HorizonPurple.com

Complaints complaints complaints. Whinge whinge whinge. What’s most annoying about complaints is those people who make a complaint about soemthing that was going to be changed/fixed etc anyway, then they get all up themselves ‘coz they think they had some direct influence. Example: we used to stick security tags to the CDs which was not an issue until CD burners came out, then people would peel the security tag and the barcode off in order to burn the cd, this meant that the security tag (a thin strip of metal on a clear sticker) would get twisted and often lift off. This is incredibly annoying when you play a CD ‘coz it goes “thwaka thwaka thwaka” the whole time the CD spins and in some cases lifts of inside the CD player and gets stuck in there. Anyway, we stopped doing it pretty much for this reason (and also because when peeling off the sticker, the silver backing peels off too). A couple of weeks after we decided to stop putting them on, some woman comes in to say a tag had lodged in her CD player. She was very irate. I apologised and said “But we aren’t putting those tags on the CDs anymore for that reason”. “Oh good,” she said, “I’m glad I’m being listened to. It’s about time my comments were noted”. Yes, we determined using our psychic abilities that this would happen to you personally.

That’s the other thing, people take problems etc so personally. If our library software crashes, it’s obviously timed and planned just to annoy who ever we happen to be serving at the time. If a book is missing in transit, it’s not just one of those things that happens (and it happens a lot), it’s a personal attack on the borrower who requested the book. If we can’t change a $100 note for an 80cent fine it’s not because we just don’t have the change, it’s to ensure the fine stays there to be annoying next time.

*Sigh*, I’m such a whinger.

The thing about going through your old clothes in order to shed some of the rubbish you never actually wear is that you always dig out something you haven’t even thought about for years and then decide to keep. Then you put it back and a year or so down the track dig out again during the next clear out and think “Oh, now, I really will wear this” and put it back again and so the cycle continues. i expect this sort of major event just doesn’t happen to the kind of person who says “Oh my god that is so last season!”. They don’t know what they are missing, to be honest.

Today a little girl walked into the work room while I was on coffee break. She looked at me sitting at the PC (with my feet on the server because that is so comfortable), put her hands on her hips and said “I didn’t know you were out here!”. It was so cute. Then she said “Are you going back out there today?” and pointed into the main library. I said “Yes I will when I’ve finished my break”. “Oh,” she said, “I’ll see you out there then.” and with that she turned around and left.

The painting work at work has finished and I couldn’t maintain my “I have no opinion” stance because it basically looks fantastic. The interior was mainly beige and green - well, all beige and green really, which was a bit bland. Now we have purple (only they call it “plum”) an ochre-y yellow, a brilliant orange which everyone but me hates and a bright deep blue. I adore having all this colour around, it’s perked me up no end. Apparently we still have the option to change it, so I’ll lose the orange soon, but while it’s all there, it’s all marvy.

More from Unshelved, yet another “funny coz it’s true” moment. We are having such a freakfest at work I can hardly believe it.

In keeping with the library theme (funny about that) someone from the local paper rang tracey today to ask some questions about our 30th birthday next month. One of the questions was “How many books were loaned out in the first year the library was open?”. This kind of assumes we keep stats int he branch for 30 years. Actually, Trace did find a sheet of stats where each loan was recorded by type, ie, Adult Fiction, Large Print, Magazine, Junior Fiction, Non Fiction… to look at that and see that less than 300 loans were done in any given day is a bit startling.

Apparently David Bowie was booed off stage last night after losing his voice halfway though a show. Bit hurtful, he probably needs a hug.

I am writing a short murder mystery for a competition at work. The competition is for the patrons, they will need to figure out who the murderer is. I am not allowed to enter because I know who the murderer is. To be honest, at this point, i don’t have a freaking clue who the murderer is, but I hope it will kind of keep writing itself as it has been. Anyway, the thing I dislike most about writing fiction is thinking of names, and today I thought “I wonder if there’s a random name generator on the internet”. One trip to Google later I discovered, amazingly, a random name generator. I love the internet :) One of the names I got was Neil Feely which I didn’t use in the story but adore so much I may create a male sim in TSO with that name.

Part of my productive day was doing an internet survey about chewing gum. The people behind the survey really take their gum seriously with questions like “Think about where you were and how you felt last time you bought gum. If you were in the same place and felt the same way, what would you consider buying instead of or as well as gum?”. The bold in that question is theirs. I’m not sure I remember how I felt the last time I bought gum. I’m not even, if we’re honest, entirely certain when I last bought gum at all. I didn’t tell them that, it would be hurtful to them. Another question ran “When you finish a pack of gum, when do you buy your next pack?”. One of the options was “Right away. I have a routine”. Who has a gum routine? I want to meet someone with a gum routine.

I found a small child half in a cupboard today. I said to him in my sweetest voice “Come on out of there mate, that’s not for playing in”. His mother screamed at him “See? See? there’s the lady and she’s going to growl at you now!”. A quick glance around told me I’m the lady in question. I should have known I was the damned lady.

Also, the McDonald’s woman came back today. She wanted to claim her prizes in some inane contest (she’s won the consolation prizes) and needed to go to the McDonald’s website to do this. The McD’s site uses some file set up that is blocked on our public PCs so I took her and her feral son (who, frankly, could use a bath, a haircut and a good ticking off) over to the Info desk. She said, in one breath as far as I could tell, “I was in on Monday and tried it then and it didn’t work then either - ISAAC! Where’s Isaac? ISAAC! What ar eyou doing, don’t, the lady will be cross, so I rang McDonald’s yesterday and they said it should work and I said it didn’t at the library and they said they didn’t know why ISAAC! so they gave me, I mean I rang them, because it didn’t work monday, so I rang them and they gave me a file or something and ISAAC! is this the computer to use? Where’s the backspace? Shall I click here? The backspace ISAAC! The backspace doesn’t work….” and so on. Meanwhile I’m rescuing the counter, clipboard, pens, other info terminal, employment section of Saturday’s age and anything else not actually nailed down from Isaac’s grubby little paws. Once she’d entered her claim codes (I made that sound like it took less than half an hour) she needed to fill in her name and address details. “What shall I put for ‘name’? Do they want my name? Is it my name they want? Password? Six letters? OK, Isaac has 5 letters, that’s close to six, do they want my address here where it says address?”

I think though what really turned me against this insane woman (apart from her son…) was her habit of shouting “Excuse me!” and then beckoning when I looked at her. I hate being beckoned like that. I don’t mind being waved over, that’s OK, but waggling fingers at me makes me see red.

Now I have a four day weekend. Yaaaaaay! Also, my Bowie tickets arrived yesterday. Yyaaaaaaaayy!

Today I wore a shirt to work that says “Not a Doctor”. This seems to be fairly basic to understand. About 1 in 5 people I served today asked about it tho, which I guess is fair enough. What amused me was the range of tones to the questions. Some were amused and wondering why I was advertising that I’m not a doctor, others were confused and a few were irate. It kind of worries me that people have the energy to be irate about what is a basically non offensive shirt. I mean, if it was filthy or otherwise objectional (racist, sexist etc) then OK, be upset, but “Not a Doctor”?

Of course, this shirt confirm’s Jigsaw’s comment that I am a Not Personality or whatever it is that he said (not that I wasn’t paying attention, but it was a while ago). I’ve half a mind to make some of my own - “not a mechanic” “not a waitress”. The best one would be “Not a Librarian” because I”m not, but people tend to assume I am. That would break some brains.

I have not got a lot to say today, but am not about to let that stop me. First of all, I’m loving the new offering from John Allison which is called Scare-O-Deleria and is hand drawn and special. The comic that that link points to has been printed out and will adorn my desk at work even though I never sit at my desk. This is mainly because my desk has an overhead projector on it which limits the workspace a tad. Also, the bits of desk that aren’t under the projector are under a thick layer of other stuff because I’m a slob. The chair has a folder on it and is therefore tricky to sit on. The back rest is broken anyway.

After 10 years, I’ve finally bothered to look up the lyrics for Bottle a song by The Doug Anthony All Stars. I was only slightly wrong, but am still glad I didn’t sing it in public ever. I did sing Broad Lic Nic in public, and am pleased to see I wasn’t at all wrong on any of it. Gold star to me.

I worked today, even though it’s Saturday. It was a very long and drudgy sort of a day, but is over now so there’s no point harping on. I am supposed to have a 4 day weekend next week, but Tony plans to muck up the PCs in the branch on the Thursday and would like me to be there. He says this is to “speed up the process” but I think it’s so he has someone to blame if smoke pours out of something. “Wasn’t me, was the BITS person!”. That’s a half truth, he’s not planning to muck up the PCs, but just because something isn’t planned doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

The dog has been out for just on four hours and as far as we can tell has been running for the whole time. Mum and Dad thought they had him snookered when they figured out where he was getting though the fence today and double reinforced that spot (there’s a lot of double reinforced patches in our fence now, Stitch is a skinny, slippery and bendy dog and can get out a tiny gap). I went for a walk and when I came back, there was no dog so there’s some crankiness. It’s 11pm now and he’s still not back, but has been spotted in the paddock… running running running.

That’s my main sim, HorizonPurple, shortly after I told her I got front row Bowie tickets for Adelaide!!!!!!!. OK, so they are front and to the side, but front is front and whoooo hoooo! For Melbourne I got row 5 which also doesn’t suck. Now all I need is someone to come to Adelaide with me. They were pricey, those tickets, but omg it’s Bowie so who cares? *happy dance*

Other than the sheer Bowie Bliss of the day, it was a good one for nutters with one woman having a big whinge about an $8 fine because we wouldn’t let her renew the books a 3rd time then she says “You know I live half an hour away from here and it’s too much trouble to come in” then gives me this long, meaningful look before saying in a really shitty way “So do you have a schedule for the mobile library or not?” Well excuse me for not seeing the link! Best one of the day was an elderly lady who phoned. This is pretty much what was said:
Her: Hello, I’m calling from (a) retirement village I don’t know if I spoke to you before aboutt he home library service
Me: No, it wasn’t me, but maybe I can help
Her: Oh, well, you see, the library bus came last Thursday adn we weren’t ready for it so it went away and it’s due to come ont he 27th of November and I want to know what can be done about that.
Me: Did you want it to come earlier or later than the 27th?
Her: Well, it came last Thursday, and we weren’t ready and it’s coming ont he 27th. So there’s nothing we can do about that?
Me: OK, do you not want it to come on the 27th?
Her: It’s coming on the 27th. the lady I spoke to on Monday said she’d call me back.
Me: OK, I’ll find out who that was.
(Me running around asking everyone, no one had spoken to her)
Me: I think you must have spoken to Di who isn’t in today, but I can get her to call you tomorrow.
Her: Well we need to know what we can do about this.
Me: I’m not sure what you need done. Would you like the bus to come sooner than the 27th?
Her: Well it’s coming on the 27th, but it came last Thursday and we weren’t ready for it, so what can we do about that?
Me: OK, well I guess i will have chased that up for you and I’ll ask her to call you tomorrow.
Her: *huge sigh* I’m sure it wasn’t Diana I spoke to, but all I can do is wait till tomorrow I suppose, to sort this out.

I still don’t know what the hell we were supposed to be doing something about. Gotta love the patrons… else you’d cry. LOL.

Today is Melbourne Cup Day in Victoria, a public holiday. lauren found it hard to believe that everything shuts down just for a horse race - except it’s not just a horse race - it’s The Melbourne Cup! Sadly, my pick for the Cup - Holy Orders - wasn’t the winner (but they did get him to run!). Makybe Diva blitzed in the last straight. I don’t care what anyone says, when those horses come round the final turn into the straight it’s an edge of your seat moment.