Wednesday, April 05, 2006

we've got *dings*!

it's amazing to watch the power of a blogpost. yesterday i wrote that we should fire the asshole that took away our *dings* and voila; today we have *dings*! frightening, isn't it! yeah, right.
in truth, we do not have our old sounds back. oh no, this is a new system so we must have new dings: and just like the new system, they suck. one ding sounds like the "wrong answer" double tone on Jeopardy. another sounds like a submarine ping. it sounds like the circ staff are using the space shuttle simulator at the front desk. we all feel like we are on Mars (or diving in the Mariana Trench). atleast we have some noise. it is now much easier to handle the desk duties. it's amazing how much we count on our ears to do our job almost as much as we count on our eyes and hands. circulation is an mega-sensory experience.
speaking of ears, the city library where i used to work hired a deaf lady to work circ. noble, but not practical. at first, she wouldn't answer the phone or couldn't answer the phone. i believe i have spoken to her once and that was an odd experience. i kept asking questions and got some odd answers in reply. come to think of it, that could be anyone. i don't know how i could do my job if i were deaf. i remember a time when i had a double ear infection and i couldn't hear callers. i also remember losing my voice for 3 days. i was not even able to whisper. that was a struggle. at work, i picked up the ringing phone a couple of times by mistake, realized what i had done and frantically waved over a coworker to take the call. during that time, my car broke down and i had to rely on a really nice stranger to call AAA for me. god, that was a trip. i have to say though, if i had a choice (a really bad choice) of being deaf, speechless or blind, i'd rather be deaf. ( was going to write...deaf, dumb or blind... but i am already afflicted with dumb-i-tude.
long live the *dings* and the dingbats who love them!

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