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Have I mentioned recently that working in public service is weird? Or, at the least, working in the public library is weird?
For example, some of the more tame weird involves people using the men's room as a quiet place to drink a beer...or more. Or to get off to porn on their iProduct. And there may have been some sort of drug trafficking going in, to, for a while. Thankfully, it's not the library where people were using their bathrooms as meet-up points for sex on Craigslist.
Someone also used the urinal in the room as a political platform, with various anti-Obama YouTube links on paper stuck to the inner part of the urinal.
And there's also the mysterious puddle if water that sporadically appears in front of said urinal. The urinal has been replaced, and yet the problem persists. I'd claim it was someone intentionally misaiming, but it doesn't look like that.
Actually in the building, there are the thieves and vandals, as well as the occasional almost-fights and the thankfully only-once where someone claimed another person exposed themselves just outside the building. There are the grumpy people that won't hesitate to tell you to be quiet because they can't concentrate with you speaking in a normal voice to the person that needs computer help sitting catty-corner to them. And the people who just can't stand that libraries are changed so much that we allow teenagers to be there and to make a certain amount of noise, as well. (Nothing excessive, of course.)
There are the fire alarms, six in all for this year alone, that preclude rational thought when they go off. And the people who refuse to leave their Internet terminals when they do go off, because their online time is apparently more important than potential harm or death.
By far the weirdest things, though, are the support and help I give. Not your average person interested in various conspiracies or how to improve their sex lives, but the person you have to walk through how to use their scanner to scan things into a Word document (40 minutes and the knowledge that I would hate doing tech support as a job - too many possible Fist of Death moments due to PEBKAC errors), or teaching the public school teacher how to do the assignments they will be grading, as well as the courseware they're putting the assignments on.
What takes the cake, though, is the person who wants to learn how to input code in comments and on webpages...for the purpose of spamming them with get-rich-quick schemes and junk. I figure I can help him learn the basics of doing things, because that's virtuous, but the purpose he puts them to is his own business. And perhaps, secretly, that all his spammy schemes fail spectacularly or are filtered out before they ever get a chance to be posted. At some point, he'll do a Heel Face Turn and put my knowledge to Good use. Or so I tell myself.
My job is never dull, nor boring. The sheer Weirdness Factor involved makes it so.
For example, some of the more tame weird involves people using the men's room as a quiet place to drink a beer...or more. Or to get off to porn on their iProduct. And there may have been some sort of drug trafficking going in, to, for a while. Thankfully, it's not the library where people were using their bathrooms as meet-up points for sex on Craigslist.
Someone also used the urinal in the room as a political platform, with various anti-Obama YouTube links on paper stuck to the inner part of the urinal.
And there's also the mysterious puddle if water that sporadically appears in front of said urinal. The urinal has been replaced, and yet the problem persists. I'd claim it was someone intentionally misaiming, but it doesn't look like that.
Actually in the building, there are the thieves and vandals, as well as the occasional almost-fights and the thankfully only-once where someone claimed another person exposed themselves just outside the building. There are the grumpy people that won't hesitate to tell you to be quiet because they can't concentrate with you speaking in a normal voice to the person that needs computer help sitting catty-corner to them. And the people who just can't stand that libraries are changed so much that we allow teenagers to be there and to make a certain amount of noise, as well. (Nothing excessive, of course.)
There are the fire alarms, six in all for this year alone, that preclude rational thought when they go off. And the people who refuse to leave their Internet terminals when they do go off, because their online time is apparently more important than potential harm or death.
By far the weirdest things, though, are the support and help I give. Not your average person interested in various conspiracies or how to improve their sex lives, but the person you have to walk through how to use their scanner to scan things into a Word document (40 minutes and the knowledge that I would hate doing tech support as a job - too many possible Fist of Death moments due to PEBKAC errors), or teaching the public school teacher how to do the assignments they will be grading, as well as the courseware they're putting the assignments on.
What takes the cake, though, is the person who wants to learn how to input code in comments and on webpages...for the purpose of spamming them with get-rich-quick schemes and junk. I figure I can help him learn the basics of doing things, because that's virtuous, but the purpose he puts them to is his own business. And perhaps, secretly, that all his spammy schemes fail spectacularly or are filtered out before they ever get a chance to be posted. At some point, he'll do a Heel Face Turn and put my knowledge to Good use. Or so I tell myself.
My job is never dull, nor boring. The sheer Weirdness Factor involved makes it so.
