Sense, Nonsense, and Not-Sense

These things have happened that have direct effects on me.

1. I get to scratch off several markers on my Experience List. (It probably means I've increased my librarian level quite a bit without looking.) Namely, the squares that say "Major system malfunction caused by rolling crash" and "Petty thievery by user cabal" can be checked off, as can the multiplier of "two major incidents happening at the same time", "2x incidents while you are the person in charge", and "2x incidents while the boss is on vacation." Plus the bonus experience that comes from both happening on a Monday and one in the evening.
   
   Yeah. The first warning sign was when the catalogues went down. No biggie, we thought, because the staff clients still work.
   
   Then people couldn't authenticate with their library cards for the public terminals. (Those of you in the know have probably said an expletive reflexively.)
   
   Then it was temporarily fixed. Then it crashed again, and this time it started taking staff clients off-line. We were able to limp along in there terminals that were working and manual checkout procedures.
   
   Then came the theft, where users knocked the hinge pin out of our printer fee cash box, after having posted lookouts. After which they reached in, grabbed a handful of bills, and exited the library. So now I have to gather all the information for that while still trying to provide service tip or customers add the infrastructure is failing.
   
   I managed. Everything in proper place, and the system came back on later.
2. I must be too impatient for my organization. I see the possibility of a good idea, and I want to gather up funding and do some research on whether it would be a feasible option (including potential measures of success) and then I want to go do it. The organization does not move that quickly, nor does it really encourage employees to go skunkwork or 20 percent things. I'm trying to think of ways that we could start moving toward the leading edge instead of the trailing edge, but more often, I have to not throw my hands up in frustration at how long the process takes for anything that could be a good idea to get approved. Someone told me that it's a generation gap between new workers and older managers. Maybe that's it. Either way, holding patterns, even on cheap ideas, suck.

So what did Silv learn at work today?

- Unless someone is being really obvious about it, or does it so often that everybody knows they do it, it is damn hard to prove a case of harassment against an employer.
- There are people that don't understand that library meeting rooms are primarily for the use of library programs, and that we let community groups use them only when we don't need then.
- Furthermore, they don't believe that lapsit programs for baby children and their patents/caregivers could be more important than their organization needing to have meeting space. (Our city has a dearth of meeting space available for free, it's true.) At least, the incredulity in the caller's voice made it pretty clear, along with their eventual abrupt hanging up after expressing yet more disbelief. My studies, let me show you them.

We also had our fill of callers that like to be obscene and rude to the employees and people complaining that Marketing using us as a test location for screen marketing is a waste of tax dollars. (I can't say I like their placement - it's prominent, it is very large...but it's not in the sightlines of people who are checking out...)

It was a very combative day at work today, apparently.

So. That happened.

So, I boot up my morning politics program this morning, and it surveys the mainstream media reaction to the presidential debate. In quite a bit of accord, they say Willard "Mitt" Romney won the debate last night. They then spend the rest of the political show pointing out the march of the fact-checkers against Romney and the fact that the Governor was making up new positions during the debate instead of sticking to the positions that he's been advocating for up until that point.

Why is the mainstream media convinced that Romney was the winner of the debate? Optics. Romney looks better on camera, speaks "like a candidate" instead of being "professorial" on occasion...so, really, Romney wins on everything but the substance. It's like we're deciding student presidencies in high school, voting entirely on which candidate looks best and is most popular, without listening to anything said. Since all I did was read the transcript, I missed all of whatever has the instant polls and the mainstream media all a-flutter for Mitt Romney's debate skills.

This reinforces my supposition yesterday that presidential debates are, in fact, long-form versions of the Zero Content Example trope. One would think that in light of the fact-checking and the analysis of the substance and the quiet retractions and clarifications by the campaign about what their candidate said that the decision might be adjusted or reversed. It's not going to happen, of course, but it should be a Thing for the media to actually consider substance as well as style before making a breathless decision about who "won."

So...that happened. And there were several unprintable things said in the course of the composition of this entry.

So, these things happened. It's another grab-bag of paragraphs that don't slot in nicely to a normal entry. Most of them are professionally-related, now that I look at them.

Reading Rainbow has returned as an iPad app...with a subscription fee. Which sort of screws up the original messaging, as Levar Burton was always promoting the local public library when he talked about the books. It would have been truer if there was some integration with, say, the Overdrive app or other public library platforms so that soeone could experience the joys of Reading Rainbow, without having to shell out serious cash to read the books that are part of the app. Just saying.

If you're looking for a place to put your stories and finally get toward that publishing thing, there's Acacia Moon Publishing, which aims to build a community that will help people get published good stuff out (and eventually, into libraries). If you're not up for the novel thing, there's a call for short stories to go into anthologies. (You may not make any money on those, but your name could potentially go out to a lot of places.)

A person identifying themselves as a detective from the county Sheriff stopped by the library and requested certain records from a few days ago. In my head, I'm saying "Hell, do we actually keep records that far back?" But to the detective, I put them in contact with the administrative center and the person who handles law enforcement requests. There's also the relevant policy documents on our intranet, which are quite clear - if you want user records, you submit a subpoena or court order in writing, to the administrative center, addressed to the correct person. If you do not follow these procedures, tough shit. I'm very glad we have that policy, and that it's that strict. As the detective was talking to our liason, he made the claim that the Freedom Of Information Act allowed him to access the records without the requisite court order. At the end of the encounter, he wrote down my name. I have no idea whether he will follow through with such a request, but the liason, when they called back, they mentioned that they had not yet heard that particular line of reasoning to bypass the policy. They've been working with the library in that capacity for...decades. Whoo-hoo, novelty?

I was thinking about a lot of the links that I get that talk about the difficulty of being an Other and what people can do to make the world better for them. And then I cast over my own past, and realized that I had made a decision while in university, if not before. It was at that point, I think, that I crossed from being thinky about it to actually doing something about it.

I was invited, along with others, to attend the Lavender Graduation ceremony for a friend. Being a younger person, all of [REDACTED] years of age, I was worried about the kinds of things that someone who really hasn't confronted themselves and thier upbringing on this does. I was in the "I have gay friends, and I'm okay with them, and they're okay with me" phase, but not really turtles all the way down on it. So I was thinking "So, what if people think I'm gay, or someone hits on me, and what are the possible social consequences of this?" (This? Is an Awful Thought, mostly because it indicates that I realize things are bad for Others, and instead of wanting to make things better for Others, I just wanted none of that to come onto me. The things we realize about ourselves with hindisght...)

I thought about that for far longer than I should have, but in the end, I made a decision that I didn't understand until about...a few days ago, when I thought about how I got Here from There. In the end, I concluded that being there to support someone else at their deserved bright time was more important than how I thought people might look at me for being there in support. It was a good decision - I got to hear one of the best descriptions of that friend and their accomplishments at the university, written by a faculty member at that university. I got to cheer long and loud for them and be there, rather than just being a member of the fighting keyboarders.

Nowadays, I know a lot more Others and consider them friends (even if only by Internet and correspondence), and the world of how many Others there are has expanded greatly. Hopefully, when they need support, I'll be there in whatever way I can.

Finally, in the stories, I'm putting this here because it deserves to be here, and if I don't put it down, the next time the self-loathing reappears, this will disappear into the Memory Hole.

I got a dap. From someone who complimented my ability to explain technology in a way that was easy to understand. Who I then proceed to show the right way of getting DVDs from our disc dispensary machines. That got a lot of childlike wonder, and a handshake on top of the dap at the beginning. Which helps immensely to remind me that despite what happened in the past, I am actually quite competent at my job. (There's also all the kids who say "I saw you at my school, and see, I'm signed up for Summer Reading / I got my library card!") It was a really good thing. I needed that reminder. (And so I'm tagging it to remind myself to look at it later.)

Finally, the magic button that makes everything OK. And Boggle, an owl that loves you. Yes, even you, just the way you are. So why not ask for what you need, or see if you can help someone with their needs?