Clueless parents and their destructive brat-children

The other day I was doing some shelving and I saw this toddler basically throwing the books on the bottom shelf of the graphic novel section onto the floor while clueless hippy dad was pretending not to notice. I wanted to intervene and tell this idiot to please control his kid and put the books back on the shelf, but I was basically in conflict-avoidance mode as a result of being so fucking tired from covering shifts for people who are either perpetually off sick or lurching from one childcare crisis to another, so I just ignored the wanton destruction and retreated to the front desk.

Luckily payback came when dad wanted to borrow more CDs than his limit allowed. So I glanced over at the graphic novel section where about 20 books were lying on the ground and thought, nuh-uh. Normally if the person asking to borrow extra CDs seems nice or, at least, not an asshole who is happy to let library staff tidy up after his/her destructive brat-child, I cut them a break. But this time I was aggrolibrarian and was like "I'm ever so sorry, but them's the rules. Now choose which CDs you want and go put the rest back on the reshelving trolley" (as opposed to the fucking floor).

Hey, I don't care that you've been working all day and just want to start your weekend...

It's spooky how often this happens: it's 2 minutes to closing time on a Friday afternoon. You're ready to make like a shepherd and get the flock outta there. Lo and behold, some disorganised chaos merchant of a mother walks in with her brats, deciding that they need dinosaur books NOW, IMMEDIATELY, PRONTO etc etc. So you inhale deeply, look up the catalog, high-tail it to the shelves to retrieve required books and race back to the counter to check the books out to the little darlings. And of course, their fucking library card has expired, meaning you have to sign them up. God I hate that.

Merry Fucking Christmas

Let me set the scene: it's mid-week and I'm in a staff meeting surrounded by a whole lotta anal, Type A librarians and librarian wannabes. The topic of the moment: "should we send a big bunch of impersonal and ultimately meaningless corporate-style Christmas cards out to people or should we just invite them around for a piss-up and a party instead?" Personally, I don't really give a shit either way, but was leaning towards the latter suggestion. Echoing my thoughts, someone piped up saying how lame-ass corporate Christmas cards are and how they just end up in the trash. Cue indignant wannabe librarian chick who started sanctimoniously bleeting (and I'm not meaning the act of blogging and tweeting simultaneously) on about how every Christmas card is precious and how all of hers end up being scrapbooked or some such shit. I mean, REALLY??? What kind of nit-wit saves and treasures Christmas cards from people she barely knows and who are only sending her the stupid things because they have to for work? Sheesh.