Ow.

So, this happened:

The snow was up over my knees in our driveway. It wasn't heavy -- it was too cold today for the snow to be very wet -- but still. I shoveled a path around the car while Jeff worked from home, and once my arms decided that no, in fact, they did not want to lift the shovel again, I gave up and went inside. Leaving the house is overrated, right?

Attack of the Library Vigilante, or How Not to be a Good Library Patron

Sunday library shifts are entirely different animals from weekday shifts, or even Saturdays. We're only open for three hours on Sundays, but with fewer staff members on duty than weekdays, so we're usually pretty busy. Today started off busier than usual -- the phone was ringing off the hook, and the local schools clearly have a project due soon, because the Helicopter Parents were out in force looking for books for their kids' projects. (Seriously, parents: make your kids do their own homework.) And, as usual, the Internet Folks flooded in to use the computers as soon as we opened the doors. I spend a lot of time on Sundays telling people how to make a reservation for a computer, since they fill up so fast. And there are always, always glitches with the reservation system, or someone will reserve the "next available" computer, and then see someone else leave a computer and another person sit down and start using it, and then they'll be all upset because that isn't fair, and... there's nothing I can do about that, really. Computer use on Sundays is crazy.

Aside from being busy today, though, everything was pretty much fine... until the Library Vigilante came along. She was well-dressed and coiffed, seemed pretty comfortable in the library even though she wasn't a familiar face to anyone, and appeared perfectly pleasant... until about 15 minutes before closing, when she approached the Reference desk to complain that a teenage boy on one of the computers was being rowdy. She said he was playing a video game, and kept cracking up laughing and shaking the table, and it was disruptive. So I told her I'd check it out, and talk to the kid if necessary, and thanked her for letting me know... and then she said "Oh, I already told him to knock it off, and he didn't listen, so before I left I tapped him on the shoulder, told him to take the goddamned earbuds out of his ears and told him 'you know, you're a real son-of-a-bitch!'" Then she smiled, looking very pleased with herself. I was aghast, but tried not to look shocked, and explained to her that, if there is an issue with another patron being disruptive, she should let a staff person know instead of trying to handle it herself, and that it was very inappropriate for her to call another patron names or to use profanity toward them.

Well. She was displeased! She insisted that "EVERYONE over there was yelling at that kid and it didn't do any good!" Which... yeah, I don't care. It's not appropriate to scold another patron, and it's especially not appropriate to swear at them. She argued that the kid would just ignore me, too -- I explained that we have procedures and policies in place for such occasions, and that it's our responsibility to enforce the library's standards of conduct. That's what we get paid for! She was having none of it, and threw up her hands and announced "Well, YOU just lost a customer!" before storming off. (Which was surprising, because again, up until that point the conversation had been fairly calm and pleasant. I mean, I was telling her that she'd done something inappropriate, but I don't think I was remotely argumentative or strident about it. If fact, I was pretty proud of how calm I was, since one of the things I've been trying to work on is keeping my cool during less-than-pleasant interactions at work.)

I noticed that she was headed toward the Circulation desk, so I followed her over to make sure her story didn't change on the walk over -- it's amazing how often that happens! So, the two staffers at Circulation (one of whom is actually my higher-up at Reference! She just fills in at Circulation on Sundays) had, essentially, the same conversation with her -- she again proclaimed that we'd lost a customer because I "gave precedence to that kid over me!!" Which, no, that's not remotely the point. The point is, don't take it upon yourself to try to correct another patron's behavior, because you never know what issues that patron might have. Or the patron behavior you think is wrong is actually permissible.

I suspect that was actually the case here -- I had been in and around the area where this woman claimed the noisy kid was off and on all afternoon, and hadn't noticed any issues. In fact, the only people in that area that I'd noticed being a little loud were an older couple who were working on something on a computer together -- they were talking, loudly enough that I noticed them, but not loudly enough to be a problem. And while I did go over and speak to the kid who was using the computer over there, I did so gently, and the older couple didn't react at all. I really think that, if the Library Vigilante had been telling the truth about the kid being so loud and crazy that EVERYONE in the Art Department was telling him off, the older couple would have reacted to my talking to the kid with a nod, or a smile, or something.

I feel pretty conflicted about having spoken to the kid, in fact -- again, I did so gently, and didn't accuse him of anything, I just told him that we'd had a complaint, and that sometimes it's hard to tell if you're being loud when you have headphones on, and to just be aware of that. And I really only did that because my colleague indicated that I should. I honestly don't think the kid was doing anything that rose to the level of a rule violation. He might have been laughing, but if he had been disruptively loud, I'd have heard him, since I was putting out magazines on the shelves about two feet from him (and again, only heard the older couple talking quietly) and had been in and out of the area helping patrons, etc. As for shaking the table, well, that table is a little wobbly. It's old. And really, I don't care if the kid was swinging from the rafters, don't try to handle it yourself! And for crying out loud, don't cuss at people! (She said she thought the kid was 16. I don't think he was that old; he was tall, close to six feet, but his face and demeanor read younger to me. I think he was maybe 13 or so.)

Honestly, after the second time she told us we'd lost a customer, I wanted to thank her! And on our way out after closing, we were wondering what her actual problem was: was it that the kid was playing a video game? Because they're allowed to do that. In fact, there were at least a half-dozen adults whiling away the afternoon playing online games on Facebook and such. As long as it's quiet, we don't care. Maybe it was that the kid was African-American? If so, then I feel worse about talking to the kid if he really wasn't misbehaving. Maybe it was just that he was a kid? Maybe she was just a nutjob?

What would you have done? Talk to the kid, or not? I still can't get over how pleased with herself the Library Vigilante was after calling a kid a son-of-a-bitch. Who does that?!

Things that do not help job searchers, part 1

One of the things I do a lot at work is help people who are trying to get their resumes together and apply for jobs. A lot of people aren't terribly computer-savvy, and maybe have been out of the workforce for a long time, or they're just starting out, or whatever, and it's stressful for them, so I spend a fair amount of time talking people through the basics of resume writing, cover letter writing, showing them how to apply for jobs online, etc. And one thing I've learned is that the people out there who teach classes on job-hunting and resume-writing give out a lot of really useless information that isn't helpful and just bogs their students down, and it drives me batshit, because job-hunting sucks enough all on its own! Don't add more stress to the process by telling them to worry about things that don't matter!

Today's example: a woman in her 20s, fresh out of one of the vocational schools, who was trying to get her resume and cover letter polished up to send out. She needed some help with the computer, just figuring out how to get the files from her email to the computer, then to save them to a Flash drive, so I walked her through that. Then she needed to tidy up her resume, and we hit a little snag when it came to the formatting: she was worried that the headings weren't fancy, and thought her resume looked bad because of it. I assured her that no, simpler is better, and as long as the different section of her resume were clear, she was good. Plain headings in the same font are fine, as long as you bold them. So, she finished the resume, and then needed to re-type her cover letter, and that's when we hit the major obstacle that she just couldn't get past.

The cover letter example she had from her school had been set up with a specific template -- just the basic business-letter style, but with weird spacing in the address sections and such. she wanted to know how to do that in Word... and really, I almost never get into messing with templates in Word with patrons, because Word sucks, is non-intuitive, and half the time the templates just completely screw up what you're trying to do. And frankly, when a patron has trouble just managing to get to their email, I'm not going to muddy the waters with advanced Word stuff. And you don't need a template, anyway! It doesn't have to be complicated! So I explained that she didn't need to worry about using a template, she could just type it up: She could put her name, and then Enter for a new line, then her address, etc.

"No, that's not right. Look at the space between the lines. It's too big, and that's wrong." So I went in and showed her that she was typing single-spaced, and it can't go any closer together, but her best bet was to just type up the letter and print a copy, so she could see what it would look like on paper, and it'd be fine. "No! My teacher said it has to look EXACTLY like this! If it's not exactly like this, they won't read it!" Which, no, that's not true! Employers do not care if the line spacing in your address is single-spaced or 1.15-spaced. Double-spaced would be weird, but they probably wouldn't give a shit about that either. They care that you spelled everything right, that your grammar is good, and that your letter sounds professional and clear. They aren't taking a ruler to the margins, and they aren't going to throw it away if you use the wrong font. (Well, okay, don't use, like, Papyrus. Or Comic Sans. They won't ding you if you use, say, Veranda instead of Times New Roman. Or vice versa.)

She would not be convinced. And since I have no earthly idea how her teacher set up the sample letter, I'm unable to exactly replicate it. I was only at work for a couple of hours today, and so she was still trying to wrangle it into looking the way she thought it absolutely had to on the screen when I left. I hope she figured it out! But mostly I wish they wouldn't teach this stuff. It doesn't matter! Hell, most of the time now you apply for jobs online anyway, and they have you copy and paste your resume and cover letter in, or upload them as attachments, and then all the fancy formatting gets stripped off on the employer's end. Telling people to worry about the tiny details doesn't help. It makes the already-daunting task of finding a job even scarier, because it adds the fear that you'll be rejected for some tiny mistake you didn't even know you made.

Thank heavens for careful moms!

Because without my mom's careful over-packing of Jeff's Christmas present, there might have been a catastrophe!

I had my mom order Jeff's present, since there was really no way I could do it and still keep it a secret (which it still is, so....) and she mailed it to me the other day. It arrived today, and thanks to our mail carrier being... not so careful, shall we say... the package ended up sticking mostly out of our mailbox, where it got thoroughly rained on all day. (I had some yarn suffer the same fate recently. I was NOT happy.) Luckily, Mom put the present into a padded envelope, which she them stuffed into another, larger padded envelope, and so only the outer envelope was drenched. Contents all nice and dry! Yay!

And now, since I'm fighting off some sort of bug, I am off to cuddle a cat. 'Night!

Post-Thanksgiving, and lovely surprises!

I hope your Thanksgiving was lovely, if you celebrate it -- if not, I hope you had a very nice Thursday! We drove up to my mom's house in Vermont on Thursday morning, bringing the turkey with us -- uncooked, in a cooler, of course. Mom's got some back problems and can't really lift the turkey, plus there's no Trader Joe's near her, and their brined turkeys are really good. So, we packed up the turkey and a couple of pies, and hit the road. The weekend was too short, as always. But there was a ton of food, and lots of relaxing, and this cute face:

mom's cockapoo Shania is SO sweet. She loves to cuddle, and is passionately fond of string cheese. She kind of looks like a little sheep. (Especially her butt, with its little stumpy tail. I wish I'd gotten a picture of it.)

There was also yarn shopping, and an early birthday present for me from Mom:

It's not the best picture, since I hadn't taken it out of the bag yet, but it's a set of five little skeins of Wonderland Yarns' Cheshire Cat fingering weight yarn, in a lovely gradient set of purples. It's 640 yards total, and I need to find just the right pattern for it.

There was also knitting! The mini-things-marathon continued. I made this crowd:

There are two cupcakes there, a dragon, a unicorn, a baked potato (alas, you can't really see the little embroidered pat of butter and chives!!), an ear of corn, and a chicken. Then, I made this guy:

A wee lobster! (With Hershey Kisses for scale.) It turned out cute, but man, was it a pain in the butt to make. The tail alone took me a few hours -- the pattern directions weren't all that clear, and were incredibly fiddly. They called for knitting the tail in five tiny, separate pieces, then somehow overlapping them and sewing them together, then sewing that onto the end of the body. Along with not-very-clear directions, the photos with the pattern were blurry, so they didn't help. After a couple of awful-looking attempts, I finally threw the little pieces away, and improvised -- I picked up and knit eight stitches at the end of the body, knitted a triangle-ish fin, then bound off. Then I picked up stitches on either side, cast on a few additional stitches so that the little tail fins would overlap, and knitted two more little triangles. Then when I stuffed and sewed the body, I made sure to tack down the overlapping bits, and voila! I couldn't get it to not curl upward, but eh, it's fine. (And I know live lobsters aren't red. I didn't have dark green/ black yarn.)

Then, there were a few more Tiny Things, like another cupcake:

A pear (which turned out so stinking cute it gave me the giggles for a good twenty minutes):

And lastly, a tiny, somewhat goofy-looking pink elephant:

Those were all for Metafilter's own version of Secret Santa, the Secret Quonsar exchange. The person I drew loves miniature things, especially miniature food, thus the many tiny things! She also loves tea, so, she got some handmade strawberry shortcake tea (hand-blended by Jeff! Look, we have an online shop! All fair trade and organic!! Plus, we make awesome cold-brew coffee bags! Plug, plug, pluggity plug...)

My Secret Quonsee got her package today, and loved it, which was nice. And then I got home to find my Quonsar present awaiting me! And it was a lovely package, full of gorgeous yarn from an indie dyer (Dyeabolical Yarns) and fancy chocolates!! 

I can't get a photo that does the yarn justice -- it is BEAUTIFUL. It's fingering weight, 60% merino, 20% yak, and 20% silk. The colors go really well together, too, so I'm thinking a shawl. (The guy who drew my name in the exchange said he went to Knitorious in St. Louis and got help from the staff picking the yarn. They did a great job, and I wish I could go to the shop!!)

And now, there is a small calico cat loudly demanding my attention, so I must stop typing and start petting. Good night!

"Stop computering and pet me!"

Not surprised, but heartbroken.

I was hoping for justice for Michael Brown, even though I didn't really expect it. And unfortunately, I wasn't surprised that no charges will be brought against the white officer who gunned this unarmed black kid down in the street. This is beyond tragic. I have no words.

#blacklivesmatter

A lack of planning on YOUR part...

... does not constitute an emergency on mine!

Helicopter Mom just came to the Reference desk, with her tween daughter in tow, and said she needed books on orphanages in the 19th century. Hmmm, okay... so, I search, and am unsurprised to find out that we really don't have anything in this library aside from a couple of little-kid story books. However, we're part of a nice big network of libraries, so I expand the search, and find that there are some good books available elsewhere, which I can request for her. Helicopter Mom needs them before Monday morning, though, so that won't work -- our delivery services only operate during the week, so even if I request them today, they won't be here by Monday. (And with Thanksgiving coming up, they might not get here until the following week!)

So, I change search tactics, and start looking to see what's available at the libraries nearest to us. I tell Helicopter Mom that it looks like there are several good books available at one of the college libraries in our network, about 30-40 minutes away, and check the library's hours to confirm that they are open today, until 7 p.m. Mom huffs, rolls her eyes, and says that she can't go there today, are they open tomorrow? Nope, alas, no Sunday hours there. But they open at 7:45 a.m. on Monday!

More eye-rolling, more huffing about how it's just unbelievable that we don't have the books she wants HERE, and that she has to go driving everywhere to get them herSELF, this is awful, etc. So, I start hunting for anything even remotely related to the topic at libraries closer to us -- the next town over has ONE book that appears to have a chapter that talks about the history of orphanages. So I write down the title and call number, check the library's hours, give her the info... and she's still pissed. She wants a copy of a recent novel, Orphan Train, she says, and she cannot believe she's having so much trouble getting one. Um, okay, I thought you wanted non-fiction? But let me see about this novel... nope, every single copy in our network is checked out, and there's a waiting list. Not surprising for a new-ish, critically-acclaimed book! And I try to clarify: does she want this particular novel, or does she want non-fiction books about the history of orphanages? THEN she turns to her daughter and says "I don't know, what do you need??" Because the books are, of course, for the daughter's research paper, and she needs to have a specific number of print sources to show her teacher on Monday morning. Argh. And after another rant from Mom about how ridiculous it is that I can't just produce the books her kid needs right then and there, I firmly (but politely!) explained that, while we do try to have books on lots of topics, we have limited space and resources, and that the benefit of being part of a larger network is that each library has different strengths... but there are also limits on what we can do on short notice. I'd love to be able to produce whatever a patron needs instantly -- I love being able to send a patron away happy! But sometimes the most I can do is tell you "okay, these other libraries have what you need, here are their phone numbers and hours," and the rest is up to you.

And also, for crying out loud, make your kid do her own homework, Mom.