I’m a student worker at my college’s library. I work at the circulation desk, which in general means I check out books. I also check in books and put them on the shelving carts, check out course reserve items, fill the copiers near the desk and make change for them, monitor the security gate and make sure no one tries to steal anything. There’s some other things that I do if my supervisor wants me to or if they just need done in that area, but generally, this is my job description. I’ve worked here for 5 semesters, and this semester I got a raise to $5.40 an hour instead of the standard work-study minimum wage. I like my job. I do homework and surf the net a lot (I’m at work right now, actually) and get paid for it. It’s an enjoyable work environment and my supervisor’s awesome. But some of our patrons just irritate me. Here is my first Pit Rant. Hope it doesn’t suck.
Library Patrons, please…
– Don’t yell at me for things that I have no control over.
If you don’t have your card, I cannot check anything out to you. That’s the rules. Yes, there are methods of checking things out without your card, but I am not allowed to use them. If you can’t remember to carry your fucking ID, it’s not my problem, and if you get nasty with me because you’re a dumbass, I will care even less. Now, I am a student too and I understand how things are sometimes. If you desperately need a reserve item for a test you have tomorrow, and you forgot your ID and you live in Ghettocrest and we close in a half an hour, if you are nice to me, and do not get in my face and my supervisor is not here, I may just let you take it over to the copy machine without actually checking it out. But if you are bitchy to me about it, Hell no, I’m not about to let you, because I am not going to get my ass fired because you forgot your card.
Also, the fine limit is 3 dollars. If you have more than 3 dollars in fines, I cannot check anything out to you. I literally am incapable of doing it, the computer will not let me. So don’t ask me to. Pay your damn fine. There is no reason that you should even have $3 in fines. We give you a goddamn two-week grace period after your books are due before you even get a fine. You get an overdue notice, either bring your book back or renew it. You don’t even have to come to the library to renew it, you can renew it on the website! You have no freakin excuse for your fine, pay it or you ain’t getting another book. But don’t ask me to renew your books over the phone, because I can’t do that either. There are rules that I have to abide by and you do too, do not yell at me for something I can’t control.
– Do not ask me stupid questions
I am here to help you, yes, and if you ask me a question, I will do my best to give you an answer. But I am not the Information Desk. That’s through the atrium and to your left. And that’s what I will tell you if you ask me how to find a book, how to do an ILL, whether or not we have this periodical or that book. I don’t know, they do, and I’ll send you to them. This is not a big deal, but when the same freaking person does it over and over again, i get a little annoyed. Also, while I do have a campus directory behind the desk, and if you ask nicely I will look up a number for you rather than just handing it to you and telling you to find it yourself, I am not your freaking phone book, do not get mad at me if I can’t find the phone number of the computer lab in the langauges building. I am a library worker – I don’t know the hours of the dining hall, I don’t know when the bookstore opens, and I don’t know the name of that girl in your English class with the nose ring. So don’t ask me!
– I am not meat
Yes, I sit at a desk and lean over a book or a computer a lot. That does not mean that you should look down my shirt while I check out your book. Do not stare at my ass when I bend over to refill the copy machine. Yeah, I’m sure it’s stunning and beautiful (riiiight) but that does not mean i want you to stare at it.
–I am not stupid
All you student athletes who have to spend your 4 hours a week in the library, do not treat me like I am an idiot. If you walk in, I scan your card, and you walk right back out, I am going to write down your name and report you. You think I won’t notice that you sign in, leave, then come back two hours later and “sign out”? Do I look like a moron to you? Yeah, you’re reported, jack-ass. Oh darn, four less hours for you to spend drinking beer and hitting on freshmen. Four hours a week is not a humongous amount of time, and if you wanna keep your ass on our shit-sucking football team, you’re gonna spend your goddamn four hours a week in the library!
–I have a life out from behind this desk
And I really don’t want to spend more time here than necessary, especially when it’s eleven o’clock and we were supposed to close two minutes ago and I need to shower and study before I go to bed and get up for my 9am class tomorrow. So when you come in right before we lock the doors and dump 30 children’s books in the return slot 15 seconds after I’ve shut down the check-in computer, at that moment I hate you with every fiber of my being, you scumbag. You couldn’t have returned them tomorrow? They’re not due for two more weeks! But no, I have to turn on the sloooow-booting computer again, and check in your three-foot stack of Seuss and Sendak stuff, before I can leave. I have to double-scan, stamp, and sensitize every one of those fuckers, and I was supposed to be out of here fifteen minutes ago, you ass.
Briefly… library closing soon…
If you want a reserve book, I at least need to know your professor’s name. If we are nine weeks into the semester and you dont’ know your prof’s fucking name, you’re an idiot.
If the copier says “L6” there is nothing wrong with it, that’s standard, don’t say, “oh, there’s something wrong with the copy machine” 'cause there’s not.
I could go on… but I’m leaving. Frustrated.