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Art Colony: quasi-misanthrope on the job
Friday, December 3, 2004
› by victoria
I work in my college library down in reserves. In fact, I'm at work right now, which is why i'm updating my happyrobot journal for the umpteenth time in the 2 blessed days in which I've had it. (My advisor is really happy that i'm writing in a journal/blog thing simply because she thinks I need to do it, and I rather agree: I have to keep things so bottled up at Conservative University that I can't speak my mind or talk to very many people, so it has a tendency to make me a mental volcano).
Anyways, I work a lot. I mean, I practically *live* down here. So it doesn't help that when I'm having a particularly exhausting and draining day (people have told me that I "look sickly-thin" and "you need to sleep", that kind of thing) that random library "patrons" feel it's their need to be rude and demanding. Things I am used to dealing with by this point:
-->the finest of our husky midwestern young men clunking up to the desk and brusquely saying "I need this" without specifying exactly what they need, then giving me angry looks when I try to teach them how to look up items for themselves
-->People--and this is in college, mind you--come in not knowing what class they are in, who their professor is, what the course number is, what section they're in, or the title of what they're looking for...and then they expect me to find it
-->Some loud, rude and belligerent people eating Taco Bell food down here (where food is banned)
-->The satanically-possessed microfilm machines, of which there are only 4, one of whom breaks down every 5 minutes
-->There is a law somewhere in the college rules that forces at least one professor to be negligent in putting something in Media Reserves (either waiting until the last minute, putting only one copy on reserve for 50 students, or both at the same time), forcing all their students to rush down here at the same time and fight it out, "Jingle All the Way"-style, for the video
--> Banging my kneecaps/pelvis on the goddamn Marble-circulation-desk, which is set very low and at an odd angle so anytime I get up too quickly, I hit myself on it
-->When mean people say I waste time on the internet at work...I say, there's a computer screen in front of me and I might as well use it to good purposes like happyrobot.net. So there, mean people.
But seriously, I try to be the nicest library-assistant-person ever. I've called 5 video stores to look for a movie to help some girl. I break the rules and save videos/requests for people. I even smile at people...
(except for today, because I'm so tired I'm only giving people zombie-looks of "why am I here, and why are you bothering me?")
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