Tuesday, August 22, 2006

men-plants, men-plants? hmmmm

monday morning a man from the fire department walks in with another man who is wearing a green shirt. we talk with the fireman who wants to know why our cable line is on the asphalt and why hadn't we called Parks and Recs. well, the director did call P&R and she told the fireman that they never respond in anything near a timely fashion. last time the line was down, it took 3 days for them to decide what to do.
anyway, the fireman called, the cable company came and the fireman left but without his buddy (who came in with him) in the green shirt. this guy is just hanging out by the door next to a green plant. the three of us working the desk smile at him and continue working, helping other patrons, answering the phone, etc for about 15 minutes easily. eventually, my coworker asks the man if he was waiting for his buddy and the guy said' "no, i'm here for the Armchair Travelers Program." so now we ALL feel like asses for thinking this guy was with the fireman. he was just a patron and we totally ignored him for forever! so, my circhead apologizes profusely, i apologize, the other circworker apologizes. we tell the man that the program room will open at ten and there will be an announcement made and he'll know when to go in. well, 10:15 comes around and the guy comes up to the desk, stands near the same damn plant, says nothing. this time we catch him right away and he asks if the program started. well, it sure did and no one made an announcement and he's 15 minutes late. so, once again, we all apologize profusely and we feel like dolts. we feel like dolts until we realize that the guy just stood there, all that time, without saying a word. no "excuse me", no "can you help me?", no nothing. he just stood there, half hidden by a green plant in his green shirt. camouflaged.
the next crew comes in and we are telling one of the girls the story of this man we didn't help, and how strange it was that he didn't think to speak up. we tell her how he just stood by the plant. so, my coworker weighs her hands and says, "man, plant. man, plant. same species, what do you expect?" for some reason that just cracked us all up. i know it's sexist but geez Louise...he could have said something to us and not stood there like a plant. so, now we don't feel guilty anymore. we also discussed how working men come in pairs. no sooner had we said that than the cable guys showed up...two of them. this time we made sure they WERE together. they asked us how to get to the basement and my supervisor said, "the same way you get to the second floor...we have neither." new patrons (and sometimes longer term patrons!) ask us how to get to the second floor. they can see the building from the parking lot when they pull in and it is clearly a single floor structure. do they think we have a magic building that will grow another floor just for them? some people have walked into the library and have sad, "is this it?" we'd like to wring their necks.
if we ever do get another library, i think the second floor should be reserved entirely for staff, 2 full baths and a couple of bedrooms, a jacuzzi and a huge kitchen with TWO microwaves and a fifty gallon coffee pot. in the basement, we'll keep either the inernet crowd or the children. that is a tough call.

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