout supplies I was loading up on strange cheeses I had never heard of and the makings of cornmeal pizza dough. Since most of my meals come from a box or can (or bottle, *gratuitous wink*), recently I've renewed my interest in cooking and I thought while I was home bound during the storm, I would recreate a recipe I found in a discarded cookbook earlier at work.

Now I can bake, or at least I used to do ok with baking. My track record over the last year has been spotty: made incredible batch of mini cupcakes for me and my family, try to make same cupcakes again for work event and accidentally put in 1/2 cup of baking soda instead of 1/2 teaspoon; great peanut butter cookies at home on a cold winter night, try to make same cookies to bring for Christmas and I accidentally put in 3 eggs and 1 cup of milk instead of 1 egg and 3 cups of milk. For every good thing I made, some cosmic intervention would make sure I followed it with something inedible. Self-diagnosed with recipe dyslexia, understandably, this put me off of cooking for awhile.

Because Irene made me cancel my original Saturday plans (thanks a lot, weather people, our area maybe needed a good umbrella, not sandbags) last night I decided to go forward with my plan to make the mini Fontina Cheese Pizzas, of course I had to ask the person at the deli counter what fontina cheese was and where I could find it. Here are the results, obviously the left is a fancy show off photograph from the cookbook.
Their mini pizzas look tasty and appetizing. My pizzas look like something you would ask the waiter to send back to the kitchen.

The problem? Not 100% certain, but most likely the fact that the recipe called for 3 egg yokes and I put in 3 whole eggs had something to do with it. Rather than tasting like a pizza, they tasted like cheesy scrambled eggs on top of dough, kinda like a quiche but without the pastry crust. The dough didn't come out right either, my oven runs a bit hot so the bottoms were burned while the top outer crust was barely bronzed and it tasted like a saltine to me for some reason. So my hurricane shut-in dinner was crackers with scrabbled eggs on top!

After last night's kitchen disaster, I was pleasantly surprised by my success at a different recipe this morning. Not in the same ballpark as baking, but it was so quick and easy and delicious -- my favorite combination. Link-hoping, I randomly came across a recipe on A Tale of Two Kitchens for Peach Almond Smoothie and since I coincidentally already had all of those ingredients at home, I gave it a try. Maybe since I'm trying to kick my coffee habit, I can start the day off with a smoothie instead. Of course, I'm not going to stop my 3pm candy fix.

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?

Verbal communication between two or more humans/monkeys

The phone rings, I picke up to what appears to be a conversation already in progress.

Me: Hello?
Completely Stoned Woman: Uh, hi.
Me: How can I help you?
CSW:...I want to order a book on CD.
Me: Ok, what is the title? (she gives me the title and I locate it in the catalog) It's at a different branch, but I can have it sent here. Could I get your library card number?
CSW:...?
Me: Um, hello? Ma'am?
CSW: Huh?
Me: Could I please get your library card number?
CSW: Oh, that...I don't know where that is right now.
Me: Well, I'm kinda going to need it to put it on hold for you.
CSW: Oh no, I don't know...(there is a sound of rustling, things being scattered and knocked over)...it's here somewhere, I'll find it later...before I come to the library. Can't you just look me up by my name?
*It is our library's policy not to look up borrowers account information without a card number, however there are exceptions and since I already had another person on hold I wanted to be done with this transaction. I let her give me her name and then quizzed her on her address and birthday.*
Me: Alright, I put a request in and you should get a call in a day or so when it comes in.
CSW: How?
Me:...By phone? The library will call you when it's ready to pick up.
CSW: How do you know my phone number?
Me: We have it in the computer, it's part of your account information.
CSW:Oh...it's probably my old number, I have a new cell phone now...here let me give you another number...(I start typing in the phone number she's rattling off when I realize it's way too long to be a phone number).
Me: Um, ma'am? That phone number, is it local or long distance?
CSW:...That's not my phone number!
Me: What is it then?
CSW: It's the library card number, you said you wanted it.
Me: (She had a point, but a little too late) That number doesn't sound like one of our library card numbers. All of them start off with the same six digits. What library is that a card for?
CSW:...It's a library card.
Me: What does it look like?
CSW:...it's blue (She reads off the library card and it is for a different county).
Me: Ok, that's not part of this library system for 'X County.' If you can't find your library card by the time we call you, just bring in your ID and we can get you a new one.
CSW:...A new what?
Me: A new library card? To replace the one you can't find.
CSW:...And the library is going to call me?
Me: Yes.
CSW: But why?
Me:???To inform you that the audiobook you put on hold has come in...?!
CSW: Oh, ok then. Goodbye!

And she hangs up

It makes me feel a little better when I'm at McDonald's and I realize that I'm not the only person that has to deal with the bizarre public. On the mornings I swing by to grab coffee, there's always this crazy lady with messy hair talking to herself. She never orders anything, but sits at a booth with a Stouffer's frozen turkey and mashed potatoes dinner -- it's always the same thing, and obviously not frozen anymore. She used to come by the library, but hasn't been in for a long while. When she shouts something nonsensical in my direction as I'm scooping up creamers and Splenda, I feel relieved that I'm returning to the general sanity of the library.

WeirdedIn

Life and its obligations have kept me away (not to mention my laptop is rejecting Firefox lately and explorer does not want to play nice with gmail and blogger), but I've managed to scribble down things here and there on post-its or scrap paper that I can cobble into a post later.

Today I had no such need to dig through my notes as the library gods hand-delivered some weirdness into my inbox this morning:

A couple days ago I came to work to find an address book on our main desk. At night, after we close and the janitorial staff cleans up, they will place any items they find on the desk so that in the morning we can figure out what to do with it (usually it goes in the lost and found bin or the trash). This address book was slightly beat up, the outer snap closure was missing and it was being held together by a large rubber band. There was nothing inside that had the owner’s contact information, however there were two bills folded in the front that were addressed to the same person. Assuming this to be the owner of the address book, I looked them up in our system to see if they had a card. They had a card, but no phone number listed, just home address and email. So I sent an email:

To: Patron X@someserviceprovider.com
From: librarian@suburbanlibrary.gov

Hello Patron X,
An address book that may belong to you was found at the library. If it is yours, please go to the front desk, describe it for them and they will retrieve it for you from lost and found.

Thanks,
Your Librarian.

A few hours later I got an email back:

Dear Librarian:
Thank you so much for finding my address book!!! I have been looking for it everywhere and thought it was gone! I will come by later and pick it up.

Thanks,
Patron X

I considered this to be the end of the transaction. I emptied my inbox of our correspondence, assumed they picked up their address book, and promptly forgot about the whole thing. Until today.


I was befuddled. Who?

The email address seemed strangely familiar. Could it be one of the volunteers I manage? I cut and pasted the email address into the search box function and clicked on the little spyglass.

Two emails were found, both in my trash folder – the exchange between me and the address book patron.

The hell?
Not only did I not know Patron X personally, I had never even met them, and had not been around whenever they came to get the address book. I would have no way of picking Patron X out of a police lineup.

Like the former junior high school bully sending me a friend request on Facebook, this involved the same level of confusion, but with a side order of creepy.

It’s simple: Just don’t be a dumbass

Recently at work all employees were required to participate in a series of online “courses” (Basically PowerPoint) to learn about things like safety, sexual harassment, how to clean up toxic waste, etc. Even though we had all completed a different program on sexual harassment maybe six months before, this was mandatory. All employees were registered by human resources last June with a deadline of nearly a year to accomplish this task, which at the time sounded like no big deal. Sure, it was long (I think someone said if you sat down to take it uninterrupted then you could probably finish it in about 4 or 5 hours) and dull (the voiceover work was provided by what sounded like an updated Speak n’Spell), but I also had a lot of time to get it done.

Fast forward to May and I was on a short list from my branch manager reminding me that the deadline to complete theses courses were coming up and I, of course, had yet to even login to the site. Luckily, my direct supervisor was also on this list and was very understanding about giving me lots of off the desk time to finish this thing. However, I would get back to my desk, fire up the program, put in my earbuds so I could listen to the robot narrate and after about oh, let’s say fifteen minutes of this I was on the verge of sleeping or crying hysterically from boredom. The worst part was that with this thing you couldn’t skip to the end to answer the questions, you had to listen to each and every slide in the presentation, do the stupid practice questions before getting to the final test, where if you didn’t at least get 80% you failed and had to go back to the beginning of that section to do it all over again. Scoring tantamount to a “C” grade may not seem hard to achieve, but I’d like to see how well you would do on a test that only has five questions about various hardhats and the specific use of each one – totally relatable to library work. I ended up taking the test on bloodborne pathogens a mindly-numbingly almost twenty times – and did I mention that it mixes up the questions each time? So I could get everything right but the one I needed to score at least 80%, go back and then be presented with some old questions mixed with new and then I would be able to get even more wrong. It was painful.

But it was also very silly. As I and a couple of my coworkers were working on the courses in our cubicles, one would hear little giggles here and there and an occasional flat out laugh. This was for two reasons: 1)The scenarios presented were ridiculously idiotic and probably never take place in real life, and 2)The photos used in the presentation were clearly purchased or leased from a stock photo company who probably sold the group as “workplace photographs” as they rarely had anything to do with the narration or captions that would float by on the screen and when they did match it was over the top.

The best examples of this obviously came from the sexual harassment portion, where instead of providing a realistic, true to life scenarios we get this:

Tom and Judy share a workspace. In her free time Judy enjoys participating in female bodybuilding competitions and has won several titles. She is proud of her awards and has placed a photograph of herself posing in a bikini on the desk. Seeing the photograph makes Tom uncomfortable and he does not like being forced to see the photograph at the desk. Judy may not realize it, but she is sexually harassing Tom.

And NONE of the photographs presented during this voiceover match at all. The viewer of this presentation is oddly treated to photos of two women working at computers followed by a young man with rumpled hair and his shirt collar undone looking stressed followed by a photo of an older woman looking creepily staring straight at the camera to suggest she is watching me. There is also a disturbing quid pro quo situation where the voiceover describes a boss pressuring a female employee that he supervises to exchange sex for a raise. The photograph displayed during this shows an office setting with two employees, a black man and a white female, chatting in what appears to be a friendly, non-offensive way, over their shared cubicle wall. As if that wasn’t bad enough, photos were frequently recycled during presentations so that later in a section on interoffice dating we get the SAME photograph! Yes, I am being nit-picky, but all I could think of was that the boss and the woman suddenly seemed right – pressuring a coworker for sex is the best path to starting a relationship!

In my boredom, while listening to the voiceover, I took screen caps of some of the more “interesting” slides, minimized the program so that it would still play in the background while I brought up Paint to paste in these pictures, mashing them together in a collage of on the job no-nos. I took so many screen caps that I ended up forgetting where I saved some of them and accidently left out some of the really strange ones including one of two old men fighting in a boardroom and another of an Asian man tied to his ergonomic Herman Miller Aeron desk chair. But the important thing is that I am now aware of alarming fact that “hundreds of people in the U.S. are killed while doing their jobs” so I won’t try to do anything about those dangling exposed electrical wires in the staff workroom.