Teenagers With Bad Attitudes & Greasy Food...

Okay, so on Thursday when I wrote that post about internal library drama and possibly going back to school I was all by myself at work. "Julia" and "Amy" both called in sick, my Department Head and "Emily" were both off, "Lori" wasn't scheduled to work until 2:00pm and "Marie" wasn't due in until 6:00pm. So I was literately alone working the reference desk from 9:00am until 2:00pm. And to be honest with you, it was slightly annoying but I was okay with it because I kind of like to be left alone -- It's way better than being stuck working with only "Julia" for hours. So that's how that day started, like I said it was annoying but I was okay with it.
"Lori" comes in and we are doing fine. We have a bunch of patrons in the department but everything was cool. Around 5:00pm, right before I was about to leave for the day and head out to have dinner with Erin, I get a patron who claimed they returned a book and it wasn't checked in properly. It happened to be true and we found the book but the patron couldn't get her child away from our iPads. So I said to the little girl "I promise if you go with mommy that the iPad will be waiting for you when you get back..." This get the little girl up and out the door with her mom. I decided to wait the few minutes for them to come back and that is when chaos started.

"Mama Page" walks over to "Lori" and I to let us know that there are three teenage boys sitting on our outside computers eating greasy food -- Fried chicken and French fries to be exact. So we both walk over, give them the "You know you can't eat next to the computers, you didn't even sign up..." speech. To which we got a major attitude.

We ask them if they have library cards if they want to be on the computer, they got snarky and asked what those were. One of them (Who I've known for years and is a little son of a bitch) decides to say that he has his school id, so he walks over to the reference desk and throws it down. I refuse to pick it up and just kept repeating "Hi! May I please us the computer?" After the fifth or sixth time of me repeating that he says "Can't I just use the computer?!?!?!!!" in the nastiest tone. I just repeated "Hi! May I please us the computer?" Eventually he says it to the desk. I ask him to repeat that while making eye contact with me, and he does. I said "Yes you may use the computer..." he tries to snatch his id and I pick it up before him and fished with "If you're name is in my permission book..." I check to book, his name is not in it. So I grabbed a permission form and handed it to him with his id and told him that he can have his parent fill out the form and once he returns it he can use his id to get on to the computer. He immediately crumples it up and throws it out but then picks it back up and rips it up in front of "Lori's" face. He follows this up by grabbing his friends and leaving but not before seeing our suggestion box and writing a note of "Be nicer" which I pulled out of the box as he was walking away and said "I'll be nicer when you decide not to be rude to me..." They start mumbling curses and walk out.

I thought I was all done with it and am about to leave for the day when the intercom buzzes and one of the adult librarians is on the line informing me about three teenage boys that would like to do their homework. I tell the adult librarian what happened, so she denied them computer access. This apparently pissed them off and they start causing a scene downstairs. Our custodian was screaming at them and he ended up calling the cops. It was a big cluster.

While I was waiting for the cops to come to explain how it all happened (Not that I wanted to because I was already late for a dinner date I was supposed to have with Erin) I found out that the boys had snuck up to the third floor which is staff only and threw French fries all over the place, etc.

Eventually a cop came and since the boys were gone there was nothing the officer could do about it. So I wasted my time waiting for the office to show up and once he walked out of the library I followed and met up with Erin for dinner.

It was just so ridiculous. I'm wondering if the boys will go home, especially the one that threw his card down at me, and tell their parents. I hope I wont have to deal with this incident again but the one kid's parents are a piece of work too, so I'll just have to wait and see. If anything else happens, you know I'll update about it.

Patrons, Programs & Problems...

Yesterday I had a craft program at work that only had seven children signed up for ahead of time. Because of a lack of attendance in all of our other craft programs in the past I only had a few extra crafts prepared thinking that no one was going to show up. Oh boy was I wrong.

Tons of mothers and their children showed up trying to get into the program, and their attitudes were in tow. Every mother that tried to get in was a complete bitch to me and when I did let the people on the waiting list in they caused problems.

I cannot tell you how frustrated I was. Because of all of these people I didn't get to do the program the way I would have liked to and I'm a craft perfectionist. I typically make sure everyone has what they need, I walk around to see who needs help and tell the kids what an awesome job they are doing, etc.

I was annoyed beyond belief by the time I cleaned everything up and was back in the office. It totally sucks having a four-year-old look at you all pouty asking which one is hers because her mother sucks and doesn't understand the concept of signing up ahead of time so we know how much to buy and how many people to set up for. Ugh!

How Did You Find That Book?!!?!...

I had to deal with the nastiest patron five minutes before closing the other day. This woman walks in literately five seconds after the five minute warning on the intercom asking where our easy readers are. I point her to the section and ask her what she is looking for. She barks at me that she is looking for a book with the call number ER OCO. I ask her what title she is looking for and she barks back The Teeny Tiny Woman (The one she saw was by Jane O'Connor). I go check the catalog to see if the book is really there and head over to the shelf she is at. I start looking and she gets pissy with me saying she already looked. I tell her the same thing I tell everyone else, sometimes you need another set of eyes because you don't always find it the first time. I continue to look and I don't find what she is looking for, I tell her that I don't see it either and she storms to our holiday section telling me it's probably there and tells me to go check for her. I look at her and told her I had already checked the computer and that the book should be where we were looking not in the holiday section. She doesn't want to hear what I have to say and she heads over there anyways.

Instead of letting her leave with nothing I go back to the catalog, find a copy of the book by another author from nonfiction and hand it to her. You think she'd be happy at this point, but no... She starts questioning where I got that book from and how I found it. I was so pissed I just looked at her and said "I'm a librarian. That is how I found it..." She just walked away.

I cannot tell you how much she pissed me off. I was in the office yelling about how I paid an arm and a leg to go to library school and that is how I found her book (There was a lot of expletives strung in with that). The response I get from "Mama Page" on what happened what that I shouldn't have given her the book and let her walk out empty handed. I should have but I'm too nice sometimes. Why do I have to deal with this crap?!

Back To School...

Okay, lets talk about how today was the first day of the school year and how all of the bad kids magically came back to the library today. After having a relatively problem free summer a good chunk of our trouble makers are back this fine afternoon. I would like to think it's just a coincidence and that this trend won't continue but unfortunately it will. I predict that our security guard will be working hard for his money shortly. We'll have to see what happens. I'll keep you all up-to-date on the possible chaos in the library.

I Pay Taxes. I Pay You Salary...

I just realize that I totally forgot to write about what happened to me on Tuesday. So, I had to cover the Adult Reference desk for an hour while all of the adult librarians had a meeting. Everything was going awesome until 10 minutes before I had to get off of the desk. I get a phone call from a little old lady asking me for a person's phone number (She tells me their name, address, etc). I tell her politely that I'm not allowed to look up other patron's information for her. She goes off on me "The other librarians do it for me all the time! I pay taxes thus I pay your salary! You need to look this number up for me!" I tell her she needs to hold and I buzz up to where all the adult librarians are having their meeting and tell them I have a rude person on the phone. My Director sends down one of the adult librarians to deal with the phone call.

Apparently since 411 isn't free anymore the Adult Reference desk gets tons of phone calls inquiring about various phone numbers, I am a youth services librarian thus I don't know this crap. So if someone calls inquiring about another patron's phone number we apparently can give it to the individual calling if the person's number is in the phone book, if not they are out of luck. I didn't know this...

Aside from all of that, the woman didn't have to be rude to me. I hate people who have the nerve to tell me they pay my salary. Don't ever, no matter how mad you are, tell a librarian you pay their salary because they will want to punch you in the throat.

Since When Do The Freaks Come Out During The Day...

There isn't going to be a full moon until next Wednesday but it sure feels like there is gonna be one tonight. I've dealt with so much weird crap today it isn't funny. I wasn't even in for five minutes this morning when a mother rolled in with her five kids, one of them being a toddler who was wearing nothing but a t-shirt and a diaper. I flipped when I saw this little boy running around the department with no pants on. I immediately ran to a phone to call my Director to see if I had the right to say anything to this mother. Unfortunately he was dealing with a crazy patron who claimed she paid a fine for a book she lost from another library that we actually paid for. Because he was dealing with her I never got an answer from him (Apparently he had been dealing with her since 9:30am, I came into work at 11:00am), so I ended up have a pow wow with "Amy" and "Julia" to try to figure out what to do. We decided that we needed to ask her to leave so "Amy" walked into the picture book room and told her that her child needed to be wearing pants. The woman didn't even look at her. She came back into the office to tell us what happened and then she walked right back into the room and repeated herself. Again the woman didn't answer, but five minutes later she called the rest of her children over and told them they were leaving and they left. She came back fifteen minutes later with her kids and this time they were all wearing pants.

A couple of hours later we had a patron hand "Lori" a picture book and she told her that the book had booklice. I didn't see the book or bugs on it but "Lori" did say there was a little bug on it. I called my Director when she and "Emily" asked me what they should do with the book and he told me to withdraw and chuck it.

Maybe an hour later we had a man bathing himself in our mens room. According to a patron some dude was just in there without a shirt on just giving himself a good rub down. Thankfully it was around the time that our Security Guard was in because he dealt with that one.

"Emily" got crazy attitude from a babysitter after she told her the name of an author and told her to look under the letter of the authors last name. The babysitter peaked in the stacks, told "Emily" she didn't know where to look because she wasn't a librarian. This just caused "Emily" to go on a rant about her knowing that the girl learned in school how to look up books. It wasn't good.

Then everyone was spilling drinks all over the place. We don't even allow food and drinks in our department because the carpet is still relatively new, so these people were super wrong.

In addition to all of the stuff above, I just had a lot of patrons with problems today. They weren't necessarily library problems but I had to play therapist to several mommies throughout the course of the day.

On top of everything else "Marie" called in sick claiming that her daughter wasn't feeling well when she got back from camp. We all knew she called in sick because she lives about forty minutes away and there is supposed to be a crazy storm tonight. She didn't want to drive home in the storm. So now I was supposed to get off at 7:00pm and I am working an extra two hours to cover the reference desk while "Amy" does all of her Thursday night programs.

NOTE: Our Department Head is on vacation this week, so everyone in my Department is coming to me with questions.

Mom Of Pain In The Ass Teens...

Tonight I met the mother of two of my biggest problem teens and she was the nicest woman ever. The mother just so happened to be in the library with her youngest child while the younger of her two pain in the ass children was there and "Lori" noticed. So "Lori" and I ended up speaking to her about the boys and their behavior within the library.

She was so nice and understanding. A lot of parents get really nasty and uppity when you tell them about their children misbehaving, but this woman knew that her sons were pains in the asses and she was so ashamed of their behavior. She kept apologizing to us and telling us that she speaks to them all of the time about the way the conduct themselves.

It was so nice to meet a parent that doesn't think that their children fart rainbows. She even made a point of tell us that she is very weary of the stories that her children tell her and she knows that a good chuck of their stories are lies. I do not understand how such a lovely woman could have such pain in the ass children.