And the Tool of the Year Award Goes to...

Hello readers, if any of you are still out there. :)

I'm going to get straight to the point of this post... because people are ridiculous. And some people should not be allowed to have children.

A couple of months ago, this taller, middle-aged gentleman was sitting in the kids' area with his daughter who was about 3, and a baby in a baby carrier. He was well-dressed and groomed (unlike many patrons of our library), but also looked harried and uncomfortable. As I shelved, I was coming up with potential life stories for him. I kind of felt sorry for the guy because he just couldn't seem to handle his kids, and I thought maybe he was a single dad, or he just had them for the weekend or something.

Then he and the baby carrier baby disappeared, and his 3 year old was just hanging out at a kid computer by herself. I figured he had gone somewhere else in the library (parents do that all the time, they go get on an adult computer or spread out at a table somewhere), so I didn't really think much of it. A few minutes later, I noticed she was looking around for him. Then she came up to me and asked me to help find her Daddy.

I nodded and she took my hand and we started walking around the library. He wasn't anywhere.

I told her to go sit back down at the computer and that I would find him for her. On my way to find my supervisor (S) for her help, I saw that dad was out in the parking lot, on the phone and smoking a cigarette. I told S the situation, and where the dad was, and she marched right out into the parking lot to get him.

When he came back into the library, he went pretty leisurely over to the kiddie computers, and I heard him say to his daughter, "I told you I was going out to feed your sister." Seriously, guy? She's THREE. You don't leave your 3 year old in a public space alone so you can go have a smoke and take a phone call AND use the excuse that you're feeding the baby.

So. Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago. I come out from the back of the library, and a couple of my co-workers are at the help desk talking about some sketchy guy in the library. I turn around to see who they're talking about, and it's the dad, so I throw in my experience with him. Which isn't unique it seems like (he brought the baby carrier to the desk once and asked if the librarians could watch his kid... WHO DOES THAT) He apparently has three adorable children, and a wife. One of his daughters, she's about 2 perhaps, was wearing sock-monkey footie pajamas and had been running around all happy-like, like happy 2-year-olds do.

A few minutes later, we're at the desk, and we see happy 2-year-old run across the front of the library and out the doors into the parking lot. I start to go after her, as does another one of my co-workers, and we look around for Mr. Clueless. He's glancing around for her, and I look at him and inform him that "She just ran out the door" with a little louder than library level voice, and a point towards the doors. He uttered a curse word to himself and ran out the door.

My angry co-worker by this time had grabbed a sheet with our child supervision policy that says children must remain within sight and hearing distance of their parent/guardian at all times. She walked up to him as he walked inside and he made some comment about her (the kid) being fast and she escaped before he noticed. She held up the piece of paper and tried to hand it to him. He shrugged her off and laughed, so she replied, "You need to take this and read it." And that was that.

A few days later, one of our volunteers came into the back looking worried and troubled. She spoke to one of my co-workers, and I found out that some library patron had said lewd things to her while she was shelving and that he was basically following her around. And I bet you can guess who it was.

And that, my dear readers, is why he wins the Tool of the Year Award.

Hi!

Hello lovely readers (if any of you are still with me)! Sorry to have been away so long!

I only have two short things to share with you all today, but I wanted to get a post out anyway.

Firstly, our Dummies books are coming home this Wednesday (August 3rd). Yay! They're having a reception/celebration at HQ, if any of you in the area want to come help us celebrate! We'll also be putting stickers in all of the books to mark that they were won in the contest, and so you can come help with that as well :) For more information, check out the fb event.

Secondly, we had the most ridiculous thing happen yesterday involving a Terry Goodkind fan/library patron. I walked behind the help desk and saw this huge stack of Terry Goodkind books, probably 8-9 tall. I made a comment to my supervisor along the lines of "Wow, somebody's a Terry Goodkind fan."

She replied, "Yeah, such a fan that she took all of the barcodes and RFID tags off. And she's had these since February."

Apparently, this woman came into the library, placed the stack of books on the counter, said that they were "lost" and that she had found them, and that she was in a hurry so to just "let her know" about charges and such. But she had taken off all of the barcodes and RFID tags off... meaning that there was no way to track the books. And, because both of those things are really stuck on, ripping them off pretty much ruins the books' appearance. Luckily, one of the books was covered in Mylar, and she didn't manage to get that barcode off, so she could be traced in the system and be charged appropriately (meaning she gets the maximum late fee charge on EVERY book). But seriously? Who does that?

Holy Shelving Batman! or, The Day the Library Exploded

So on Tuesday when I pulled into work, I noticed that our parking lot was rather full. Comparatively. I didn't really think anything of it, though. But when I walked into the back room, and looked up the hallway leading to the floor, there were about 3 full carts (2 of which were children's) that needed to be shelved, and when I glanced into the bomb room, one of my coworkers was tackling a huge pile of books and media.

So I went out onto the floor, pushing one of the childrens' carts over to the childrens' section, and lo and behold, there's already a half-full cart sitting there (composed of mostly Easy Non-fiction... woo!). So I push my full cart back across the library and park it back in the hallway and start heading back over, when I ran into Mr. B (a friend from high school who I hadn't seen in forever). Yay!

After we chatted for a bit, I went back over to children's to tackle the cart. The area was packed with kids and their parents, and it was a mess from kids just picking something off the shelf and leaving it elsewhere, be it on the floor, on top of the shelves, under the computers, etc.

Two hours later, I had finished that cart, helped a couple of kids find the books they were looking for, and finished half of another cart. Then I took my break, and when I finished I figured I'd check on the bomb room. At that moment, it was definitely very appropriately named, as it looked like a bomb had actually gone off. There were books piled on the counter. The crate holding the returns from the library lobby was completely full (actually more than full, I'm pretty sure there was a mountain of items bulging over the top of the crate) and about every 5 minutes, people would drop off more. I spent the last hour and a half trying to catch up, and when there were about 20 minutes until closing, this is what I had left to check in:

That huge tower is made up of cd books, and the one that's about half its size is dvds. Both of which have to be checked and made sure that every disk is accounted for. So at that point I finished checking in all the books, and went out to the helpline and asked if someone could please help me with the media? As the announcement was made that the library was closed, I had just finished with everything.

This was the result:

These are all carts lined up in the hallway of books that need to be shelved. There are about 5 and half completely full carts there (2.5 of which are more children's carts). Good thing we don't open until 1 on Wednesdays!

I'm not sure what caused the influx... and I haven't been back to work yet, so I'm not sure if it was just Tuesday or if this is how we're going to be over the summer. If it is, it's going to be crazy!

Also, yay for the people participating in the Summer Reading Program! You guys rock! :D

Sesame Pasta Chicken Salad and Updates

So it was announced on Tuesday that we have two people transferring from our branch. One of whom is B, my supervisor. :( I'm really bummed, things just aren't going to be the same without him there. But I am happy for him -he's leaving because he's been promoted to Assistant Branch Manager, which is really great. His last day is tomorrow, and luckily I'll be working. It's going to be a bittersweet day, I'm sure.

On Wednesday, we had a going away luncheon for him and the other girl who is leaving (she also got a promotion, yay!). I don't work on Wednesdays, but I went in anyway for the luncheon because I wanted to be there, and brought a pasta salad. When my co-worker who was in charge of putting the event together told me to bring a pasta salad I was like... "uh... I've never made one of those, but okay!" (I associate pasta salads with mayonnaise, which I can't stand.) So I checked my favorite recipe site and found a recipe for a "Sesame Pasta Chicken Salad." Here's the link to the original, but here it is with the alterations I made:

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup sesame seeds
• 1 (16 ounce) package bow tie pasta
• 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 1/3 cup rice vinegar
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 3 tablespoons white sugar
• 1/2 tablespoon fresh ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 3 cups shredded, cooked chicken breast meat
• 1/3 cup chopped green onion
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 yellow bell pepper
• 1 cup julienne carrots

Directions:

1. Heat a skillet over medium-high heat. Add sesame seeds, and cook stirring frequently until lightly toasted. Remove from heat, and set aside.
2. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta, and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, or until al dente. Drain pasta, and rinse under cold water until cool. Transfer to a large bowl.
3. In a jar with a tight-fitting lid, combine vegetable oil, soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, sugar, sesame seeds, ginger, and pepper. Shake well.
4. Pour sesame dressing over pasta, and toss to coat evenly. Gently mix in chicken and vegetables.

It was so good, and definitely gets better the longer it's refrigerated so the flavors can meld together.

I'm so looking forward to people's participation in the SRP now, especially after getting your comments on my last post! And 2 people have already filled out the form! Yay! I also got to fill it out for the first time, because I finished Charlaine Harris's latest, Dead Reckoning, today before work (review to follow soon)!

Work was rather bizarre today... the storms threw everyone off I think. We lost power briefly, and the lights kept flickering enough to shut the computers off a couple of times. It was crazy to watch out in the parking lot with the rain just pouring down and the trees been blown practically sideways. Someone also managed to drive their mini van up on the sidewalk when they were trying to leave. We had a leak inside the building.

And, when I was on my break and sitting in the breakroom, I noticed this woman walk slowly by the opening, but I couldn't see her very well at all so I just ignored it because she went into the staff bathroom. Then, as she was leaving, I got a better look at her and it was a mom with a walking toddler and a baby in a stroller. And it was a "huh, that's weird, she shouldn't be back here but maybe she was sent back here for some reason," moment, and then I heard one of my co-workers say, "Ma'am?" When she was confronted about it, she said she had seen the sign for the bathroom, when the sign clearly says "STAFF ONLY." And then she went on to just shrug it off and ask if she could check books out off the cart. T, my co-worker, said she was clearly not all there, and the first time she had seen her that night she was just hanging out on the floor next to our hold shelves. Go figure.

The last day of school is tomorrow! That means no more after school special. And, we're only open until 3 because it is a Friday, so it'll be a short one!